Slashdot Mirror

Actually, the publishing industry has been quite reasonable about this sort of thing. Case in point: The Baen Free Library. You can download whole, unrestricted Ebooks for free! Also, Baen has started putting coverdiscs in some of their new hardbacks, which contain even more free books. I just bought There will be Dragons by John Ringo; that coverdisk had over 40 novels in it! The best part was that they included the entire book, unabridged, in .mp3 format. Perfect for loading to my iPod :) Last week, I burned several copies of the coverdisk and distributed them to many of the geeks in my school.

Is this suppose to be a rhetorical argument that a creator doesn't own what he creates?

I intended it as an argument that an author shouldn't own what other authors create.

the innovation is not identical to the source, I have added my own novel element.

True, you can get away with copying ideas. But what about classes of works where the "idea" and the "expression" aren't so easy to distinguish, such as musical works? Under U.S. law, if you add your novel element to a substantial portion of an existing copyrighted expression without permission of the other work's author, which is not obtainable in the vast majority of cases, the other work's author owns your novel element, even if your novel element predominates over the other author's.

The novel element is my property, for a limited time at least, and rightly so.

In terms of an author's own lifetime, how is until your children are long dead a "limited time", other than through the twisted interpretation offered by the Supreme Court in Eldred v. Ashcroft? Inventors, on the other hand, seem happy with 20 years; I don't recall any news report of them trying for some sort of Cher Patent Term Extension Act.

To say that society owns what a creator's brain creates is to say that society owns the creator's brain. It doesn't.

But to say that one author owns what another author creates is to say that one author owns the other author's brain. He does.

I agree with the position on derivative works and copyright term that Spider Robinson puts forth in the short story "Melancholy Elephants". Have you read it?

At present the holder of copyright has the public feeling on his side. Those who invade copyright are regarded as knaves who take the bread out of the mouths of deserving men. Everybody is well pleased to see them restrained by the law, and compelled to refund their ill-gotten gains. No tradesman of good repute will have anything to do with such disgraceful transactions. Pass this law: and that feeling is at an end. Men very different from the present race of piratical booksellers will soon infringe this intolerable monopoly. Great masses of capital will be constantly employed in the violation of the law. Every art will be employed to evade legal pursuit; and the whole nation will be in the plot.

Read this

With copyright terms now stretching to 140+ years, and recent judgements that make it possible for corporations to maintain copyright indefinitely, that makes the laws unjust.

Now, I will exercise my fair use rights by quoting from a passage recorded, and I'll not tell you who recorded this speech, nor what song it introduces:

Citizens of Boston. Throughout the course of our nation's history, the people of Boston have rallied bravely whenever the rights of man have been threatened. Today, a new crisis has arisen. The Metropolitan Transit Authority, better known as the MTA, has been levying burdensome attacks on the population in the form of subway fair increases. Citizens hear me out! This can happen to you:

Try the Baen Free Library> Lots of books, most from pretty well known writers. What you'll often see is the first few books in a series, posted for download (NO DRM) in the hopes you'll buy the current in-print books.

However, I agree with your basic point. There is simply no reason why any electronically typeset book need ever go out of print, no reason why a book should ever stop realizing income for its author and publisher as long as the (M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E) copyright is in force.

The same is true for records and video, of course.

The only publisher that I know of that has even an inkling of a clue when it comes to ebooks is Baen.

Not only do they offer a wide variety of "free" books, but the books that you do pay for are cheaper than paperbacks. If you buy them in their monthly bundles they are considerably cheaper than paperbacks. Not to mention the fact that the books are available in unencrypted formats.

Read a few Baen books on your PDA (I would suggest the Belisarius series by David Drake and Eric Flint the first three are in the free library), and then tell me that carrying around 60 books on your PDA isn't better than trying to take a paperback without you everywhere.

I use the library because I'm travelling around the globe and I can afford to store 40 electronic books - they all fit on one memory stick in my Clie, but I cannot afford to carry my complete paper based Sci/Fi library around the place.

