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It's hideously effective, incidentally.

And now you don't have an incentive to ever plot down $7 because YOU ALREADY HAVE IT.

YMMV

The Baen Free Library offers a ton of books from sci-fi/fantasy publisher Baen Books for free in a variety of electronic formats. Baen has also been offering CD-ROMs in some of their hardcovers which contain more books not available on their website. The most recent of David Weber's Honor Harrington series, for example, contains the entire series in electronic format. Best of all, you can copy them and distribute them however you like--you just can't sell them.

Try searching for "honorverse disk" at Google and see what you get. Many people (myself included) put the CDs up on their web server for convenience.

It's hideously effective, incidentally. I've bought about 25 Baen paperbacks in the last two years, and several hardbacks--one of them just for the CD, though I rather enjoyed the book, too, as it turned out.

WOW! Check out Eric Flint's visionary statements re posting string free digital books. Someone should print that out and send it the RIAA.

Excerpt: There was a school of thought, which seemed to be picking up steam, that the way to handle the problem was with handcuffs and brass knucks. Enforcement! Regulation! New regulations! Tighter regulations! All out for the campaign against piracy! No quarter! Build more prisons! Harsher sentences! ... I, ah, disagreed. Rather vociferously and belligerently, in fact. And I can be a vociferous and belligerent fellow. My own opinion, summarized briefly, is as follows:

...for Spider Robinson to be saying this. I don't really consider him a sci-fi author, and I don't much care for his books. Indeed, to the extent that there is a decline in sci-fi, I've always thought of him as a prime exhibit. His stories are so...soft. Fluffy. Fantastic (in the very litteral sense).

That being said, I don;t think there's really any crunch coming for sci-fi. What Spider is saying is that the type of sci-fi he likes (and that he writes) is disapearring. This is true! But sci-fi is the reflection of tomorrow on today, and is constantly changing. In times past, post-apocalytpic wastelands, or psi powers, or laser printers, or time machines, or Martians, or portable phones almost as small as your fist were fantasies that appealled. Sometimes the world moved on, sometimes we learnt they weren't plausible, sometimes they happened - but in any case, they're now no longer suitable for sci-fi.

There's plenty of great sci-fi being written today (Baen Books publishes several good authours (and should in any case be supported for pioneering a content distribution model that doesn't rely on DRM. They give away some titles on their website, sell others cheaply, and include CDs with some hardbacks with dozens more.)

But it's not the same kind of sci-fi as was being written 20 or 30 years ago (and it would be pretty worrying if it was). For some, that puts it beyond the pale - it isn't "real" sci-fi. It's space opera, or military sci-fi, or too soft, or too hard, or whatever. For these people, intent on living in the past, I suppose the appeal of Fantasy isn't too surprising. But that's not the same thing as saying sci-fi is declining. Sci-fi is where it's always been - slightly on the edge, asking question some people would rather ignore.

...for Spider Robinson to be saying this. I don't really consider him a sci-fi author, and I don't much care for his books. Indeed, to the extent that there is a decline in sci-fi, I've always thought of him as a prime exhibit. His stories are so...soft. Fluffy. Fantastic (in the very litteral sense).

That being said, I don;t think there's really any crunch coming for sci-fi. What Spider is saying is that the type of sci-fi he likes (and that he writes) is disapearring. This is true! But sci-fi is the reflection of tomorrow on today, and is constantly changing. In times past, post-apocalytpic wastelands, or psi powers, or laser printers, or time machines, or Martians, or portable phones almost as small as your fist were fantasies that appealled. Sometimes the world moved on, sometimes we learnt they weren't plausible, sometimes they happened - but in any case, they're now no longer suitable for sci-fi.

There's plenty of great sci-fi being written today (Baen Books publishes several good authours (and should in any case be supported for pioneering a content distribution model that doesn't rely on DRM. They give away some titles on their website, sell others cheaply, and include CDs with some hardbacks with dozens more.)

