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The arguments for a very short copyright were all out there in 1841, in a powerful speech to the British House of Commons by Thomas Babington Macaulay:
http://www.baen.com/library/palaver4.htm

Every single argument is still valid today.

You mean like this one http://www.baen.com/library/ ?

That seems to be some sort of mix. First book that caught my attention I can't even buy let alone read online ... The possible free books appear to be a very small subset and the books that are listed as "Baen Books" are closer to what I'm talking about but the selection is small and the topic is very narrow (sci-fi fantasy?).

Rainbow's End isn't published by Baen, it's published by Tor Books. I'm presuming some sort of agreement between the companies came apart resulting in the book being made unavailable (Though Tor does ebooks and have stated they're going DRM-free starting this year). Not sure why they'd leave it listed though.

Baen isn't exactly a huge publisher. They have about 40 or so authors.

Also, sci-fi/fantasy is all they do.

You mean like this one http://www.baen.com/library/ ?

That seems to be some sort of mix. First book that caught my attention I can't even buy let alone read online ... The possible free books appear to be a very small subset and the books that are listed as "Baen Books" are closer to what I'm talking about but the selection is small and the topic is very narrow (sci-fi fantasy?).

Thanks for demonstrating goodwill in this exact situation to counter the OP's "seriously?" comment.

There's only ever been a few cases I've found out of hundreds where music has been discontinued on Bandcamp and the one instance I know of is a French band Malajube ... even bands like fun. that "graduate" to big labels keep their first releases up on Bandcamp.

Baen Publishing has been DRM free for its ebooks for more than a decade. And even gives some books away free via the Baen Free Library. Here are Eric Flint's arguments for that model from 2000: http://www.baen.com/library/intro.asp DRM free texts from Baen have encouraged me to try authors I may not have otherwise and Flint, Ringo and Weber are all authors whose hard back books I've purchased after I've started reading a series via their ebooks. In fact, in the case of those 3 authors I tend to own both the physical & ebook version of each of thier books. I refuse to purchase either Apple or Amazon players/readers because I want to own the books and music I purchase, not pay for just a license to use as long as those corporations maintain servers to authorize my access. I have moved my ebook purchases from Baen across 5 personal computers running different versions of Windows & Linux, across 3 different portable reading platforms Palm Vx, Windows mobile & now Android.

You mean like this one http://www.baen.com/library/ ?

Murray Leinster wrote a short story about the internet way back in 1946: A Logic Named Joe (full text). In Leinster's story, the internet was censored from the beginning, and Joe, a "logic" (a PC) had a manufacturinig fault that removed the censorship, with all the bad things TMI bring.

Looks like Baen has it right. http://www.baen.com/library/intro.asp

This is why at least three quarters of my ebook purchases are from Baen. They price their regular books fairly reasonably, "hardback" books are about $10 than list price, and when they come out in paperback they're about $2-3 off the list price. And for a lot of books if you're willing to pay a small premium they'll let you get the ARC version ("Advance Reader Copy") before the publication date. They also do monthly bundles of books, five or more books packaged together for the price of two or three books, well worth it if you know you really want at least two of the books in the bundle. Plus they have a free library that will let you try out a large number of books for free (in the hopes that you'll buy more books from that author later of course) and their books are DRM free, because they understand that piracy isn't a real problem.

Hopefully if Baen continues to do well eventually the big publishers will learn from their example.

You can get the ebook from the Baen Free Library. Free to download, no DRM, and 100% legal.

Read this a long time ago and just recently figured out what the title was.. not sure where you would find it though. Full of Unix puns.

Baen Books.
Get it as a free download, or read it online. You can probably convince them to accept your money, too.
Baen does eBooks RIGHT.
http://www.baen.com/library/0671878468/0671878468.htm

I always enjoyed Schmitz's The Witches of Karres. Courtesy of Baen Books, you can read the first few chapters for free here

Baen Books also maintains a library of free book, Baen Free Library. I say this is worth a look.

Randall Garrett is now best remembered for his Lord Darcy stories (which are great; if you haven't read them, check them out). But one of the best things he ever wrote was a novel called Unwise Child.