I'm surprised no one has mentioned the Dahak Trilogy by David Webber. A fun read, and not endless like the HH series. The first book, Mutineer's Moon, is available in the Baen Free Library. Baen.com

In addition to the oft-pimped Baen Free Library, you can also find their CD-ROMs included in several of their hardcovers which contain such gems as the entire Honor Harrington series. Or, if John Ringo's more your style, there's another CD with the entire Legacy of the Aldenata series available. Baen allows free distribution of these CDs, so long as no money is charged. I find it convenient to keep them on my webserver.

Lots of other good books not available on the BFL can also be found on the CDs, incidentally. It's a horribly effective marketing scheme. The BFL has cost me close to $300 over the last two years in books I would not have otherwise purchased.

For those Google challenged among us...
1632 by Eric Flint and 1633 by David Webber & Eric Flint

For those Google challenged among us...
1632 by Eric Flint and 1633 by David Webber & Eric Flint

I enjoyed the Honor Harrington books. You might, too, if you enjoy reading about heroic people doing heroic things. Honor Harrington is a heroic character: she isn't perfect, but she feels a strong sense of duty and does her best to do her duty. And her best turns out to be very good indeed.

If you are at all interested in the Honor Harrington books, check out the Baen Free Library. The first book is On Basilisk Station. (That link is to the HTML version; there are several downloadable versions as well.)

Take a look and decide for yourself whether these books are for you.

steveha

I enjoyed the Honor Harrington books. You might, too, if you enjoy reading about heroic people doing heroic things. Honor Harrington is a heroic character: she isn't perfect, but she feels a strong sense of duty and does her best to do her duty. And her best turns out to be very good indeed.

If you are at all interested in the Honor Harrington books, check out the Baen Free Library. The first book is On Basilisk Station. (That link is to the HTML version; there are several downloadable versions as well.)

Take a look and decide for yourself whether these books are for you.

steveha

Uhm...I'll bite. Why do we want to read them on your website instead of at the Baen Free Library?

All of the Books Baen gives away for free can be found at the Baen Free Library.

David Weber, the Honor Harrington series consists of:
Book 1: On Basilisk Station
Book 2: Honor of the Queen
Book 3: A Short Victorious War
Book 4: Field of Dishonor
Book 5: Flag in Exile
Book 6: Honor Among Enemies
Book 7: In Enemy Hands
Book 8: Echoes of Honor
Book 9: Ashes of Victory
Book 10: War of Honor

I have listened to freely provided mp3s (ah, the days of the webcaster and online jukebox) and received mix tapes (which they'd like to get rid of as well but settled with media fees). When I liked the artist, I went right out and BOUGHT THEIR MUSIC, not only CDs, but the sheet music. They are making twice the profit off of me for good work. I wouldn't have heard them if I hadn't gotten exposure through the mp3s or tapes to begin with. Good music is worth getting a good quality of (instead of a low quality mp3. A good stereo system will let you hear the difference). Bad music isn't even worth my storage.

Should we shut down used CD stores because the artists don't make a dime? I now purposely avoid new labels that the RIAA represents and buy used because of the crap they've thrown around.

There are other musicians who agree that mp3s are free publicity. The RIAA (as do many bad business models) just wants to force the crap they spew down everyone's throat and put the blame on someone else for why they aren't making money.

The same concept goes for the Baen Free library. I've read free books by authors I didn't know. The ones I like, I often buy more of. Why do restaurant fronts often have free samples of the food they are selling? Free music is more than a boon for consumers.

Maybe it could compose the chant melody by recognizing actual chords in the samples, and applying known hamonic rules to end up with a melody to put on top of it

But because the space of pleasing music is so littered with copyrights, anybody who publishes such a song may get sued into oblivion. Believe me; I tried implementing algorithmic composition once, but I noticed bits and pieces of songs I knew to be copyrighted in its output, and who knows what other copyrights the program violated.

Along these lines, you may find this short story by Spider Robinson interesting.

RIAA and it's ilk are as busy screwing the artists as they their customers. Here's a posting by Janis Ian about her experiences as a "represented artist" and why she supports p2p file exchanges.

>Oh, and those 'Mechs were the stupidest thing I've ever seen. You've got all this metal and
>armor...but none of it is protecting the freaking pilot.

