Re: Eric Flint on the future (was Paul Krugman holds forth on the future of publishing)

If you haven't read Eric Flint's article, you should. Flint takes a 
position I see a lot--and one that makes a certain amount of sense, but 
only if you start with what I think is a flawed foundation.

Basically, Flint says that piracy may kill the novel but other forms of 
story-telling will survive so no harm, no foul.

He's right, of course, that other forms of story-telling will survive. 
Somehow the television industry will find a way to survive (and nobody 
is going to tell them no-harm-no-foul if pirates eat their lunch, 
they're politically connected). So, people will always have television 
to turn to.

It's interesting, though that he makes the (correct) point that the 
novel really became popular with the advent of copyright, yet doesn't 
extend on this. Copyright isn't something that's natural, it's a legal 
entity, created by government. Given that society sees the public good 
in allowing author (and by extension publisher) rights in paper format, 
why wouldn't they do the same in other formats? What, after all, is so 
different about a novel if you read it in paper or on a Kindle?

Yet Flint goes off on those who are concerned about piracy as if they 
were proposing something unique and horrible--instead of simply looking 
for a way to extend current protections to a new medium.

Flint's extended analogy to the death of the science fiction short 
story is interesting but flawed. The short story didn't vanish because 
it was pirated or because copyright didn't protect it, it vanished 
because tastes changed. Certainly I'd be the last to argue that I 
deserve a good living from writing if people don't want to read my 
books. We're talking, however, about a case where readers exist, where 
they are willing to pay (if required to do so to get the books they 
want) and where piracy threatens not only the authors, but ultimately 
the readers who will be no longer able to find new books to read.

I've got nothing against people giving away their books for free (I 
even give away one of my books as a promo item to encourage people to 
buy). I think the Baen Free Library is great. I love Gutenberg and am 
sad that excessive copyright extension means that many books that 
should be in the public domain are locked out of it. But I also think 
that living authors should have a right to decide how their book is 
published, and that giving away books for free should be a decision 
made by authors rather than forced on them by pirates.

Rob Preece
Publisher, www.BooksForABuck.com




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