But it's not the same kind of sci-fi as was being written 20 or 30 years ago (and it would be pretty worrying if it was). For some, that puts it beyond the pale - it isn't "real" sci-fi. It's space opera, or military sci-fi, or too soft, or too hard, or whatever. For these people, intent on living in the past, I suppose the appeal of Fantasy isn't too surprising. But that's not the same thing as saying sci-fi is declining. Sci-fi is where it's always been - slightly on the edge, asking question some people would rather ignore.

The same year that Clarke published his novel, Charles Sheffield published "the other space elevator novel," The Web Between Worlds. You can read the first few chapters at Baen Books' web site.

Yeah, thats why there are no indie bands out there.

Just because unsigned bands haven't been sued out of existence yet doesn't mean that they aren't breaking the law nor that they won't be sued out of existence tomorrow.

Thats why Lessings Creative Commons licenses are in use by nobody whatsoever.

Just as free software licenses are in wide use for computer programs, Dr. Lessig's Creative Commons licenses are in wide use for prose literary works. Prose isn't as close to the situation described in "Melancholy Elephants" by Spider Robinson as musical works are. The differences between prose and music are that 1. chance substantial similarities in a prose passage are less likely than chance substantial similarities in a melody, and 2. access to copyrighted prose isn't rammed down our throats every day by Clear Channel.

Unsigned bands exist, therefore unsigned bands are clearly capable of releasing music and profiting off it. Therefore, your argument must be wrong.

"Unsigned bands haven't got caught yet, therefore what unsigned bands do is not illegal." What is the difference between your observation and "it's not illegal if you don't get caught"? If you have something constructive to say, I'll update my model of music theory and law accordingly.

Been there, read that. Any suggested solutions?

Noone really wants to download a PDF and page through it at their desk and I don't know too many people taking laptops to the toilet, bathtub, or park in order to read. The problem isn't really with eBooks per-say, its that there really isn't a convenient way to view the content.

many consumers (myself included) just don't see the point in buying a device to read a book as opposed to just buying the paper book and not having to worry about charging it up before making a coast-to-coast flight

I bought one, once upon a time. Didn't want to wait for the harcover version. Hilarity ensued:

1) Price was the same as hardcover, $24.95 WTF?

2) You could only read it on the PC you downloaded it to. WTF?!?

3) You could not make a backup of it. If it got hosed, kiss your $24.95 goodbye WTF!?!??!?!

No more of that crap for me.

And the funniest thing about all this? You can download a DRM-free version of just about any book you want for free on IRC and other places. The publishing industry need to quit following the RIAA's footsteps and instead learn from someone who is doing it right.

OK, this has been covered ad nauseum. But if you really want eBooks, done the way that they should be, with no DRM, and an outright friendly redistribution policy that amounts to "Make copies for your friends and hand them out, as long as you aren't charging for them that's great", then go to Baen Books (follow the big "Free Stuff Here" link).

They seem to be making money on them. They sell the eBooks cheaper than the real paper ones (the problem with BN's was that they were ludicrously expensive) and you can get the full eBook whenever the hardcover comes out. Actually, you can get the book in pieces before the hardcover hits stores.

In addition to giving away free books, they also have free sample chapters of upcoming books.

You can read all about the how-and-why of it here on Baen's site. Go read that link. It's absolutely indredible. It seems that Jim Baen gets it. We'll wait and see who else does.

I've been reading Baen's eBooks for about a year now. Reading on a desktop PC with a CRT does suck. Reading on my PowerBook's LCD is awesome. It's not without some inconvenience (batteries, not being able to read in the john), but it's comfortable and easy, and it's way cheaper than buying the whole book (they offer individual titles for $5 each, or $15 for their selection of 5). I usually have enough magazines and stuff laying around to read in the john anyway.

If you purchase a selection you can download it in MS Reader shareable format (no DRM). Or HTML, or RTF. Whatever. No DRM on anything. There's no Adobe PDF, because Jim Baen doesn't like PDF (never have heard that story).

If you purchase the latest John Ringo Posleen series book (Hell's Faire) in hardcover you get a CD with the first 3 books on it, along with a boatload of other books (like a dozen books on one CD). And the license is "not for commercial redistribution", so you can use it, read the books, make copies for your friends, whatever.