Someone pointed out on Baen's webboard that the sad remnants of humanity might not have the manufacturing capability to build whatever they want. In that case the mechs could have been adapted from cargo handlers, i.e. the future's version of forklifts. Granted, they probably could have found the scrap somewhere to at least make some kind of shrapnel shield.

Anything that you can think of has already been thought of.

This idea, combined with perpetual copyright, gives the entertainment industry entirely too much power over society.

I think one or two people should buy my books, OCR them, then dump them on the 'Net to disseminate freely.

Yeah, because we all know that happens when writers embrace technology.

I think one or two people should buy my books, OCR them, then dump them on the 'Net to disseminate freely.

Yeah, because we all know that happens when writers embrace technology.

Baen Free Library

Free books authorized by the authors and hosted by a book publisher.

Go read why they are doing it, it's an excellent read. It explains the objection to DRM and the "internet piracy panic". It supports the existance of libraries and private book-lending.

Awesome. The next time you buy a book, look for Baen :)

-

Have you looked into Baen Books?

Jim Baen seems to be much more down to earth than the typical publisher you describe.

In the end, we didn't see sales drop off that much. Customers still wanted to order old-fashioned books.

That's exactly the idea behind Jim Baen's (Baen Books) Baen Free Library, where you can read online or download many of the books (SF and fantasy) he publishes.

Opie-reader

Most of the books I have been reading were from Baen Books. BTW, if you haven't already, you should really give a try.

So then they go on and claim that they have effectively solved this all but impossible task. And how do they achieve this miracle you may well ask? Simple! They construct their 'analysis' with distortions, non sequiturs, solecism and downright lies:

"No commentator denies that longer copyright extension increases incentives; what is in dispute is the degree to which incentives increase."

Downright Lie. Linked below is Macaulay's 162 year old demolition of this particularly loathsome deception and the idea that no commentator denies the lies is absurd.

"...that many copyright creators do not make decisions using purely `rational' criteria. The field of `behavioural economics' (a multi- disciplinary field involving psychology and economics) suggests a number of inter-related reasons why the pure critique of the incentive theory advanced by economists may be limited -- that copyright extends for such a long period may reduce the perception of risk associated with creation of copyright works, and provide greater confidence to creators when undertaking their endeavours. Additionally, the `bequest motive', whereby people undertake certain actions to benefit their descendents rather than themselves, also may explain why an extra 20 years fifty years after death may still provide extra motivation to create new copyright works..."

Distortion. The studies referred to are almost certainly those which found financial rewards to be the least significant of the incentives reported by creators as the motivation for their creative work.

"that existing incentives may actually be falling, and that it may be necessary to extend the copyright term just to maintain them. In possibly the major theoretical contribution to the economic analysis of copyright,9 Landes and Posner suggest that as the cost of copying declines copyright protection should expand. Thus, in 1989 they noted that: "The current length of a copyright is the author's lifetime plus fifty years. This reflects a long trend toward lengthening the term of copyright ... This trend is consistent with the fact that the cost of copying has fallen over this period".10 Recent developments associated with digitisation and distribution over the Internet have dramatically reduced copying and distribution costs for many works and so there may be a case for a corresponding increase in the copyright term to preserve incentives."

Non sequitur as any halfwit can see - in fact it contains a double non sequitur and you don't see those very often.

I could go on but there's another 50 pages of this drivel and I feel a little sick already. I will have to counter the ill effects of contaminating my mind with this sewage by re-reading Macaulay's words on the subject.

I posted this elsewhere, but I'll post it here too. From the forward in the book I read it in, this seems to be Spider Robinson's viewpoint, told through a short story.

There's an excellent short story on a possible danger of extending copyright law and archives by Spider Robinson. Seems to be available for reading online.

Thing is, if you look at the Baen Free Library you'll see a number of arguments as to why free ebooks can actually increase sales, the main one of which is this:

If you download a free copy of something, it's probably because you didn't think it was worth the price being charged, or you couldn't afford it. The first type wouldn't buy it whether there's an illegal copy or not; the second will probably buy it at a later time in life.

