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Novelist Blames Piracy On Open Source Culture
joeflies writes "CNN published an article entitled 'Digital Piracy Hits the e-Book Industry.' It quotes the following statement by novelist Sherman Alexie: 'With the open-source culture on the Internet, the idea of ownership — of artistic ownership — goes away. It terrifies me.'"
The article also points out a couple of interesting statistics for a "slumping" industry beset by piracy: "Sales for digital books in the second quarter of 2009 totaled almost $37 million. That's more than three times the total for the same three months in 2008, according to the Association of American Publishers," and "consumers who purchase an e-reader buy more books than those who stick with traditional bound volumes. Amazon reports that Kindle owners buy, on average, 3.1 times as many books on the site as other customers."
from someone that doesn't understand technology?
Maybe if the consumer didn't feel ripped off, exploited, and raped by every business and company they have to deal with we'd be more receptive and less possessive of whatever goods we happen to come across. Half the damn stuff in my house I don't really own, I license or lease or rent it or whatever. Damn right I like the idea of open source and control.
Almost every aspect of open source/creative commons etc. requires attribution, and even pirates don't bother removing credits. Your 'artistic ownership' goes nowhere.
It's simple: don't offer your unfounded opinion.
Clearly people pirate books they wouldn't have bought... I know one kid who has like 4000 ebooks, he's probably read two of. Also, making them "more" digitized doesn't matter. When there's one digital copy, there's 10,000,000. They are right about one thing, making them easier to buy (and part of easier means less copy protection) will mean they will sell more.
Just look how iTunes completely stopped selling anything when they started offering non-copy-protected books - oh wait, they didn't.
I just checked the kindle store; He has five books available there.
I then checked amazon.com and found pages and pages of paper books of his.
Now, why would people pirate his books?
Perhaps because they aren't legally available in ebook format?
There's really no critique of open source here. He said "open source," but he's just throwing the term around without knowing what "open source culture" is. He clearly means something along the lines of "peer-to-peer" culture.
--I'm so big, my sig has its own sig.
-- See?
ebook readers buy more paper books than other readers, and this is a suprise ?
Someone who is willing to spend 200-400 dollars on a e-reader is already a heavy reader, practically by definition. As much as I love my e-reader, there are a bunch of books its not good for - photo books, textbooks (no, A4 pdfs on a Sony e-reader are not a good option.) And for my favourite authors, i'll buy the hardback and get it signed by the author, and then lend to friends.
Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist
Comparing ebooks to physical book sales is obviously stupid, because Amazon can't track how many physical books I bought at local chains, or the used shop downtown.
"With the open-source culture on the Internet, the idea of taxpayer-funded artificial scarcity - of artistic monopoly -- goes away. It terrifies me." There, fixed that for you, Mr. Alexie.
he keeps on using internet for everything. he doesnt object to being linked in forums/content sites using open source scripts for their engine, he doesnt object to using google, which not only uses numerous open source elements to power its operation but also provides open source back to the community, he probably is thrilled when someone gets to buy his books by finding him the through the searches google provides, and many many more.
well, see, mr novelist, apparently you either dont know zit on what you are writing about, or just one of those who want everything self-centric.
if you want to prove otherwise, drop your usage of ANYthing that includes open source. including google, any and all links it provides to your novels/ebooks, any potential traffic/sales you get from forums/sites using phpbb and the similar open source engines. and then lets talk. else, youre just another bastard to us.
Read radical news here
You know, I'm always. . . impressed. . . by the ability of the 'news' media (and people in general) to turn things around completely ass-backwards. The anecdote that the CNN story leads off with is about the Dan Brown book "The Lost Symbol". The book sold millions of copies, but was pirated over a hundred thousand times in the first few days. To me, that says "9 out of 10 People willing to pay for stuff they *could* have downloaded for free". The *real* story, which CNN apparently wishes to ignore, is that the vast majority of people are honest, and wish to pay the authors whose books they like, *instead* of pirating. The *real* story is the pirates are the vast minority of people. Of course, that doesn't generate page views.
As for Sherman Alexie . . . why do I care if he (she?) is terrified? People get terrified about all sorts of irrational things. Many children are terrified of the dark. Why do I care if someone is irrationally terrified of something?
What are the odds that Sherman Alexie is simply making a controversial statement to gain publicity?
