do the writers of wikipedia have to work? why does wikipedia exist? are these writers not entitled to be paid? yunno they are destroying the market for paid encyclopedia writers. what about the guys who write encyclopedia brittanica? that is way less profitable now. dont those guys deserve to be paid? its weird. nobody pays wikipedia writers, and yet they crank out articles like gangbusters. how is it possible? i thought without traditional profit models, people hoard their writing and we, the reading public, have to watch reruns of two and half men.
Yes, thieves steal. We know this. He gets paid for every legal copy. It has survived the test of time. It works and is fair. Then you are quite deranged. What works best for society is for creators to be paid for their work by the user of their work. It has always been this way for people who actually work and actually pay for anything, Music is no different, other than that there are more thieves with conscience that listen to music than literary thieves.
Again you seem to have no fugging concept of the difference between amateurs that contribute their work and professional writers who write for a living. :insane:
right. the difference is that one gets paid and the other doesnt. what is the difference, beside that? is linux awful because the contributors are not paid? is wikipedia useless because it is written by amateurs? is my android phone crappy because it based on the linux kernel and not paid software? quality isnt determined by pay. i know amateur musicians that are better than britney spears. i know amateur writers that are better than paul krugman. your argument is this, and this alone: without a system to protect copyright, the market will evaporate and writing will no longer be done. if it were true it would be a powerful argument. this is clearly untrue. your other argument, that people simply deserve to be paid for work, is ludicrous. there are millions of people performing tasks they would love to be paid for, but are not. in the future, media will be like water. mostly free, but you will pay a little to have it delivered to you exactly as you want. like the way water at home costs basically nothing, but people buy billions worth of bottled water anyways, because they are lazy. in the future i can steal anything i want for free. but i would rather be lazy and pay a little for delivery, like i do now for netflix and kindle. but prices will have to be cheap, or people will steal. and there is nothing wrong with that. information should be free. and again, what does red say to the writer of encyclopedias now that they are not really profitable? too bad, your competitors are giving it away? fugg you? of course that is what you say to this person, even though he was a "professional". too bad sucka your services are no longer profitable. write for free or wait tables like the rest of the creative class.
I downloaded The Audacity of Hope just for fun a couple days ago since Obama doesn't need the money and this thread had me curious to check out the torrent world . Unfortunately or fortunately the torrent had 5000 kindle and iBooks with the drm stripped obviously. I must decide if I should delete them. They look cool on the eshelf. How difficult would it be for me to read the Harry potter nonsense. I saw that series in there. Or maybe lord of the rings. I figure I can get it at the library but why waste gas. I get it free either way and the authors still get the same which is nothing.
You are arguing a point not in question. No one has made a value judgement here, we are discussing intellectual property rights. THAT IS NOT MY ARGUMENT. Don't put words in my mouth. My argument is that professionals who choose sell their work must be paid if you want to read or listen to it, else you are stealing from them. Amateurs who choose to give their work away are free to do so and you are free to read it for free. This is not my argument, you are arguing with yourself again and refusing to address my true points. I don't blame you, you are foundering. Only in your imaginary little martinworld do people work for free and everyone gets whatever they want for free. Grow up, Beaver. You are quite wrong, as usual. Like all endeavors, there is writing that is worthy of pay and writing that is not. There are writers who sell their work and writers who give it away. There is work for professional writers where there are paying customers. There is no work for writers when there are no paying customers. The market decides and the market evolves, but in no case is self-indulgent thievery good for any market.
Wrong. Reading illegal copies means the author has received no pay. Reading legal copies means the author has received pay. The author receives no pay for people reading a book. Only for people buying a book. If you steal a book to read it, you are a thief and deserving of contempt. If you borrow it from an E-library, you are legal and all is right with the world.
Is it legal to trip DRM and distribute unlimited copies? No. All those illegal copies are not paid for.
i know, and that is ok whether it is because they suck and nobody wants to buy, or because everyone is stealing, or because someone else is giving away something comparable and superior (like linux and wikipedia) for free. a copy isnt paid for, whether it is "illegal" or not. if i loan my physical book to tirk, no writer gets paid even though my copy is "legal". you are way too mhung up on legal vs illegal. writers are not getting paid when i trade books with friends, legally or illegally.