OK, this has been covered ad nauseum. But if you really want eBooks, done the way that they should be, with no DRM, and an outright friendly redistribution policy that amounts to "Make copies for your friends and hand them out, as long as you aren't charging for them that's great", then go to Baen Books (follow the big "Free Stuff Here" link).

They seem to be making money on them. They sell the eBooks cheaper than the real paper ones (the problem with BN's was that they were ludicrously expensive) and you can get the full eBook whenever the hardcover comes out. Actually, you can get the book in pieces before the hardcover hits stores.

In addition to giving away free books, they also have free sample chapters of upcoming books.

You can read all about the how-and-why of it here on Baen's site. Go read that link. It's absolutely indredible. It seems that Jim Baen gets it. We'll wait and see who else does.

I've been reading Baen's eBooks for about a year now. Reading on a desktop PC with a CRT does suck. Reading on my PowerBook's LCD is awesome. It's not without some inconvenience (batteries, not being able to read in the john), but it's comfortable and easy, and it's way cheaper than buying the whole book (they offer individual titles for $5 each, or $15 for their selection of 5). I usually have enough magazines and stuff laying around to read in the john anyway.

If you purchase a selection you can download it in MS Reader shareable format (no DRM). Or HTML, or RTF. Whatever. No DRM on anything. There's no Adobe PDF, because Jim Baen doesn't like PDF (never have heard that story).

If you purchase the latest John Ringo Posleen series book (Hell's Faire) in hardcover you get a CD with the first 3 books on it, along with a boatload of other books (like a dozen books on one CD). And the license is "not for commercial redistribution", so you can use it, read the books, make copies for your friends, whatever.

The story you reference, Melancholy Elephants, can be read at http://www.baen.com/chapters/W200011/0671319744___ 1.htm.

So what's left that can't be done by machines? Art.

Not after everything's copyrighted.

I've read that story, which describes the problem of counterproductive copyright term extensions, but either I missed something or it didn't offer any technological solutions.

What I read of this is that the BBC is going to put these up on the net, and hope people will pay for them anyways... somehow, I'm not perfectly certain it's going to work the way we want it to...

Yeah, because the RIAA and MPAA both say it isn't true, and they'd never lie, right?

It's amusing to note that of the people who have tried have found that it does indeed increase sales.

I guess you don't realize that the RIAA not only gives their stuff away to people who don't pay for it, but actually pays people to give it away for them.

But if all the content is to be given away for free, surely these will die away?

Why? Besides the "it just will" argument I keep hearing from the likes of the RIAA/MPAA, anyone who's actually tried it claims the exact opposite effect (that is, that sales increased, not decreased.)

There's a crucial difference between music piracy and software piracy. Don't forget, for the vast majority of home computer users (the majority do not read Slashdot) Windows is the only option. Furthermore, sooner or later they will upgrade, if only to be able to run other software.

In other words, Microsoft gets no free publicity out of piracy, because it has pretty much saturated the market and very few people are now switching from other OSen to Microsoft, certainly not in the home user sector where the majority of piracy takes place

On the other hand, in the music industry there is a great deal more choice. People don't buy music out of necessity or because there is no other choice, but because they like it. In this situation there is a real benefit to giving away the product free. See the Baen Free Library for a more detailed rationale.

So, is it okay to pirate HP:ATSS or HP:ATPS if you're a starving single mother?

My favorite business strategy is what the folks at Baen are up to. They sell unencrypted electronic versions of the book for less than the cost of the paperback. This allows them to slash their distribution costs to the bone, and cut out the bookstore middleman. Not only are they probably making a higher profit than they do when I buy the book in a bookstore, but I get my hands on their books, in my preferred format, at a discount price.

The fact that they throw in full-length "teaser" novels in for free in their Free Library is just a bonus.

Eventually everyone's going to be doing something similar. Just wait and see.

I beg to differ. Both David Weber's and Lois McMaster Bujod's (two of Baen's authors) latest books made the NYT bestseller lists. David Weber's book was available in eBook format before it hit the stands. (And was reviewed here on /.) Both authors are featured in baen's free library.