Prior to this article, I'd never heard of him. Given his statement, I doubt I'll every buy any of his work but his statement has gotten his name air-time.
linquendum tondere
Not long ago I wanted to buy an ebook (just published. I went to Amazon and they wanted the hardcover price for the ebook. $25 for an ebook, just plain silly. So I went to barnes&noble, they offered the ebook for $10, similar to a paperback. So I tried to buy it.
Aaaanndd.. an error came up saying that I could not buy this book from the area I was in (not USA). I looked around some more and did not find a european distributor for the ebook. Lot's of companies had the hardcover, but no ebook. I checked if I could order it from amazon (I had no intention of completing that !!$25!! transaction) and same thing. I was not allowed to buy the bloody book.
So I went to my friends at thepiratebay and got the book. I needed to do some conversion to get the text to display properly on my device, but it worked. The legal alternatives, which I tried to follow, simply did not work. Maybe there was a way to get the legal options to work properly, but the way to get customers to do the legal thing is to make that EASIER than the illegal way.
On iTunes I am guaranteed to get good quality files, on TPB I am not. Simple.
Here in sweden the streaming service Spotify has changed the game. It's just so easy to do the legal thing that illegal downloading went down. Do the same with movies, books, programs.. basically everything else. Make the legal way the best and easiest way, and people will come.
As for Cory Doctorow, I do wish that he gave me some way of giving him money for the digital copies I've gotten from him. I don't want to buy a paper version, and I don't want to donate a paper version. I just want to pay the author (and editor and all those involved) for his/their work.
Open source licenses rely on the same system and are just as taxpayer-funded as "all rights reserved". There's a lot to criticize in his statements, but misleading data (as in the summary) or extremism like yours doesn't serve the cause. We-have-a-right-to-everything-for-free is not going to convince the general public, politicians and courts that copyright reform is necessary. The focus should be limited copyright terms (12 years is what I've read maximizes the public benefit) and strong fair use rules. If we want to get there, defending piracy and ridiculing artists isn't helpful.
Fleur de Sel
TFA states:
Where do they get these numbers from? Do Rapidshare release download stats? Is there some secret BitTorrent download counter/tracker these people have access to? This has got to be a figure someone has just pulled out of their ass.
"Expert" changed its meaning. It used to mean "someone who knows something about a subject". Today it's "random loudmouth that shares your opinion on it".
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Let's be honest here, how many people do you know that really had "that idea" of IP ownership? How many talk about "licensing" Windows and how many "buy" it? How many "license" a book and how many "buy" it?
And that set in with the open source movement? My dad, who can't tell a toaster from a netbook and would think of a medical condition hearing about "open sores", is the proud "owner" of a very extensive dead tree library. And it's his firm belief that he "owns" those books, the idea that these books don't belong to him never crossed his mind.
So let's be sensible here. The idea of intellectual property never made it into public conscience. And until recently that was very much in the interest of the same people that now bemoan it.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Unfortunately the average person has very little idea what the term "open source" actually means. It's a technical term that's vague to them. These are the kind of people who probably also aren't clear on the term "operating system," etc.
I've seen both positive and negative misinterpretations flying around. The usage in TFA seems to be open source == piracy, or maybe open source == free as in beer. If you really parse the quote from the article in terms of the actual meaning of "open source," it doesn't make any sense. Actual quote: "With the open-source culture on the Internet, the idea of [artistic] ownership [...] goes away." Meaning: "People on the internet are used to being able to see the original programming instructions used to create their software, and with that culture, the idea of [artistic] ownership [...] goes away." It obviously doesn't make any sense. It also doesn't make sense when you consider that open-source licenses like BSD and GPL can only be enforced because the original authors own the copyright.
There are also people who see "open-source" as a feel-good term, like "green," and they apply it inappropriately because they want some of that goodness to rub off on them. For instance, I went to a symposium in August here in California where the results of Schwarzenegger's Free Digital Textbook Initiative were announced. Participants included open-source types from Curriki, CK-12, and Connexions, as well as teachers, politicians, IT folks, hardware vendors, and textbook publishers. The only traditional publisher that submitted any books to the initiative was Pearson, and all they submitted was a consumable workbook, not actual textbooks. Pearson's rep referred to its workbook as "free and open-source," but in fact the workbook is not open source in any sense. (It's distributed in a non-editable format, and it's not distributed under an open-source license.)
