Hi Jochem,
Monday, July 16, 2007, 6:11:12 PM, you wrote:
> no personal attack is intended here ... I hope you don't mind if I
> rebutt/discuss, I find it a rather interesting topic :-)
Not at all, my original post wasn't meant personally towards you
specifically, just in general.
> did you look at the list of authors? come on be realistic, the guys
> in question are all very successful in their field, to their own
> credit ofcourse :-)
> at the *very least* they can all afford laptops, internet
> connections, webhosting and everthing that goes with it ... unless
> of course they are not eating food and/or sleeping in dustbins in
> order to be able to finance laptop et al ... which is obviously
> rather preposterous
I understand the angle, but I don't believe it justifies anything. Two
guys write a book, one lives hand to mouth eeking out a meagre
existence as best he can, the other is a millionaire without a care in
the world. By your logic the value of the work of the pauper is great
than that of the millionaire. I just don't agree - they are equal.
It's the same logic people apply to software piracy (I'll take this
from Microsoft because they can afford it, but I'll buy this $10
shareware app because they're just "the little guy").
It's like some false sense of Robin Hood syndrome or something :)
> 1. he chose to write it, the time taken is lost regardless and there
> is no guarantee anyone would buy the book regardless of theft.
Agreed, but what you cannot factor in here is what he had planned to
do with the income from it (perhaps it was his 'retirement' fund? :)
> 2. the RAAI-like 'sales lost due to piracy' argument doesn't stand up -
I agree, I wasn't going down that route. I don't believe that if
100,000 people pirated it then they lost 100,000 sales. I agree with
you that argument is flawed totally and utterly. What I don't
disagree with is that it doesn't harm the bottom-line *at all*.
> are always exceptions of course) that 'illegal distribution' of
> copyrighted content serves to drive interest and to an extent sales
> (it's often been cited that people buy music after having been
> introduced to it illegally, had they not been introduced in such a
> way they would never had come into contact with it -
I won't disagree with this, because I'm sure in a lot of cases it is
true. What I will disagree with is the assumption that it happens, and
that it somehow justifies the taking of the item in the first place.
> I believe the same argument holds for books/authors)
I don't really - there are plenty of ways for you to check out a book.
Hell book shops have entire coffee shops and comfy chairs built into
them these days, so you can read pretty much as much of a book as you
like before parting with a penny. Equally sites like Safari make
reading a book online significantly cheaper than buying it (and saves
you some trees in the process ;) - alternatively they can usually read
sample chapters on the publishers web sites, perhaps even articles
published in magazines (php|a as I'm sure you know publish whole
chapters of their nanopress books now and again).
What I'm saying is that there IS a way to experience it without taking
it wholesale. The same could be argued about music (radio, MTV,
borrowing CDs from friends, etc), but let's not go there! :)
> this is backward-assed. you can't make choice's for other people -
> regardless of the right or wrong of it it's still adds up to forcing
> your beliefs upon someone else ... which is something that just
> doesn't work in practice (not for long anyway) ... and being all
> principled is just plain unpragmatic.
It's not forcing anything, it's my right to choose how I want my work
distributed and at what price (if any). You have no right to go
against that I'm afraid, no matter how you slice the cake. If I want
to release the whole thing for free for those that cannot afford the
printed version, then so be it - but that isn't a decision you are
free to make on my behalf.
>> I would never be so two-faced as to rant about pirates and 'stealing'
>> software, but I hate with a vengeance those who claim what they've done
>> *isn't* stealing.
> isn't it great to be so righteous ... personally I don't get the
> hatred angle. not that I have been attempting to claim it's not
> stealing, as per society's definition, and not that I've been trying
> to suggest that abusing people's creative output is a decent thing
> to do.
> I have been trying to suggest that possibly that the concepts we
> currently hold so dearly (IP, copyright, ownership) maybe aren't the
> bastion of of light they are made out to be ... maybe there are more
> creative ways to share? maybe fear-based protectionism is not
> something we benefit from as a group in the long term?
This falls into so many different levels though. If someone was simply
emailing around a PDF then so be it, no real harm done and as you say,
it could lead to more sales eventually, but nothing you could ever
bank on and it's a risky way to run a business.
But most sites that offer the PDFs are ladened with Google adverts.
Even Torrent sites like ISOHunt who claim they aren't doing anything
wrong by disseminating information (and no actual files), are still
plastered with money making ads and product sales. I find it
incredibly hypocritical.
Perhaps there is some new concept we could all use to share
information, that does keep the bills paid of those who write it, but
makes it accessible for all - but someone somewhere will always screw
it up.
> maybe there is a real nice guy out there that has little or no means
> but does have access to a PC - and he is trying to make something of
> himself, stumbles upon PHP and start hacking away, the book this guy
> cannot afford might be the difference between him never getting
> further than the basics (assuming he doesn't download an illegal
> copy) and him ending up as a right-hand man to the very author he
> stole from (assuming he downloads an illegal copy) ... how much
> might such a guy be worth when he ends up coding for Zend (for
> instance)?
Well when Zend get him to write his first book, let's hope he doesn't
bitch *at all* about someone PDFing it around the internet ;)
> and the 'poor' are not made and where we encourage each other to
> reward & praise creators of useful stuff/content/etc.
Enlighten us? Please? As in - how COULD it work?
> obviously your so very much a part of the dog-eat-dog world where
> people must wake up and smell the coffee, where winner take all and
> money is the greatest good ...
Since humans have existed this has been the case. For someone to have
that attitude shouldn't be unexpected. But even if you can come up
with an alternative that works out for everyone, I should still have
my right to not go along with it, and restrict my works as much as I
want (this is hypothetical, I don't actually have anything to restrict
btw) - otherwise who is forcing who?
People will always cite cost as being the biggest factor involved in
pirating something, but it doesn't matter how low the price goes, it
will always be out of the range of someone somewhere. What would
really happen if Adobe gave Photoshop away for free? Who knows..
perhaps their new "web" version will show us? It would be nice to
think they could sustain themselves well enough to keep on producing
killer software. Bets on their shareholders letting them try out
giving Photoshop away for free though? :)
I believe that if you need to seek justification for an action
("they're rich anyway", "I won't buy it anyway", etc) then you
almost certainly shouldn't be doing it in the first place.
Cheers,
Rich
--
Zend Certified Engineer
http://www.corephp.co.uk
"Never trust a computer you can't throw out of a window"
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