I won't go so far as to say that David Weber or Lois McMaster Bujold have the name recognition of Steven King or Robert Ludlum, but to relegate NYT bestselling authors to:

authors that the average person has never heard of and would never run across anything by them at their local bookstore.

One of the things Eric Flint (another Baen author) talks about in his 'why are we doing this' intro to the library is that most people have little to no desire to steal.

All that being said, I don't condone or advocate stealing books. I do think it is a good idea to allow people to obtain such things in a format they thing convenient. I think it an even better idea to do so in a way that gives feedback to publishers and authors as to what the end customer actually wants to read. The best thing is to have some way to pay the author for their work, even if you can't find a physical copy of their work in a first sale retail book store. (The only place that has even a chance of showing up on the publisher's radar.)

I will only say this, that if the measure before us should pass, and should produce one-tenth part of the evil which it is calculated to produce, and which I fully expect it to produce, there will soon be a remedy, though of a very objectionable kind. Just as the absurd acts which prohibited the sale of game were virtually repealed by the poacher, just as many absurd revenue acts have been virtually repealed by the smuggler, so will this law be virtually repealed by piratical booksellers. 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.

This was written almost a year ago, but is still very relevant.

Yeah, I've notice that book piracy has becoming more of a problem lately. I mean, I saw this website crammed full of book downloads for free. These weren't old, public domain ones, either. These were fairly new fantasy and sci-fi, from authors such as David Webber, David Drake, Lois McMaster Bujold, and Larry Niven. And they weren't just crappy scans, either, these were richtext files, and HTML, and PDF, and E-Books, complete with instructions on how to view them on PDA's! Those poor authors must be STARVING after having all of these freeloaders downloading their works for NOTHING!

Oh wait, that is the publishers website, and authors have found that when they put a book up, its sales skyrocket, even if it an OLD book that has already stopped selling. And these are EASY TO GET, SMALL, HIGH QUALITY files. I doubt harder to aquire, low quality, large files will hurt authors if these not only don't, but have the opposite effect.

First off, I agree that it is Piracy and is wrong. But the effects may not be what you would first expect. Baen books has an experiment with their Free Library, www.baen.com/library where they are giving away some of their books and watching the results on sales.

They are finding that sales actually go up on the author's other books! Having freely available books gives readers an introduction to authors they may have never picked up before, they tend to buy other books written by the same author. According to Baen the life-cycle of your typical book really isn't that long.

This isn't to justify book piracy, but just as we have seen in the Music industry we may be dealing with a bit of exaggeration on the part of the publishers (and on the part of some authors who seem to have gone a bit rabid on the subject).

Brian

When will the publishers realize that a little sharing (what most call piracy) is a good thing? They accept that promotional copies generate buzz, and more sales, but electronic copies, which don't cost them to distribute, automatically destroy sales?

I've read all of the books in the Honor Harringtion series by David Weber, either through the library, or borrowing from a friend. When the latest book came out, my friend who introduced me to the series, had just moved to Washington (from Boston), so he took the CD that came with it, and sent me an e-book version of the book. (From the CD: "This disk and its contents may be copied and shared but NOT sold", emphasis not mine.)

After reading it and enjoying it, I picked up a copy next time I was at the book store, and to my great surprise, it included not just the other books in the series on the CD, but 26(!) other books by Baen authors. Some of which, no doubt, after reading, will cause me to buy more books because I enjoyed the authors' writing style. These are authors I would never have been exposed to, if not for a little sharing. Check out the Baen Free Library to read some books from a publisher that gets it...

When will the publishers realize that a little sharing (what most call piracy) is a good thing? They accept that promotional copies generate buzz, and more sales, but electronic copies, which don't cost them to distribute, automatically destroy sales?

I've read all of the books in the Honor Harringtion series by David Weber, either through the library, or borrowing from a friend. When the latest book came out, my friend who introduced me to the series, had just moved to Washington (from Boston), so he took the CD that came with it, and sent me an e-book version of the book. (From the CD: "This disk and its contents may be copied and shared but NOT sold", emphasis not mine.)

