Tim O'Reilly Says Piracy is Progressive Taxation

Idmat writes "In Tim's latest opus, he reflects on the lessons of his experience as a publisher: (1) Obscurity is a far greater threat to authors and creative artists than piracy, (2) Piracy is progressive taxation; (3) Customers want to do the right thing, if they can; (4)Shoplifting is a bigger threat than piracy; (5) File sharing networks don't threaten book, music, or film publishing. They threaten existing publishers; (6)"Free" is eventually replaced by a higher-quality paid service; and finally, courtesy of Larry Wall, (7)There's more than one way to do it. "

Comments

WRONG!:Piracy is GOOD

[zensonic]

Am I the only one feeling that moral is a thing of the past? Piracy is wrong, period! While everyone agrees, that you don't steal from poor people, people are starting to go like:

"Company A has XXX Millions dollars, so they won't mind/feel the impact, bla bla".

Wrong! Morally you're not allowed to steal from rich people either. If you have some problems with a CD containing one good song and the rest is utterly bad, boycot the music company for producing crap. If you think movie XYZ is to expensive in the cinema, boycot the movie industry. If you've got something against a corporation, boycot them. Do not turn yourself into a pirate. It's just entertainment for Gods sake, you can easily live without.

Re:WRONG!:Piracy is GOOD

[GMontag451]

Robin Hood wasn't real; it's a legend.

And? Most heros are mythical, so what? The fact that they are considered heros can still tell you a lot about a population's moral values.

Morals are not "set by the population".

Really? So everyone everywhere has the exact same moral values? Wow, what an amazing discovery!</sarcasm>

There are a few values that all populations have, such as it is wrong to kill without sufficient reason, but thats just because they couldn't survive without those. Other than that, populations range widely on the values they hold.

Taxes have nothing to do with theft.

They sure look similar to me. Both are forcible losses of wealth, and in the case of the poor stealing from the rich, both are redistributions of wealth from the rich to the poor, which helps the good of the majority.

Cease and Desist letters, O'Reilly style

[God! Awful 2]

O'Reilly is a suck up who makes money by telling /. readers exactly what they want to hear. It's a win-win situation, 'cause the readers can support him by buying his books on their employers' dime (I have witnessed plenty of this). If he wasn't a hyprocrite, he'd put his money where his mouth is and release his books under the GPL.

Out of curiosity, does anyone have a copy of one of the "polite" cease and desist letters that he sends to websites that pirate his material? I bet it goes something like this:

Dear so-and-so:

I notice you have an illegal copy of my book up on your website. I just wanted to let you know that selling books is my livelihood and I'd really appreciate it if you'd take it down. I'm not going to sue you or anything if you don't, but it would make me happy. If you don't feel like supporting me, perhaps you could encourage everyone who downloads the book to donate $5 to an obscure author of their choice.

Thanks,
Timmmy

-a