There are action scenes, there are geeky science-fiction ideas, there is a bit of sleuthing. The main character is "Mike the Angel", a genius who designs spaceship engines and likes to build gadgets. There's a robot named "Snookums" who... knows too much about hydrogen. There is an overall logic to the plot that isn't obvious as you are reading but makes sense when you reach the end. There is a love interest, a lady scientist who is every bit as brilliant as Mike but in a completely different field. And there is a bunch of lovely writing and snappy dialog, as smart people banter with each other. I think I have re-read this novel over a dozen times, and I'm not done with it yet.

And lucky you, it is one of the works that is actually in the public domain. (It was written when the author had to renew a copyright after a fixed term to keep the copyright, and Garrett never renewed it.) So go and grab your copy here:

http://www.feedbooks.com/book/1957/unwise-child

You might also find a paperback edition published under the name Starship Death. Since the book was public domain, there was nothing stopping anyone from publishing it under a different title, and someone did.

P.S. If you haven't read the Lord Darcy stories, you can get them in ebook form (any format you like, and with no DRM) from Baen. The stories are collected in a single omnibus volume simply called Lord Darcy and it includes every story Garrett wrote. They are detective stories, set in an alternate-history Earth where magic was developed instead of the science we have; much of Europe and all of North and South America are united into the "Anglo-French Empire" and the rival superpower, the Polish Empire, is often causing trouble. The best stories work both as detective stories and as a glimpse into another world. You can read the first two stories as a preview; if your tastes are anything like mine, you will want to buy the book after you read these.

http://www.baen.com/chapters/W200207/0743435486.htm

steveha

I mean, think of what really inspired generation X. I don't think it was just the prospect of having a chance to sit in a cramped capsule in orbit for two days, and even that chance being lower than being hit by lightning.

GenXers were very small children when we reached the moon. Armstrong is of my dad's generation, Korea War vets. Boomers flew the shuttles.

Star Wars and its sequels are what excited GenX.

Even robots are not what we dreamed they would be. Instead of cool HK-47 style androids at the bank teller, we have the more logical thing of a box with a screen and a keypad. Instead of robotic vendors, we have the more logical vending machines. And instead of having a robot copilot, you just have an autopilot AI, because it would be stupid to build a humanoid frame where just a few chips will do the same job better. And instead of C3PO style protocol droids, we have cell phones with translator apps, or just a browser to point to Google translation.

And instead of "Logics" we have PCs and the internet... and phones and the internet.

And if you think for two seconds, you're not going to meet any hot green babes, Romulans, Vulcans, or anybody else that even remotely resembles Homo Sapiens. I've written a little SF on that subject myself.

Nobody gets the future right. Nobody!

There's probably too much pigeonholing. I'd say a story published in 1946 in Astounding Science Fiction is SF (here's the story). It is speculative and concerns sociology, and although it has to do with technology (it's the only pre-internet story I saw about the internet unless you count Asimov's Multivac), it's not scientific at all.

OTOH, LOTR which came out about the same time is certainly not SF!

As to "too popularized", what writer would say that? I would think any writer would want to be as popular as he possibly could! Could it have been a case of sour grapes?

According to the fellows you're talking about, much of Asimov's fiction wasn't SF. The Elijia Baily trilogy, for example, are simply murder mysteries set in a dystopian future; pure sociology. And R. Daneel Olivaw's "positronic brain" (as well as Asimov's other robots, and Star Trek's Data) certainly isn't any more "science" than Star Wars' "mitichlorians" or Bilbo's magic ring.

Uhhhh - a lot of people distribute their work both free, and for a fee. http://www.baen.com/library/intro.asp

In fact, the idea that free copies of your work will "undermine sales" is so terribly misguided - I wonder if you've been studying economics at RIAA University.

I didn't even have to read TFA to know it's utter bullshit. How about some past predictions?

• In 1876 a prescient fellow predicted a horroble ecological disaster 100 years in the future -- we'd all be up to our waists in horse shit.
• Flying cars
• Household robot maids

In 1869, who could have possibly predicted that we would land on the moon in a hundred years? In 1845 who could have predicted the electronic computer? In 1850 who would have predicted television? Before I was born in 1952, who could have predicted the internet (except for Murray Leinster)? Who could have predicted that by now, a computer a thousand times more powerful than the biggest three story monster in existance would fit in your pocket? Who predicted cell phones? VCRs, let alone DVDs?

When I was twenty there's no way you would have convinced me that when I was 50 I would have an implant giving my very nearsighted self better than 20-20 vision. Nobody even predicted LASIK. Carbon nanotubes. The list goes on.

