Re: Re: What kind of pirate am I?

From: "Daniel P. B. Smith" 
<sniP>
>When I buy a book, the author gets paid. Once. I can read that book as many times as I like, and other people can go on reading it for a hundred years or more. I can read it directly with my unaided eyeballs, or I can read it through a pair of eyeglasses, or I can have someone read it to me. The fact that I've received the content in three slightly different ways doesn't mean I need to pay three times. The author gets paid once. That's the deal. Books are durable. Books are purchased, not rented.
>
>If I already own a printed copy, _the author has been paid._ There's no reason I need to pay him again to read the same content again. He gets paid for his creative effort, not for ink on paper.
>
>If I already own a printed copy, _the publisher has been paid_ for their marketing, the risk they took in acquiring the book, the cost of having a jacket designed, and so forth. If I already own the printed copy, there is no ethical reason why I should have to pay any more for an e-copy beyond the actual cost of production and a markup on that cost. If the book was, in fact, put into electronic form as part of the production process, the cost of the e-copy should be practically zero. If pirates have done the actual production, it didn't cost the publisher a thing and I don't owe the publisher a thing.
>
>There may be a legal problem here--unfair, artificial law which protects unjust practices--assuming it does, and I say that because nobody seems sure of anything when it comes to intellectual property, and publishers habitually claim rights that they do not really have--but we are not talking about any ethical or moral problem.

Daniel,

I have always sympathised with this understanding, but your thinking is simply wrong. You are not actually buying content in the sense you are accepting. When you purchase you are accepting *a copy in a particular format*.

You may argue that one format is enough - print, say - but you are not right that it does not cost to convert to other formats, nor that the efforts of a publisher, whether a giant or a self-publisher, has already been paid for. To download a pirate version because you already have bought a print version just doesn't wash.

The more complex argument, about transfer of a purchased digital copy, has other elements which can be seen as similar to the portability of the print book. Here the argument against penalising customers for moving files for their convenience are very strong, and I would probably side with you.

Again, the arguments about the price of a digital copy miss the point. If the object of copyright is to encourage contribution to culture [and maybe innovation] then it must be geared to the low volume seller, not the very few who can make a fairly good living from writing.

The arguments about the publisher also confuse the majority of publishers, who are unlikely to have many high selling books, with the few giant publishers who we may all wish to consign to the Devil. Or, when we really think about it, do we?

What disappoints me, in this frequently voiced view, is the complete lack of respect for the many professionals who are important to the publishing process. They do all have to be paid if they are to do a job. And that applies to the digital-only works in a way that is very serious. Cut prices to nothing, or pirate, and the brighter writers and presenters will do something else, and not be contributing to culture at all.

Joseph




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