After reading it and enjoying it, I picked up a copy next time I was at the book store, and to my great surprise, it included not just the other books in the series on the CD, but 26(!) other books by Baen authors. Some of which, no doubt, after reading, will cause me to buy more books because I enjoyed the authors' writing style. These are authors I would never have been exposed to, if not for a little sharing. Check out the Baen Free Library to read some books from a publisher that gets it...

When will the publishers realize that a little sharing (what most call piracy) is a good thing? They accept that promotional copies generate buzz, and more sales, but electronic copies, which don't cost them to distribute, automatically destroy sales?

I've read all of the books in the Honor Harringtion series by David Weber, either through the library, or borrowing from a friend. When the latest book came out, my friend who introduced me to the series, had just moved to Washington (from Boston), so he took the CD that came with it, and sent me an e-book version of the book. (From the CD: "This disk and its contents may be copied and shared but NOT sold", emphasis not mine.)

After reading it and enjoying it, I picked up a copy next time I was at the book store, and to my great surprise, it included not just the other books in the series on the CD, but 26(!) other books by Baen authors. Some of which, no doubt, after reading, will cause me to buy more books because I enjoyed the authors' writing style. These are authors I would never have been exposed to, if not for a little sharing. Check out the Baen Free Library to read some books from a publisher that gets it...

Baen has make a point of releasing its books free online. Their reasoning includes such as this "Losses any author suffers from piracy are almost certainly offset by the additional publicity which, in practice, any kind of free copies of a book usually engender. Whatever the moral difference, which certainly exists, the practical effect of online piracy is no different from that of any existing method by which readers may obtain books for free or at reduced cost: public libraries, friends borrowing and loaning each other books, used book stores, promotional copies, etc." and they note that "After all, Dave Weber's On Basilisk Station has been available for free as a "loss leader" for Baen's for-pay experiment "Webscriptions" for months now. And -- hey, whaddaya know? -- over that time it's become Baen's most popular backlist title in paper!"

Baen has make a point of releasing its books free online. Their reasoning includes such as this "Losses any author suffers from piracy are almost certainly offset by the additional publicity which, in practice, any kind of free copies of a book usually engender. Whatever the moral difference, which certainly exists, the practical effect of online piracy is no different from that of any existing method by which readers may obtain books for free or at reduced cost: public libraries, friends borrowing and loaning each other books, used book stores, promotional copies, etc." and they note that "After all, Dave Weber's On Basilisk Station has been available for free as a "loss leader" for Baen's for-pay experiment "Webscriptions" for months now. And -- hey, whaddaya know? -- over that time it's become Baen's most popular backlist title in paper!"

Baen has make a point of releasing its books free online. Their reasoning includes such as this "Losses any author suffers from piracy are almost certainly offset by the additional publicity which, in practice, any kind of free copies of a book usually engender. Whatever the moral difference, which certainly exists, the practical effect of online piracy is no different from that of any existing method by which readers may obtain books for free or at reduced cost: public libraries, friends borrowing and loaning each other books, used book stores, promotional copies, etc." and they note that "After all, Dave Weber's On Basilisk Station has been available for free as a "loss leader" for Baen's for-pay experiment "Webscriptions" for months now. And -- hey, whaddaya know? -- over that time it's become Baen's most popular backlist title in paper!"

Hopefully, "book piracy" won't suddenly catch on. I suspect it will slowly rise, but a sharp increase will only prompt publishers to have a knee-jerk reaction and jump towards some kind of lock-down attempt. A slow increase will give publishers time to think about the most sensible way of altering their business model in the face of copyright infringement. Some have found that giving away electronic copies is profitable.

And let's not forget that the spaceship in Fallen Angels by Niven, Pournelle & Flynn was called the Phoenix!

Tell your favorite author what you want to do to their work

Many probably wouldn't care. In fact, a number of authors already offer their copyrighted works free to the public here, including some not-too insignificant ones (Larry Niven, Mercedes Lackey).

The way print publishing of novels work is this. When a publisher agrees to print your work, what you are agreeing on (apart from payment) is the print run. You agree on a number of copies of your book they will print off and sell. If your book sells well, they well run off more copies, according to your agreement. The sad fact is, many works do not ever sell well enough to make it past that first print run. Money from that run on average dries up after about 6 months. Trust me, most of these authors couldn't give a stuff your getting their work free after 14 years; it'll have been out of print for 13.5 years by then.