In fact, very little of what was ever predicted ever came to pass, and what actually became reality was never predicted.

So when I see a story about what the next century will be like, I just laugh at people's gullibility. You young folks will be amazed at what they come up with, and little or none of it will have been predicted.

"Futurologist," LOL! Where can I get my PhD in "futurology"? Maybe the same place as a PhD in phrenology? What did the duck say when you asked who these guys were? The duck was right!

Baen books are copyrighted, yes, but they also provide free downloads of some of their books online ( http://www.baen.com/library/ ). No DRM, no black box. You can get them in many formats. For example, the Honor harrington series, most of the books are available free online or on a CD that Baen produced and distributed (again, no DRM).

I think this is what gweihir was referring to.

Baen has it, it appears. I'm not sure if this is the full text.

A logic named Joe

"I am so sensible, Sir, of the kindness with which the House has listened to me, that I will not detain you longer. 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. On which side indeed should the public sympathy be when the question is whether some book as popular as Robinson Crusoe, or the Pilgrim's Progress, shall be in every cottage, or whether it shall be confined to the libraries of the rich for the advantage of the great-grandson of a bookseller who, a hundred years before, drove a hard bargain for the copyright with the author when in great distress? Remember too that, when once it ceases to be considered as wrong and discreditable to invade literary property, no person can say where the invasion will stop. The public seldom makes nice distinctions. The wholesome copyright which now exists will share in the disgrace and danger of the new copyright which you are about to create. And you will find that, in attempting to impose unreasonable restraints on the reprinting of the works of the dead, you have, to a great extent, annulled those restraints which now prevent men from pillaging and defrauding the living. If I saw, Sir, any probability that this bill could be so amended in the Committee that my objections might be removed, I would not divide the House in this stage. But I am so fully convinced that no alteration which would not seem insupportable to my honourable and learned friend, could render his measure supportable to me, that I must move, though with regret, that this bill be read a second time this day six months."

A SPEECH DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS ON THE 5TH OF FEBRUARY 1841

by Thomas Babington Macaulay

http://www.baen.com/library/palaver4.htm

We're starting to see the mass disrespect and outright rejection and breakdown of law and order because the laws are not (intended to be) in the public interest.

The law fought the public interest and the law lost.

If it's OK for the media lobbies to steal our public domain works from us in perpetuity, then by all means let's even the score.

Once more into the breach for Baron Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1841 & 1842:

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.

You'll find a commentary on the first speech with references on Kuro5hin.

And in a final bit of irony you can buy these 160 year old public-domain speeches printed in a paperback book for $21.24 from Amazon.com. So there is even no need for long onerous copyright if there's profit to be made in public domain works.

No, the actual crux is the rule of law.

The rule of law requires the law to be respectable. It ceased to be so when it became for sale for the highest bidder. Trying to substitute fear for respect simply makes the law from disrespectable to outright despicable, making breaking and helping others break it at every opportunity not only acceptable but in fact a moral duty.

None of this is exactly news, but I guess that those with an authoritarian bent simply can't accept that there are limits to every form of power.

I also found 'Inherit the Stars' to be a good read.

For the curious, 'Inherit the Stars' is available for free at the Baen Free Library, and the rest of the series is available for purchase from Baen for $4-$6.00 USD for each book.

Also check out 'Mutineer's Moon' (Dahak series) for another interesting premise, also free at the Baen Free Library.

You can try to read a book. A real book. A fiction book.

Holy crap! I have never in my life done that before! I had no idea such a thing was even possible!

(Or, just maybe I load them onto my phone. And save the dead-tree stuff for bedside at home.)

Thats a mighty wide brush you're using in describing all publishers as only being involved in the production side of book creation & thus useless in the ebook world.
Some publishers are much more helpful to their authors and actively participate in the creative process. Jim Baen comes to mind, who has nurtured many authors to greater success. Baen was also a forerunner in making part of their book catalogue available free for download in a number of formats: http://www.baen.com/library/

Rather than spending time tracking down and digging up citations to bolster the TFS and 'parents' claim, I will point you to an easy to read sane argument put forth by a prominent Sci-Fi author from the Baen Books stable, Eric Flint:

Baen Books is now making available â" for free â" a number of its titles in electronic format. We're calling it the Baen Free Library. Anyone who wishes can read these titles online â" no conditions, no strings attached. (Later we may ask for an extremely simple, name & email only, registration. ) Or, if you prefer, you can download the books in one of several formats. Again, with no conditions or strings attached. (URLs to sites which offer the readers for these format are also listed. )

Why are we doing this? Well, for two reasons.