It's unfortunate that we haven't ended up with terminology that's more understandable to the average person. We had people like RMS advocating the term "free software," and others like Eric Raymond pushing for "open source." This had to do with an ideological agreement within the free software/OSS movement. The problem is that neither term is easy for outsiders to understand. "Free software" simply implies free as in beer to most people. They equate it to "freeware," i.e., low-quality, closed-source Windows software that you download from someone's Geocities page as a .exe file. "Open source" isn't understandable to most people, because they don't understand the distinction between source code and executable code.
Find free books.
Alexie is a Native American. Those people have no sense of ownership anyway. Their tribes roam from book to book. It wasn't until the white man arrived with his culture of printing out books and putting his name on them and getting all upset if the Indians took them off the shelf and didn't return them within two weeks that the trouble started.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
Let's start with the facts:
1.Information can be copied at virtually no cost.
2.The benefit of an intellectual work is multiplied by the number of people who use it.
3.Creating intellectual works has a cost.
The current system tries to satisfy 3 by limiting 1 in order to make the work behave more like a physical object, so that people will have to pay to get the work. Limiting 1 greatly reduces 2, and has all sorts of collateral damage.
If we leave 1 intact, intellectual works have a far greater benefit to everyone. The challenge is to come up with a way to satisfy 3, without harming 1 and 2. The free-market solution to problems like this is to allow market participants to come up with innovative solutions. Those that solve the problem best stand to make the most profit, so there is incentive.
With the current sub-optimal system in place, there is no incentive to come up with a free-market solution, since the current system is effectively subsidized by taxes, and it even makes it dangerous not to play, due to the possibility of frivolous lawsuit. There is no justification for the current system, because it's been created almost entirely to benefit a small group of people, and it's been done at a cost of everyone's property rights. And no, ideas aren't property. Property is a way of dealing with conflict over scarce resources; if a resource isn't scarce, then everyone can use it without conflict. So it's not that "I have to come up with an alternate", it's that "you have to justify your continued infringement of my property rights".
My couch, bed, carpeting and most of my furniture is pirated. You got me. Please don't turn me in!
Blar.
Well, these people still need to eat. They need physical goods to be able to do their work. That means they need to get paid.
I have bought four guitars, two amps, cables, effect pedals, a saxophone and a clarinet, pooling together summer job wages, birthday gifts, savings of allowances, et cetera. I've been in a recording studio twice; I've performed on the local town square once, and at several events locally. Back when I was a kid (~14-18yo) and didn't have any real money.
Musicians want to play. Actors want to act. Writers want to write.
The publishers acted as quality assurance; they did searching and pruning, so we could have the best art. You know what also does that? A moderation system (/.). A review system (amazon). A simple counting mechanism ("most downloaded this day/week/month/year").
None of them are perfect. So aren't the studios. And some artists already choose a life of material poverty in return for wealth in terms of self-expression and self-actualization.
Exactly why is it that the people's need for art can't be satisfied well enough this way? Some amateurs are really good. Oh, so we'll go to the theatre and look at people rather than go to the cinema and look at screens, because making films is rather resource-intensive (i.e. expensive). Or we'll watch more shorts and/or more animated films. Won't we still be entertained?
How often do you see the net total adjusted for the current economic situation? Are the book markets actually loosing money?
On a related topic Charles Arthur tried to go through various numbers and statistic as related to music piracy in this article on The Guardian's site.
The first clue of where all those downloaders are really spending their money came in searching for games statistics: year after year ELSPA had hailed "a record year". In fact if you look at the graph above, you'll see that games spend has risen dramatically - from £1.18bn in 1999 to £4.03bn in 2008.
Meanwhile music spending (allowing for that * of adjustment in 2004 onwards) has gone from £1.94bn to £1.31bn.
DVD sales and rentals, meanwhile, have nearly doubled, from a total of £1.286bn in 1999 to £2.56bn in 2008.
If we assume that there's roughly the same amount of discretionary spending available (which, even allowing for the credit bubble, should be roughly true; most of the credit went into houses), then it's clear who the culprit is: the games industry. By 2009, the amount spent in games and music is almost exactly the same as 1999 (though note that the music industry changed its methods from 2004).
Link to graph refered to.
The Long Now Foundation
Sometimes I wish that Obama really was a Socialist or Liberal.
People have short memories. Obama's not that far left of Bush Sr.; if Bush Jr. hadn't been such a wacko, nobody would be calling O anything left-er than a centrist.
The CB App. What's your 20?