the whole issue of copyright only worked as long as it was hard to make copies of the copyrighted work. (by "hard", I mean, cost a significant fraction of the purchase price to copy, or took a long time to copy, or took up lots of disk space/required specialized software to copy and use thereafter.)
when cheap, easy digitization usable by the general public became possible due to technology advances, the old way of "protecting" copyrighted material became the moral equivalent of the emperor's new clothes. and the publishing houses and music/movie industry did the moral equivalent of sticking their fingers in their ears and yelling "LALALA I can't hear you!" over and over again as a defense of their (now-broken) system.
and when that didn't work, they (mostly the RIAA/MPAA then) hired legions of high-priced lawyers and started suing everyone they could lay hands on. this, instead of hiring legions of high-priced researchers to *come up with a new way of making money using the IP they had rights to*.
meanwhile, they *did* hire lots of high-priced technologists to shut the barn door after the horse had vanished over the horizon, i mean, encumber digital versions with DRM that msotly just got in people's way rather than actually protected anyone's rights.
in short, i am very sorry that you are entangled in this asinine system and dependent upon it for your livelihood. i, personally, have no intention of pirating your work; indeed, I have paid good coin for digital versions of many of your novels. BUT, i have a choice in how to spend my money, and i choose to spend it on less-restrictive digital works rather than more-restrictive ones, because I know how fast technology advances, and i'd rather not tie my sizeable library to any one technological solution. i have no intention of re-buying my electronic library when Kindle/Nook/whatever finally folds, the way i'm having to update my movie library to DVD by re-buying everything i have in VHS format. i know where this road leads.
my considered advice to you is: you have a sizeable fan base -- they will gladly buy your works with no middleman involved. *I* will gladly buy your works with no middleman involved. get some distribution channels that don't depend on publishing houses and media blitzes. you're already interacting directly with your fan base -- you'll make far more if you simply write/edit/sell than if you go through a publisher. they're dinosaurs, just waiting to be pressed into oil. they just don't know it yet.
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mmmag
no subject
Date: 2011-09-14 12:46 am (UTC)the whole issue of copyright only worked as long as it was hard to make copies of the copyrighted work. (by "hard", I mean, cost a significant fraction of the purchase price to copy, or took a long time to copy, or took up lots of disk space/required specialized software to copy and use thereafter.)
when cheap, easy digitization usable by the general public became possible due to technology advances, the old way of "protecting" copyrighted material became the moral equivalent of the emperor's new clothes. and the publishing houses and music/movie industry did the moral equivalent of sticking their fingers in their ears and yelling "LALALA I can't hear you!" over and over again as a defense of their (now-broken) system.
and when that didn't work, they (mostly the RIAA/MPAA then) hired legions of high-priced lawyers and started suing everyone they could lay hands on. this, instead of hiring legions of high-priced researchers to *come up with a new way of making money using the IP they had rights to*.
meanwhile, they *did* hire lots of high-priced technologists to shut the barn door after the horse had vanished over the horizon, i mean, encumber digital versions with DRM that msotly just got in people's way rather than actually protected anyone's rights.
in short, i am very sorry that you are entangled in this asinine system and dependent upon it for your livelihood. i, personally, have no intention of pirating your work; indeed, I have paid good coin for digital versions of many of your novels. BUT, i have a choice in how to spend my money, and i choose to spend it on less-restrictive digital works rather than more-restrictive ones, because I know how fast technology advances, and i'd rather not tie my sizeable library to any one technological solution. i have no intention of re-buying my electronic library when Kindle/Nook/whatever finally folds, the way i'm having to update my movie library to DVD by re-buying everything i have in VHS format. i know where this road leads.
my considered advice to you is: you have a sizeable fan base -- they will gladly buy your works with no middleman involved. *I* will gladly buy your works with no middleman involved. get some distribution channels that don't depend on publishing houses and media blitzes. you're already interacting directly with your fan base -- you'll make far more if you simply write/edit/sell than if you go through a publisher. they're dinosaurs, just waiting to be pressed into oil. they just don't know it yet.