Slashdot Mirror
Book Piracy — Less DRM, More Data
macslocum writes "Ambiguity surrounds the real impact of digital book piracy, notes Brian O'Leary in an interview with O'Reilly Radar, but all would be better served if more data was shared and less effort was exerted on futile DRM. 'The publishing industry should be working as hard as we can to develop new and innovative business models that meet the needs of readers. And what those look like could be community-driven. I think of Baen Books, for example, which doesn't put any DRM restrictions on its content but is one of the least pirated book publishers. As to sales, Paulo Coelho is a good example. He mines the piracy data to see if there's a burgeoning interest for his books in a particular country or market. If so, he either works to get his book out in print or translate it in that market.'"
the entire journalism industry has been taken out and shot by the 'im not paying for anything' culture of unix beards, who apparently rely on McArthur Genius Grants and a fishing change out of old sofas for their sustenance.
now, you want to destroy the book industry too.
Borders is dying. It's about to close. It is going to be an ex-company. Dead as a doornail.
The only hope is somehow getting users to pay a tiny pittance to read. $10 for a 300 page book. . . how many hours of entertainment is that? I don't know, but I know that price point won't last long. $5, $3, $2. . . where does it end?
It ends with Amazon.com being the only book publisher left on the planet. It ends with libraries becoming the equivalent of the internet: a vast morass of garbage and fetid opinionized bullshit, the vast majority of which is generated by whores working off elance.com marketing campaigns.
You want ads inside books? Congrats! That's what the 'free model' will bring.
You want books payed for by corporate shills? Congrats! That's exactly what the internet is, and now you will bring it to the last, best hope for intellectuals.
You have brought the Last September into meatspace, and destroyed any semblance of civilization. Now, even the greatest minds of our time will have to publish work alongside ads for "1 trick to trim belly fat" and "You can refinance your home" and "earn an online military history degree'.
Linux Zealots, congrats! Your filthy hippiedom has made it's way into every nook and cranny of society, culminating in the worthless hipster invasion that is facebook - a massive privacy violation that Heydrich could only have dreamed of in his wildest fantasies.
Hey, forget Jack London, forget We, forget 1984, Brave New World, and Farenheit 451 and . We stamped our selves with our own iron boots! We have drowned out any semblance of meaningful, thoughtful dialogue with advertising, spam, corporate shilling, incestuous link farms, copyright theft, and mass conformity. Good work, 'free as in freedom'.
God, sitting on this machine, this piece of hyper concentrated toxic chemicals that will end up being melted down and dumped in someone's drinking water table, while burning up coal fired electricity by the kilowatt-hour, I can hardly stand it. Its almost like im living the dream of true anarchy, as envisioned by the visionaries of free unix.