The first is what you might call a "matter of principle." This all started as a byproduct of an online "virtual brawl" I got into with a number of people, some of them professional SF authors, over the issue of online piracy of copyrighted works and what to do about it.

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!

Alles in ordnung![...]

1. Online piracy â" while it is definitely illegal and immoral â" is, as a practical problem, nothing more than (at most) a nuisance. We're talking brats stealing chewing gum, here, not the Barbary Pirates.

2. 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.

3. Any cure which relies on tighter regulation of the market â" especially the kind of extreme measures being advocated by some people â" is far worse than the disease. As a widespread phenomenon rather than a nuisance, piracy occurs when artificial restrictions in the market jack up prices beyond what people think are reasonable. The "regulation-enforcement-more regulation" strategy is a bottomless pit which continually recreates (on a larger scale) the problem it supposedly solves. And that commercial effect is often compounded by the more general damage done to social and political freedom.

My own experience backs this up.

I have spent more on books since I heard about the Baen Free Library (here on /.) about 10-12 years ago, than I have since college days (about 25 years ago...49 books [USD $274] in the past 3 years). *Disclaimer: Baen Books deals with predominately Sc-Fi and Fantasy.*
Anecdote....yes, but I've seen this same pattern displayed frequently in family, friends, acquaintances, and occasionally with random strangers.

Get them exposed/introduced to the artist's works, and if they find it interesting enough, they will pull out their wallets if the price is right, or close enough to the right price.

And the right price will vary between individuals.
*[re: above anecdote]*
You might think that I...:
a) ...paid a ridiculous price for that garbage.
b)....paid about what it's worth.
c)....received a bargain.
d)....any point between any two of the above.
* FINE PRINT: YMMV, depending on preferences/interests.*

I would suggest that you read all of Eric Flint's short essay (quoted excerpt above) for the POV of author/artist and publisher.

BTW, I can recommend Eric Flint's works, along with:
Catherine Asaro, David Drak

I post this link at every opportunity. All authors and publishers should read this, and give it serious thought. DRM is the stupidest thing since the square wheel!

http://www.baen.com/library/default.asp

Most of my eBook purchases are from Baen. Cheap prices, free books, any format you could want, and no DRM? What's not to like?

For those who are curious about the "free books" part, Jim Baen and his authors discovered that giving away the first book or two in a series actually increased sales, and ended up putting a huge number of their books up for free download. And by "free" I mean "just like ones you pay for, DRM-free in all formats." Their free library's site can be found here:

http://www.baen.com/library/default.asp

And the books themselves can be downloaded from here (and also indirectly at the above link):

http://www.webscription.net/c-1-free-library.aspx

This sort of behaviour from content creators and publishers should be rewarded, so go check out some of the free books. There's so many to choose from, from so many authors, you're bound to find something you like! And if this post reads like an advertisement, well, I think they deserve it.

if the human race can not make life great on this planet then living in space where being even more efficient and much more benevolent is required to survive will never succeed.

humans are just inherently too stupid and greedy to survive for generations in some space ship or artificial planetoid type thing considering the track record we've made here on earth.

On the other hand, if being not-stupid and not-greedy actually is necessary for sustainable life, how long do you think it will take for the stupid/greedy people to hit the airlocks?

The stupids should actually self-select for attrition, whereas the greedy will most likely be selected as attrition candidates by others.

References:
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, by Robert Heinlein
Freehold, by Michael Z Williamson

Beware, shameless plugs ahead (and they're not even my companies):

Williamson's book (along with many others) is available for FREE at the Baen Free Library! This is a publisher who embraces "piracy" as advertisement (the way it should be!).
Enjoy your free SciFi/Fantasy binge. Ya don't even have to tell 'em I sent ya, and I don't think I would get anything if you did.

Also, if you purchase one of their books in hardback, you get a legally copyable CD full of eBooks along with it - check your local library, the CDs inside are excellent.

I recommend Aldiko for eBook reading on Android, and Calibre on Windows/Mac/Linux.
Sorry, I don't use iOS - so I don't know what reader you would need for that.