Of course, the most popular authors' books will outlast this 14 year time frame. And they will miss out on some profit. But, quite simply, that's too bad. Copyright was not designed for a creator too squeeze every penny out of their creation. It was designed to allow them to make a decent living out of writing. If the writers of books that have a staying power of greater than 14 years cannot make decent money out of them, they sure as hell should fire their agent.

Yeah, and there's no avoiding a nasty trainwreck at those crossroads; the train being the entrenched interests with all the inertia (mountains of cash and old IP cashflow), and the VW Van being the public who is being refused the legal right to easily stand on the shoulders of giants as they've done throughout history...

A future where ideas are owned in perpetuity is dystopian to all except a tiny minority. ...Such as in the short story Melancholy Elephants:

"My husband wrote a song for me, on the occasion of our fortieth wedding anniversary. It was our love in music, unique and special and intimate, the most beautiful melody I ever heard in my live. It made him so happy to have written it. Of his last ten compositions he had burned five for being derivative, and the others had all failed copyright clearance. But this was fresh, special?he joked that my love for him had inspired him. The next day he submitted it for clearance, and learned that it had been a popular air during his early childhood, and had already been unsuccessfully submitted fourteen times since its original registration. A week later he burned all his manuscripts and working tapes and killed himself."

--

The King County (WA) library system does almost exactly this they have a "library" of a few thousand books (mostly Tech, Suprise!) that are available for online reading.

Baen puts many of it's books online for free download (in NON DRM formats), and has noticed sales of it's back catalog skyrocket.

Definitely seems to be gaining popularity. It's really the same idea as radio. If they like it, and enough people are honest, enough will buy it to make it worth while.

The Hell's Faire book is worth purchasing just to get the CD alone, having a hard copy of one of the stories on the CD is just a bonus. I also highly recommend getting the first CD, which was included with War of Honor by David Weber (http://www.baen.com/author_catalog.asp?author=dwe ber).

The formats and style is the same as you would get the Baen Free Library (http://www.baen.com/library/) and Baen's webscription service, but if you don't like reading electronic copy, use them to gauge your interest and borrow them from your local dead-tree library.

The Hell's Faire book is worth purchasing just to get the CD alone, having a hard copy of one of the stories on the CD is just a bonus. I also highly recommend getting the first CD, which was included with War of Honor by David Weber (http://www.baen.com/author_catalog.asp?author=dwe ber).

The formats and style is the same as you would get the Baen Free Library (http://www.baen.com/library/) and Baen's webscription service, but if you don't like reading electronic copy, use them to gauge your interest and borrow them from your local dead-tree library.

The Hell's Faire book is worth purchasing just to get the CD alone, having a hard copy of one of the stories on the CD is just a bonus. I also highly recommend getting the first CD, which was included with War of Honor by David Weber (http://www.baen.com/author_catalog.asp?author=dwe ber).

The formats and style is the same as you would get the Baen Free Library (http://www.baen.com/library/) and Baen's webscription service, but if you don't like reading electronic copy, use them to gauge your interest and borrow them from your local dead-tree library.

Find a better place than RIAA propaganda to get your info.

You are of course, simply wrong to the point where nothing you say about the business of music can be taken seriously. The case for every song on commercial radio being a result of payola can be considered established fact.

BTW, the major labels are all in major financial trouble, and paying for this part of promotion is part of the reason. Better cash your paycheck quickly.

No guarantee on data availability. I simply keyword-searched on my personal database on payola. If any URLs don't work, Google is even your friend. Keyword search on "payola".

http://www.salon.com/ent/feature/2002/06/25/pfp_co ngress/

http://www.salon.com/ent/feature/2002/06/25/eagle_ eye/

http://slashdot.org/articles/02/05/24/1515236.shtm l?tid=141

http://features.slashdot.org/features/01/06/05/103 4234.shtml?tid=141

http://slashdot.org/articles/02/06/25/1316255.shtm l?tid=141

http://www.latimes.com/cgi-bin/slwebcli?DBLIST=lt0 1&DOCNUM=41999&TEMPLATE=9002&DBPUB=20010529KFHQeKB S&QDesc=Logs%20Link%20Payments%20With%20Radio%20Ai rplay

I've never seen a pro-RIAA posting on Slashdot.