Many an author (and recording artist) will tell you, it's getting promotion and recognition that's hard. Word of mouth is the best kind, and trying something out when you're young and broke is likely to lead to purchases and re-purchases when you're older and want 'proper' copies.

Good authors and artists have nothing to fear from copies of their work on the internet; in fact, for any but the already most mega-promoted, it's a boon to them.

People are used to free books and free music from the library and the radio; trying to put the genie back in the bottle now, even though technically in the right under copyright law, is going to prove impossible.

Sure!

Limiting myself to titles available in the no-cost Free Library, here's a few of my faves.

Anything by Eric Flint, especially 1632 and the Bellisarius series (of which An Oblique Approach is the first book). These works actually sort of straddle the border between fantasy and SF, as they're more in the "alternate-history" genre, but they're very good. Mother of Demons is an unusual work using elements often seen in fantasy in a science-fictional setting.

Anything by David Weber. Although most of it is SF, the books Oath of Swords and its sequel The War God's Own are excellent fantasy adventures following a barbarian reluctantly called to be the mortal champion of a god. March Upcountry is another SF story with fantasy elements involving a young prince and a contingent of space marines shipwrecked on the back-side of a savage, primitive world and needing to fight their way around to the other side to get off of it.

Rick Cook's Wizardry series of which the first couple of books are free. What happens when a hotshot computer programmer is plucked out of our world and dumped in a realm where magic works? The bad guys have no idea what they're in for, that's what.

Heck, just about any of the titles on that list, fantasy or SF, is a good read. Have fun with it!

Sure!

Limiting myself to titles available in the no-cost Free Library, here's a few of my faves.

Anything by Eric Flint, especially 1632 and the Bellisarius series (of which An Oblique Approach is the first book). These works actually sort of straddle the border between fantasy and SF, as they're more in the "alternate-history" genre, but they're very good. Mother of Demons is an unusual work using elements often seen in fantasy in a science-fictional setting.

Anything by David Weber. Although most of it is SF, the books Oath of Swords and its sequel The War God's Own are excellent fantasy adventures following a barbarian reluctantly called to be the mortal champion of a god. March Upcountry is another SF story with fantasy elements involving a young prince and a contingent of space marines shipwrecked on the back-side of a savage, primitive world and needing to fight their way around to the other side to get off of it.

Rick Cook's Wizardry series of which the first couple of books are free. What happens when a hotshot computer programmer is plucked out of our world and dumped in a realm where magic works? The bad guys have no idea what they're in for, that's what.

Heck, just about any of the titles on that list, fantasy or SF, is a good read. Have fun with it!

Sure!

Limiting myself to titles available in the no-cost Free Library, here's a few of my faves.

Anything by Eric Flint, especially 1632 and the Bellisarius series (of which An Oblique Approach is the first book). These works actually sort of straddle the border between fantasy and SF, as they're more in the "alternate-history" genre, but they're very good. Mother of Demons is an unusual work using elements often seen in fantasy in a science-fictional setting.

Anything by David Weber. Although most of it is SF, the books Oath of Swords and its sequel The War God's Own are excellent fantasy adventures following a barbarian reluctantly called to be the mortal champion of a god. March Upcountry is another SF story with fantasy elements involving a young prince and a contingent of space marines shipwrecked on the back-side of a savage, primitive world and needing to fight their way around to the other side to get off of it.

Rick Cook's Wizardry series of which the first couple of books are free. What happens when a hotshot computer programmer is plucked out of our world and dumped in a realm where magic works? The bad guys have no idea what they're in for, that's what.

Heck, just about any of the titles on that list, fantasy or SF, is a good read. Have fun with it!

Sure!

Limiting myself to titles available in the no-cost Free Library, here's a few of my faves.

Anything by Eric Flint, especially 1632 and the Bellisarius series (of which An Oblique Approach is the first book). These works actually sort of straddle the border between fantasy and SF, as they're more in the "alternate-history" genre, but they're very good. Mother of Demons is an unusual work using elements often seen in fantasy in a science-fictional setting.