A number of Libraries offer Overdrive, which lets you download up to 7 books for 21 days. http://www.overdrive.com/

Then there is the http://www.baen.com/library/

So the digital ebook libraries are already here. This Amazon thing is just a gimmick to help drive Kindle sales. I'll stick with my Nook and be able to read every format of ebooks besides the Kindle's proprietary format, nor do I need to worry about someone deciding to lock me out of my books.

http://www.baen.com/library/

1. Online piracy — while it is definitely illegal and immoral — is, as a practical problem, nothing more than (at most) a nuisance. We're talking brats stealing chewing gum, here, not the Barbary Pirates.

2. 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.

3. Any cure which relies on tighter regulation of the market — especially the kind of extreme measures being advocated by some people — is far worse than the disease. As a widespread phenomenon rather than a nuisance, piracy occurs when artificial restrictions in the market jack up prices beyond what people think are reasonable. The "regulation-enforcement-more regulation" strategy is a bottomless pit which continually recreates (on a larger scale) the problem it supposedly solves. And that commercial effect is often compounded by the more general damage done to social and political freedom.

Baen Free Library http://www.baen.com/library/defaultTitles.htm

I can't agree with the premise of TFA, although I agree with your "hopes and fears". As a teenager in the '60s the 21st century was science fiction, and it's here -- and more and better than the writers imagined. Take Star Trek; I was 14 when it came on the air. Doors that opened by themselves, flat screen voice activated computers, communicators, McCoy's sick bay were all fantasies that we'd never see in our lifetimes. Now every supermarket door opens by itself, Windows comes with voice activation "out of the box" (granted, it has to be quiet for it to work) and if anybody told me that one day I'd own my own computer I'd think they were crazy. Your computer and TV have flat screens, your cell phone far surpasses Kirk's quaint communicator, and as I hinted at in a journal entry about a friend's hospital stay, McCoy would be jealous of a modern hospital. In STII McCoy gave Kirk reading glasses, I have an implant in my left eye that gives me better than 20/20 vision at all distances.

Cyborgs were science fiction. Today, because of that implant, I am a cyborg! So are most people my age.

They had jet packs in the '60s. There's a flying car ready to hit the market; a hybrid carplane that will be on sale next year. Death rays? Got 'em. Stand in front of the wrong military radar antenna and you're cooked like a hot pocket. Phasers? Nope, we have tasers.

We've gone WAY past what was predicted. Take the internet, for example -- nobody forsaw that. The closest anybody came was Murray Leinster's 1946 short story A Logic Named Joe (full text linked).

I live in a science fiction world! I envy you young people. You can't possibly imagine what you're going to see in your lifetime.

These aren't for retired people, they're the (formerly) annual statements sent to workers listing their expected benefits based on previous FICA taxes paid.

I generally find for pure escapist fiction, I prefer Baen.

Anyone up for retirement more than ten years out better have arranged their own finances.

They're just games, so don't buy them. There are far, far better ways to spend your time.

They're just games, so don't buy them. There are far, far better ways to get them.

Well, it's only been 170 years. I'm sure game developers get the memo any day now. Not that it matters to me, since I nowadays get most of my games from Steam, it being convenient and having a lot of cheap ones - however, a "third-party DRM" is a deal-breaker.

No need to drop ebooks altogether, simply support the ebookstores that sell DRM-free ebooks.

A great example of this is Baen Books. They jumped on the ebook bandwagon quite early on and actually took it a step beyond selling books: They offer a lot of them completely free. Eric Flint pushed for this and convinced Baen it was a great idea. The Baen Free Library introduction is written by him and describes the reasons behind the whole movement (the BFL came online back in late 2000, definitely not a late-comer).

They have continued to uphold the DRM-free ideals and offer their ebooks in many different formats. The Free library project offers many books and new ones get added all the time. The financial idea is pretty simple: If you give away the first (or more) books in a series you've written... if they don't suck, folks will want to buy the rest of the series and a good percentage will buy the original ones simply to support an author who has the temerity to do such a thing as sell books without DRM.

At any rate, take a look at the project. The purchases are done via Webscriptions. I'm a long time supporter of them, but have no affiliation.

No need to drop ebooks altogether, simply support the ebookstores that sell DRM-free ebooks.