THAT'S WHAT THE PREVIEW BUTTON IS FOR. READ YOUR POSTS BEFORE POSTING.

There's a serious issue here concerning the rights of artists.

Only in your mind, and only in the imagination of RIAA publicists. Eminem's latest album was completely uploaded to the Net as MP3? His album went straight to #1. Please explain to him in public how his rights were violated by EVIL PIRATES.

There is NO convincing evidence anywhere that P2P displaces record sales.

As for your example, Isaac Asimov, too bad he never saw the Baen Free Library. Out of print science fiction books have been uploaded by several name authors to the library, betting that it would expand the sales of current titles. NO DRM, just zipfiles you can turn into .RTFs or html pages.

The experiment has been a success, and given Asimov's intelligence, we can be sure that if he were living today, he'd have his back-issue stuff either there or somewhere similar under his control.

Your copyright strawman doesn't cut any ice with me, I'm a published writer and have applied for more than one patent, and know far more about the law in this area than you will ever need to know. I certainly don't support getting rid of copyright.

While there are some people here who want to do away with it, most here would be content with reform, i.e. changing current law to add mandatory Internet licensing to mandatory broadcast licensing, so anyone who broadcasts via the Net for commercial purposes has to pay a royalty to songwriters, collected via Performers Rights Societies like ASCAP and BMI. (and tracked via the same people who do SoundScan)

Selling music is about promotion, and the RIAA version of the story is simply an attempt to restrict mass distribution of music promtional materials to channels like radio they can buy control of.

Thanks to your RIAA buddies, I had a hell of a time getting the music tracks of an independent artist I'm personally working with onto Kazaa for fear of attack by the thugs you either work for or even stupider, are working for free of charge.

As for your imaginary "moral obligation", our moral obligation to artists is buy from them if we like their work. We have NO moral obligation to RIAA labels and no amount of your whining can make one. Perhaps you will buy a major label record because a label ad says to. Nobody else will.

Distributing broadcast-quality tracks of an artists' work simply provides them with free promotional exposure. If you think there's something immoral about someone hearing a track off an album that a record company didn't pay for radio time or the bandwidth before, you're a dumb shit.

The Baen Free library has a number of titles available in several formats.

It's a great way to introduce readers to a series or a talented new author.

Eric Flint (and his publisher Jim Baen of Baen Books agree with you.
I agree with them - if it's a good enough book then I'll buy it (as happened with Flint), if not, I'd rather read it from the library or not read it at all. I have enought entertainment avialable (Internet+cable+games) for me not to require reading a book unless I consider it extraordinary.

-DVK

Check out Baen's web site. They not only give away free unprotected content, they end up doing better because of it. This has been covered over, and over and over again.

The thing that strikes me most about this article is not the fact that ebooks have gone no-where, but the reason why. As the one linked article states they were trying to lock everyone into their content only. Anyone with a clue could ahve told you this wasnt going to end well, unless you had the sun and the moon and the stars to offer.

Well, I wouldn't say that that ebooks have gone nowhere. There are a few publishers out there who are selling ebooks the right way - no encryption schemes, multiple formats, and for less than the cost of a paperback. One place I know of that does this is Baen Books, and they even have a free library of over 40 books you can download and read. It's even getting to the point where they are distributing CDs with some of the new books they are selling. The CDs contain ebooks, along with other content such as audio books and images.

Now only if all the other companies would learn...

1. I can read ebooks while I eat a sandwich. Sounds minor, but really, I like to read while I eat lunch, and a PDA stays open and flat and changing the page is trivial.

2. I can read them in the dark- in the car at night (when somebody *else* is driving, of course) or in bed without bothering my wife.

3. I can fit several ebook novels in my pocket. This means that I can have a book with me wherever I go. I can read a book standing in line at McDonald's, or at the bank, or while I'm sitting in the car waiting for my wife to come out of work.

