When's the last time you paid to attend a book reading by a best-selling fiction author?
Believe it or not, authors aren't paid for going on book tours or public readings - that's called marketing, they do it in support of their book, not the other way around. Ditto for trade shows, etc. I worked in the industry - I know what I'm talking about.
Now, if the authors are an expert in their fields, its a different matter. I already posted elsewhere on this thread that Bruce Eckel made Thinking in Java available for free largely because he figured he would get more seminar deals from the publicity.
But then, he probably doesn't need the book in the first place to earn a living (he already had the seminar income).
Now take your average fiction author with a limited print run. They are working some dead-end job while waiting for their book to get published (even if it's by a major house), and their life does not significantly change afterwards.
Of course, you might be implying that they would be forced to charge for book readings etc. I say: if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Paying money for books has been working well for 1000+ years, why do we have to stop now? Internet?
Or what about Bruce Eckel's Thinking in Java? (Why didn't I mention it in my original post? ah well...) For those who don't know, this book is widely regarded as the best introduction to the java programming language. And Eckel offers the book as a complete, free download on his site. Why would he do this?
He writes:...I was prepared to have low sales but the book brought people to my web site and to the CD Rom and seminars, so I felt it was worth the risk. Prentice Hall did a low first printing because they were worried about the online book cannibalizing sales. However, this book has done better than all the other books I've written -- for the first time I've gotten royalty checks that have made a difference.
Note that he mentions seminars - so this case represents an instance of an author that can have "concert tours" that make up for the lost revenue of a free online book.
From the article: When we learned of the program, we thought that it would be impossible to read more than 5 consecutive pages from a book in the program. It turns out that it's quite simple (though a bit inconvenient) to look at 100 or more consecutive pages from a single lengthy book. We've even printed out 108 consecutive pages from a bestselling book. It's not something one would care to do frequently, but it can be done.
The time is really funny, because Slashdot (and many major news outlets) were reporting the demise of the e-book not a few weeks ago. Now, we have new e-books in the form of Amazon's text search.
I used to work for a start-up publishing company that morphed into an internet company. I happened to be the marketing director in charge of print book sales. One day, the CEO decided that it would be a great idea to offer the full text of all our books online for free! Since our target market was largely cash-starved students, this move worried me greatly. Obviously, our sales were goin to drop off tremendously (maybe to zero?).
I discussed my concerns with the CEO. He made a very interesting point: For someone to print out the entire 200 - 500 pages of one of our titles would cost more in toner, paper and time than the $35 the customer would otherwise pay. This seemed to make sense at the time, but in retrospect it is kinda BS because most printers have double-sided multi-page-on-one-sheet capabilities that collapse toner/paper costs.
In the end, we didn't see sales drop off that much. Customers still wanted to order old-fashioned books. Most didn't have the time/patience to print out the books from the internet, didn't have the technical knowledge to do so (hard to believe, but we're talking about MBAs here), or (most likely) it didn't even occur to them.
People who were likely to print out the whole books online were probably also the ones borrowing copies from friends, photocopying from the library, buying used copies, etc. etc.
All, that said, I have to side with the Authors Guild. In the case I described above, our web site was relatively unknown whereas Amazon is among the top end-destinations on the Internet. Book counterfeiters are one perl-script away from obtaining the full-text of the latest Harry Potter book and printing up their own illicit copies for street sale. Yeah, there are already fake copies of bestsellers floating around out there, but now making them will become that much easier.
Comparisons to Napster and pirated music are obvious - however, unlike musicians, authors can't really draw income from "concert tours" as recording artists do. Authors live almost exclusively off royalty checks (with the exception of those lucky enough to pen books that can be cross-merchandised, made into movies, etc.)
Still, I was skeptical that Amazon's text-search system delivered the advertised goods. Getting all those publishers to hand over their text - their lifeblood - is a monumental task in itself. But I guess the system does work after all - too well, in fact!
Re:Nine weeks more work? That's good!
on
Take Back Your Time!
·
· Score: 4, Informative
America's also more successful than the EU and those who choose to work hard in America enjoy a higher standard of living.
Your argument is based on the potentially erroneous argument that "higher standard of living" equals "more happiness." Just because Americans have "more stuff" doesn't mean that they are happy. Basically - "Woo hoo, I have an Escalade, a Tivo and a 27" plasma TV - too bad I'm on my way to the hospital for my 2nd heart attack after my divorce."