A great example of this is Baen Books. They jumped on the ebook bandwagon quite early on and actually took it a step beyond selling books: They offer a lot of them completely free. Eric Flint pushed for this and convinced Baen it was a great idea. The Baen Free Library introduction is written by him and describes the reasons behind the whole movement (the BFL came online back in late 2000, definitely not a late-comer).

They have continued to uphold the DRM-free ideals and offer their ebooks in many different formats. The Free library project offers many books and new ones get added all the time. The financial idea is pretty simple: If you give away the first (or more) books in a series you've written... if they don't suck, folks will want to buy the rest of the series and a good percentage will buy the original ones simply to support an author who has the temerity to do such a thing as sell books without DRM.

At any rate, take a look at the project. The purchases are done via Webscriptions. I'm a long time supporter of them, but have no affiliation.

Eric Flint explains why Baen Books gives away free electronic versions of some of its books.

I generally buy my eBooks from WebScription, which is mostly Baen SciFi, or FictionWise, which is everything else. Both are much cheaper than Amazon and both offer non-DRM'd books, often in multiple formats. Sure, their site design is not as snazy as Amazon or Kobo or even Diesel, but I can find what I want and get it at a reasonable cost with no DRM most of the time.

I started with Kobo, but, at one point, I bought a book listed as "mobile", which I assumed was suitable for an eBook reader in a venue without WiFi, but discovered that, by "mobile", they meant online. Even though I hadn't read a page, they wouldn't refund my money, so I looked elsewhere, discovered WebScription and FictionWise and haven't looked back. Both are, not only cheaper than Amazon, but also generally cheaper than Kobo as an added benefit.

This was always the paradox of ebooks. By every measure, ebooks should have the first thing that easily came to the computer. Files sizes were small and text was one of the first things reasonably conquered by computers. In the early days, sound cards were necessary to play music, video files were just goddamned intensive.... and yet as a medium, books came last after everything else.

Personally, I lay that at the feet of device design.

A paper book, requires no batteries, works in a wide range of light conditions, can be traded / loaned without technical issues (other then language), easy random access and bookmarking / highlighting / notes in the margin, etc.

Other things like music & movies/TV always required technology in some shape or form unless it was a live performance. They are also passive (watching a movie / TV show) or background activities (as music often is).

So for electronic books to take off, you need a device that is easy to use, easy to read, and has most of the same advantages as a dead-tree book. It turned out that cell phone / smart phone / Palm screens were too small or too expensive for most people. Not many people like to have a laptop in their lap or sit at a desk to read for long periods either. Very few electronic screens (other then pure B&W crystal LCDs from the 90s) were readable in bright sunlight. Or the devices that were designed as book readers were priced over $500 which is too expensive for most.

I picked up a Sony eReader about 3 years ago and immediately fell in love with it for fiction/leisure reading (cover-to-cover, very little random access). And device prices have dropped drastically since then which helps with mass market uptake. Now we just have to wait for the format wars to settle out and for a format to come to the foreground like MP3 did for audio. That probably be ePub which is the most open of the formats.

(Baen has been a good corporate citizen in all this. Decent prices, no DRM, and a variety of formats.)

I'm just gonna download the entire Baen Library, reformat it and send it to DARPA.

Profit!

Oh, you mean like Baen. And they only charge less for some books - others they give you for free and have found that it increases their sales for related books. Oh and on some of their newer hardcover books they've been including a CD with DRM free share-with-your-friends-requested ebooks of all the previous books in the series (i.e. Cryoburn of Bujold's Vorkosigan adventures).

Ultimately it'll be the market which decides how this plays out, but I know where I'm going to vote with my dollars.

I think the inevitable end result of ad-supported e-Books is subtle (or not so subtle) product placements inserted into books. I can't wait until "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times" becomes a product placement for Timex, and Tom Sawyer takes a refreshing sip of Coca-cola as he rafts down the Mississippi.

Well it is already being done. The site wowio offers some of its books for free with ads placed in the books. They also have comic books with the same formula. I'm sure it will expand a bit and it often can work well if it is the first in a series. Baen has done similar, though no ads in theirs. In that case the Author chose for particular books to be free and Baen was fine with it. I'm sure that publishers will come up with other interesting ideas to get more people reading.

They don't say you can't. According to this introduction to their free library:

"I don't know any author, other than a few who are — to speak bluntly — cretins, who hears about people lending his or her books to their friends, or checking them out of a library, with anything other than pleasure. Because they understand full well that, in the long run, what maintains and (especially) expands a writer's audience base is that mysterious magic we call: word of mouth."