Anything by David Weber. Although most of it is SF, the books Oath of Swords and its sequel The War God's Own are excellent fantasy adventures following a barbarian reluctantly called to be the mortal champion of a god. March Upcountry is another SF story with fantasy elements involving a young prince and a contingent of space marines shipwrecked on the back-side of a savage, primitive world and needing to fight their way around to the other side to get off of it.

Rick Cook's Wizardry series of which the first couple of books are free. What happens when a hotshot computer programmer is plucked out of our world and dumped in a realm where magic works? The bad guys have no idea what they're in for, that's what.

Heck, just about any of the titles on that list, fantasy or SF, is a good read. Have fun with it!

As proved by Baen as well. Get 4-6 new books, in open formats (RTF, HTML and some Palm format), no DRM, $15. New releases every month, and they're released before the Dead Tree. Check out the Free Library for some freebies to get you hooked. Baen made a go of eBooks, by selling them cheap, in open formats.

The lasers don't bounce off anything. Angels' Pencil was powered by the reaction against the laser light leaving the ship. When the laser was pointed at something (a Kzinti ship) it simply cut through it.

Robert Forward's Flight of the Dragonfly AKA RocheWorld was more technically interesting, he even went as far as devising a frequency multiplier for the ground-based laser system, which upped the force and improved the focus.

Or if you just like the cutting aspects, try one of David Weber's Honor Harrington series (I liked Honor of the Queen).

As to restrictions on the files, it's highly doubtful that the big publishers are going to release their stuff without some form of DRM. Plain txt files are a thing of Usenet.

If Eric Flint is to be believed then Baen's authors get significantly more than two orders of magnitude less ebook sales than paperback book sales. The difference, they don't encrypt their books and offer them in a wide variety of formats. In fact, they even give out full books as samples. Check out Baen's website if you haven't already. These guys have completely won me over with their ebook program.

It's also possible to get unencrypted ebooks from Fictionwise. They call it "Multiformat" books.

Ebook buyers don't want to be treated like thieves, and they don't want to purchase books that are less versatile than the paper edition (especially considering the fact that they are generally priced similarly.

If you like to read scifi or fantasy, one publisher already did all this.

Go here and check Baens webscription: http://webscription.net/

Or check their free library where you can read ebooks for FREE: http://www.baen.com/library/

All their books are DRM free and available in several different formats, including HTML (which obviously can't be DRM'ed).

I bought lots of ebooks there primary because it is so easy and I get the book instantly. I wont touch any ebook that has DRM as those always try to limit the number of devices I can read them on. Today I am reading those books on my iPAQ PDA, but in a year I have most likely retired that device for something better.

Contrary to what others seem to be saying here, ebooks really works for me. I almost completely stopped reading ordinary books, always prefering to use the light ipaq over a heavy real book. The display is clear, bright and does not strain my eyes. The battery lasts about 10 hours when reading. The only times where the battery live is a problem is when I am home, and there I just hook it up to power when it runs out.

It is not perfect, but it is more than good enough. At least for fiction reading anyway - I might not want to use it for a science text book, or any other book with tables, pictures and the like. Some of my ebooks contain maps, which are completely unreadable on the ipaq (but you can read them on the computer of course).

Nah, a Palm makes a great ebook reader. And Palms are cheap like borscht, you can pick up a used Zire or Palm III/V for under $50. Hell, you can get a new Zire 21 for $99. Cost of the unit hasn't been an issue for a long time unless you're talking about one of those stupid only-reads-ebooks-and-costs-$300 devices like the Franklin Ebook reader.
Here's the problem I have had with the e-books as presented by the industry since day one. Cost of the books themselves. Why the hell does the ebook version cost only a buck less than the paperback version? It only costs a buck to print and ship to distributors? That's friggin news to me! If the Ebooks were reasonably priced for the lack of a physical thing that you can hold in your hands, like say around $2.50 per instead of $7 per, then there would have been a lot more interest than there has been so far.
In fact, there's been so little interest in Ebooks, I find the title of the article laughable. The bubble burst? What bubble? It was never there to begin with. The publishing industry is terrified of ebooks and never wanted them to succeed to begin with, which probably explains the asinine pricing model. A lot of the bigger publishers refused to even consider ebooks at all. A lot of the books I read on my palm come from either public domain sources like Project Gutenberg, or one of the few tree publishers that does seem to "get it", Baen Books. They even have a free library of a lot of their published stuff, a download from which of a book by David Weber eventually saw me going out and buying several of his books. They also have an interesting "webscription" system, which I am thinking about trying for a few months. Could be good. Unfortunately, they seem the exception rather than the rule when it comes to publishers and ebooks.