Ref: This study by New Scientist. Note that Denmark is one of the happiest countries in the world despite having a substantially lower "standard of living" than the US.
Also, I remember hearing that a survey showed a majority of Americans would rather have and additional week off from work rather than a raise of equal value, but I don't have time to look it up now.
Visual Basic 6 may be the most popular programming language, but its days are numbered. "VB 6 is the dinosaur of old. There's tons of legacy code out there, but no self-respecting developer wants to go there anymore"
I wonder if we could find an article from 20 years ago saying the same thing about COBOL...and 20 years from now we'll have an article by some wizened VB guru extolling the virtues of the Variant data type and COM programming over whatever (sort of like this guy in his column about COBOL vs. Java).
The fact that "there's tons of legacy code out there" is proof enought that Visual Basic 6 (not.NET) will be with us for years to come. Maybe "self-respecting developers" won't want to maintain this code - but what self-respecting developer used VB6 in the first place?
No doubt the most paranoid Linux fans will view this indemnification issue as just another example of FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) being spread by the invisible hands of companies like Microsoft and Sun, whose proprietary systems are threatened by Linux.
But some CEOs might fret. They are, after all, writing hefty checks to companies like IBM and Red Hat for maintenance and support. Red Hat charges up to $2,500 per server per year for maintenance and in its last fiscal year (ended February 2003) generated $91 million in revenue.
Wow, he has already silenced his critics in advance! "Take that Slashdot." This guy must get reams of anonymous hate-spam.
Having read that article, I have to agree with Lyons' general point...SCO "gets its way" not by being right but by suing the f*** out of other companies using its bastion of lawyers. The "linux community" should therefore not waste so much energy on there is no stolen code in linux! rant and start thinking how do we beat them at their own game? (that is, the courts - judges don't always care about "the facts" - i.e. whether the code was "stolen" or not - so time to bone up on legalese and get ready for legal dirty tricks).
Of course, Lyons seems to underestimate IBM's army of lawyers. It would be interesting to see how IBM has fared in copyright disputes over the years vs. SCO's track-record...
Seeing a "zinger" like that in the article's introduction really makes me question the journalistic integrity of the Slashdot's editors (yes, yes, I know I will catch flack from implying that they have any at all...but I believe some of them do...)
They could at least just link to a response from FSF or something criticizing the Forbes article. Or link to the authors previous FSF-bashing articles and say "this guy has an anti-FSF history." Geez...
I started to watch the trailer, but I couldn't finish. I just couldn't...I want to save all my enthusiasm for the actual movie which - based on both the last two movies and what happens in the book - can't NOT be good. I was watching the trailer and I was like "I don't need a trailer to know that this movie is going to ROCK." So you guyz can have my bandwidth:)
When is slashdot going to let us link to images in our journals? I don't want to go over to blogspot or *shudder* livejournal, but every time I see one of those pages I feel a pang of jealousy.
At least add one or two more features! At least we could be allowed to choose what section (and thus color-scheme) our journal goes under?
I was thinking about this too. Microsoft has already started edging towards TiVo's turf with its Windows Media Center (Sony has co-branded their own DVR that runs the Tivo software).
So the thing I'm wondering is: will we see Microsoft use the same tactics it used against Netscape in a "DVR War" with Tivo - resulting in the crash and burn of Tivo and a assertion of "superiority of closed source" by Microsoft? Only time will tell.
The other thing to realize is that this guy is based out of Palestine - as such, his rhetoric is probably a LOT more reserved than the stuff he is hearing from Hammas and other militant groups on a daily basis. It is also probably reasonable to assume that the anti-Israel propaganda that he hears and reads constantly influenced his writing style. He was probably also going for maximum PR exposure (it seems to have worked) - I just think that he has bitten off more than he can chew.
Earthstation 5 is at war with the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and the Record Association of America (RIAA), and to make our point very clear thattheir governing laws and policys have absolutely no meaning to us here in Palestine, we will continue to add even more movies for FREE.
and finally:
Ras Kabir's warning to the RIAA and the MPAA, "The next revolution in P2P file sharing is upon you. Resistance is futile and we are now in control".
I would wager that - barring support from say, Saudi millions - the RIAA and MPAA has just a little more combined resources (man-hours, money, contacts) then Ras Kabir and EarthStation5 has in their refugee camp. And, let us not forget the fact that the US has incredibly tight diplomatic relations with Israel - so diplomacy may very well allow the RIAA/MPAA to extend their reach over there in a physical sense (ever hear of "extradition"?).