If you like science fiction, I suggest you take a look at Baen Books. There is no DRM at all on any of their ebooks and they even offer a selection of their ebooks completely free of charge. They offer the free library so you can find out for yourself whether or not you'll like a particular author and hopefully buy their other works. It's not completely clear from their website but they keep track of your purchases and let you re-download them whenever you need to. They've clearly got the right policies to earn my business.

Baen's has free online reading copies of some of the stuff they publish.

Here's their view of the Baen's Free Library. I quote:

Jim Baen and I set up the Free Library about a year and half ago. Leaving aside the various political and philosophical issues, which I've addressed elsewhere, the premise behind the Library had a practical component as well. In brief, that in relative terms an author will gain, not lose, by having titles in the Library. What I mean by "relative" is simply this: overall, an author is far more likely to increase sales than to lose them. Or, to put it more accurately, exposure in the Library will generate more sales than it will lose.

As a practical proposition, the theory behind the Free Library is that, certainly in the long run, it benefits an author to have a certain number of free or cheap titles of theirs readily available to the public. By far the main enemy any author faces, except a handful of ones who are famous to the public at large, is simply obscurity. Even well-known SF authors are only read by a small percentage of the potential SF audience. Most readers, even ones who have heard of the author, simply pass them up.

Why? In most cases, simply because they don't really know anything about the writer and aren't willing to spend $7 to $28 just to experiment. So, they keep buying those authors they are familiar with.

...

Making one or a few titles of an author's writings available for free electronically in the Free Library seems to have no other impact, certainly over time, than to increase that author's general audience recognition-and thereby, indirectly if not directly, the sales of his or her books.

It's worth reading the full article, btw.

No, Baen are the only ones who get it. No DRM and available in multiple formats, right down to RTF.

. It's not all unknown authors too. Sometimes an author will plan a trilogy and make the first volume available free so that he will interest you in buying the other volumes. Sometimes a publisher Baen Free Library will do the same.

I have over 400 books in my Kindle WiFi right now, some have been bought at Amazon, some free from Amazon and the rest free from other sites. I guess I am part of the phenomenon because it makes sense to me

If it blows tomorrow, The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy will soon be confusing.

That's the trouble with science fiction; it often goes out of date rather quickly. A couple of cases in point -- Star Trek IV had McCoy giving Kirk a pair of antique reading glasses, and about ten years later they developed the CrystaLens. McCoy could have simply transported Kirk's real lenses out and beamed a pair of cybernetics in. TNG had an episode about a mathematical mystery that's 200 years old now, and it was solved a year or two after the episode aired. Asimov's Multivac is quaint, and Murray Leinster's 1946 A Logic Named Joe , prescient though it was, was aghast at the thought of an uncensored internet.

If it blows tomorrow it'll be 600 years before we see it. If it blew 600 years ago, I'd certainly want to watch.

In all fairness, one of the reasons there's such a low piracy rate on Baen's books is that they are free to distribute as long as you don't charge for them

Baen on their own website has many first books in series available: http://www.baen.com/library/

Also, they've released CD's of books in many of their hardcovers over the years, with a license that allows copying, including online. One site that has them available is http://baencd.thefifthimperium.com/

The only versions of their books that are electronically available and not allowed to be distributed are the ones purchased at http://www.webscription.net/

I'd like to know your literature examples of people that it has worked for.

I don't have a ready answer/link to that one. From memory it is writers offering custom variations for a fee - if enough readers pony up the money the writer will expand on what happens with minor characters. Just go time to dash off some quick responses then I need to sleep - I'll dig through my bookmarks and references in a couple of days and post the links here.

Here's a publishing company offering some free downloads as part of their business model.

Having since listened to the Radiohead album in question (In Rainbows) they might have done better if the album wasn't so bad.

Bittorrent alone won't work - I agree. Something fan based that reviews and points at bittorrents might be useful - I'm thinking of the sort of photocopied music mags that used to get dropped off at pubs around the Sydney Indie scene.

Yes - I think a published "target" might help - even an ego type board posting messages and/or donators names.

With movies - product placement'd be interesting - given the small budget Pioneer One was made with. And actors could be very cheap - most NIDA graduates'd jump at the chance to work in a production that would get a large audience.