Please tell me this is some kind of black humor or give us some links.

Here's a link, although it relates more to the NMPA/Harry Fox (sheet music publishers) than to the RIAA (record labels):

A Chilling Effect on Music

It's quite long, but here's the gist: 1. It's unlawful to publish and record music that isn't original. 2. It's likely for a songwriter to come up with a song that isn't original merely by accident.

And here's a short story by Spider Robinson that speculates on the eventual outcome of infringing-by-accident laws and copyright term extensions: "Melancholy Elephants".

Wait till it goes to rental or hits the dollar theatre.

Do most towns even have second-run theaters anymore?

There are many things in life you will never be able to experience because you can't afford them. That's life.

True, entertainment is one of them, but is survival one of them?

And no one is obligated to give up their wealth they earned so you can have it for free.

This sounds quite a bit like the entertainment industry's argument for perpetual copyright. So are you a fan of perpetual copyright? I'd like you to read a short story by Spider Robinson entitled "Melancholy Elephants." Begin

In electronic format, support The Bean free library, which offers many free books in multiple formats.

In electronic format, support The Bean free library, which offers many free books in multiple formats.
Also Webscriptions, which is a great way to get books early and cheap.

On the other side of the book piracy debate stands Eric Flint, who's artistic credentials don't nearly match up with Ellison's, but who has collected more hard data regarding the effects of piracy on artists than everyone else put together (books music and movies. He has also taken far more personal risk based on his conclusions than anyone else I can think of.

It wasn't all that long ago that artists where happy for people to hear their work, because if it was good enough more people would pay to see them, and that would keep the food on the table

And many artists still fall into that category. But some artists either don't tour or have limited promotional tours because their music doesn't translate over well "live." (Or do the trance/techno/post-modern-post-production guys not count?)

Then, of course, there are the other artists -- authors, movie-makers, for example -- for whom making a living by charging an audience to experience them "creating" has never been a viable option.

An artist should be able to say, "Look, I made something, here's a free sample; want more? Pay me this amount. Too high? Buy something else from someone else." The extent of the free sample, and the means whereby that free sampling is distributed, should be up to the artist or the artist's distributor/publisher/marketing guru. Some artists have concluded that extensive free samples is good for their business, others have a decidely different perspective. The point being, it is the artists' decision re how hs stuff is disseminated, not yours or mine.

Now, the artists under Jim Baen's imprimatur are in a league apart from the venerable Mr. Ellison, and as such I suspect (actually, I know) that both of their very different strokes are right for both camps. Phish is not Kraftwerk is not Al Stewart; one style of distribution, either completely open or traditionally restrictive, won't work perfectly for all.

Spider Robinson posited this kind of life in Telempath, a way-neato "vengence is stupid" story filled with the usual Robinson themes: Brotherly love, Tolerance and Good Weed.

Open up a newsreader (that old non-graphic NNTP stuff) and go to alt.binaries.e-books.
Card's novels are among the most frequently posted there, and he _knows_ they are.

You might also want to read what Eric Flint has to say about it on Baen's (the publisher's) site.

Open up a newsreader (that old non-graphic NNTP stuff) and go to alt.binaries.e-books.
Card's novels are among the most frequently posted there, and he _knows_ they are.

You might also want to read what Eric Flint has to say about it on Baen's (the publisher's) site.

in an age where barriers to becoming a content distributor are virtually nil

What about the cost of either licensing such works or, if you produce content yourself, proving in court that the works are in fact original? Songwriters are screwed, and Spider Robinson knows it.

It's hideously effective, incidentally.