4. They're cheaper. You can get a lot of books, especially classic literature, for free, and even current, popular ebooks cost less, so I can read more for less money. On the downside, if you don't have a PDA already you have to buy some kind of a reader.

5. I can download the sequel to a book I like at any time. At bookstores I used to buy books 1 and 2 or 1, 2, and 3 of a series I like, but now I buy just the first one online, and if I like it I can download #2 and have it in less than a minute if I liked the first one.

6. I can get back-order or out-of-print books more easily. Regular bookstores nessarily have limited space. Buying paper books online requires me to wait until they arrive in the mail.

So while they're not perfect, I find that I read ebook novels more and more and paper ones less and less.

As for copy protection and book formats, you can buy a lot of ebooks with no protection at all in any of multiple formats. Check out http://www.baen.com or http://www.fictionwise.com for examples- that's where I buy many of my ebooks.

The next step will probably be to get the combo cellphone/palm device like the treo.

The e-book reader, since it can only do e-books, is just an extra piece of stuff to carry. If I were to do that, I might as well go all the way and carry a real book for the ultimate in video quality.

-- There are 10 kinds of people in the world, those who understand binary, and those who don't.

Plain ascii text isn't too bad, if you only write in English, and you don't want your text to look nice on tiny PDA screens.

But sensibly-done "plain" HTML is generally better. For an example, look at Baen.com. In the upper right is a "free" link that points to a bunch of sci-fi works that are online. You can get them in several formats. The HTML is a good choice in most cases, because it's not overly fancy, but produces good rendering in just about any HTML-capable window on any size screen.

So, even if you have a big screen, you can load the text into a narrow window along one side of your screen, and read it while you're waiting for a compile or a test run.

Of course, there's the inevitable problem of junk HTML produced by such things as Microsoft's various editors and word processors. But this isn't HTML's fault; it's the fault of the idiots who foisted such software on unsuspecting customers. And even then, most HTML renderers will display it sensible, so the only real problem it causes is the long download time for all the spurious junk that clutters up the text.

(Baen.com also had a thoughtful and entertaining essay on why they give out a lot of their books for free. It's an interesting summary of the impact of the Internet from an author's and a publisher's perspective.)

Mass pirating in Asia asside, why not look at this from another direction?

Instead of being sad when a person who "happens" to get a copy somehow phones with questions, I would be happy, thrilled even, to have a potential new customer who would probably otherwise never have heard of me or even considered buying my stuff!!!

As an indenpendant publisher, your biggest obstacle is probably obscurity, not piracy. The occasional 'casual' copy exchanged from friend to friend is the best advertising your going to get without having to pay for it.

As it happens, this topic gets lots of discussion on the baen web boards. Jim has about as much experience with e-publishing of fiction as anyone else, and has strong views about what works in the "real world" to make money.

No, I think you misunderstood me. You said:

> ...I'd probably get a Sony CLIE, because they have
> the biggest screen.

And I responded that I own one and they are much smaller than most Palms. The largest screen I'm aware of is the HandSpring Visor. I got one for my wife and the things are HUGE. I added the qualifier about the resolution just in case I did misunderstand you.

> I want something about the size of a paperback
> book, so I can comfortably read books on it.

Actually, if you read my other post on this topic, I stated that I use my SJ20 primarily for reading. I liked using my SJ20 so much, that I've close to sworn off paper books. The Sony CLIEs are especially nice for reading because they fit in your palm well (the one that's part of your hand), you can change pages with a slight movement (thanks to the scroll wheel), and the high resolution means that the words are easy to read whether you choose a small font or a large font. (I have eye-strain, so I usually use a large font. Much easier for me to read. The small font is very nice for most readers tho.)

My primary reader is MobiPocket, and I get a lot of books from Baen. Go read "On Basilisk Station" and "Mutineer's Moon" from their free library. If you like them, buy the "War of Honor" book with the CD of the entire series, and purchase the collected Dahak series (Mutineer's Moon and two others) for 5 dollars from their WebScription service. The collection is called "Empire from the Ashes".