As for the Tiananmen Square/tank analogy...I think one David of Goliath makes much more sense.
(Of course, it would seem that the author of the statement would prefer to be compared to the Borg - those villians from the Start Trek series that slaughtered millions).
Anyway, that brave soul, who stood down a column of tanks, did so without beating his chest and boasting that he was going to single-handedly take down the Chinese government. Nor, for that matter, did he brag about self-perceived criminal behavior as the proprietors of Earthstation clearly do - note their reference to defying "governing laws and policies."
Instead, he became through his deeds, a symbol of the triumph of non-violent resistence against oppressive forces. While certain parties in the struggle against the RIAA/MPAA certainly are certainly kindred with the spirt of Tiananmen Square, Earthstation5's obnoxious tirade and actions demonstrate that they is not among their number.
IMO The Earthstation 5 dudes are pretty arogant and naive to to think that their foreign location prevents the RIAA from taking action. Since they are in Palestine and outside the US borders, I would imagine that the RIAA has a carte blanch to unleash mercenary hackers/crackers upon their servers. I really doubt the Israeli gov't will do anything to protect them.
And now that I think about it...Israeli-US relations...bulldozers...the apache strike-helicopters are probably powering up even as I write this.
Provided this whole thing isn't some kind of hoax of course.
Well, whatever their motivation, those guyz over at "Earthstation" better hope that the RIAA doesn't have any friends in high places in Sharon's gov't. Can you say "bulldozer?"
Slashdot Mirror
Why use OCR software when an unscrupulous assistant editor will get you the full quark file for a few hundred?
When's the last time you paid to attend a book reading by a best-selling fiction author?
Believe it or not, authors aren't paid for going on book tours or public readings - that's called marketing, they do it in support of their book, not the other way around. Ditto for trade shows, etc. I worked in the industry - I know what I'm talking about.
Now, if the authors are an expert in their fields, its a different matter. I already posted elsewhere on this thread that Bruce Eckel made Thinking in Java available for free largely because he figured he would get more seminar deals from the publicity.
But then, he probably doesn't need the book in the first place to earn a living (he already had the seminar income).
Now take your average fiction author with a limited print run. They are working some dead-end job while waiting for their book to get published (even if it's by a major house), and their life does not significantly change afterwards.
Of course, you might be implying that they would be forced to charge for book readings etc. I say: if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Paying money for books has been working well for 1000+ years, why do we have to stop now? Internet?
Or what about Bruce Eckel's Thinking in Java? (Why didn't I mention it in my original post? ah well...) For those who don't know, this book is widely regarded as the best introduction to the java programming language. And Eckel offers the book as a complete, free download on his site. Why would he do this?
...I was prepared to have low sales but the book brought people to my web site and to the CD Rom and seminars, so I felt it was worth the risk. Prentice Hall did a low first printing because they were worried about the online book cannibalizing sales. However, this book has done better than all the other books I've written -- for the first time I've gotten royalty checks that have made a difference.
In fact, in his site FAQ, Eckel addresses this question: Why do you put your books on the Web? How can you make any money that way?
He writes:
Note that he mentions seminars - so this case represents an instance of an author that can have "concert tours" that make up for the lost revenue of a free online book.
From the article:
When we learned of the program, we thought that it would be impossible to read more than 5 consecutive pages from a book in the program. It turns out that it's quite simple (though a bit inconvenient) to look at 100 or more consecutive pages from a single lengthy book. We've even printed out 108 consecutive pages from a bestselling book. It's not something one would care to do frequently, but it can be done.
The time is really funny, because Slashdot (and many major news outlets) were reporting the demise of the e-book not a few weeks ago. Now, we have new e-books in the form of Amazon's text search.
I used to work for a start-up publishing company that morphed into an internet company. I happened to be the marketing director in charge of print book sales. One day, the CEO decided that it would be a great idea to offer the full text of all our books online for free! Since our target market was largely cash-starved students, this move worried me greatly. Obviously, our sales were goin to drop off tremendously (maybe to zero?).
I discussed my concerns with the CEO. He made a very interesting point: For someone to print out the entire 200 - 500 pages of one of our titles would cost more in toner, paper and time than the $35 the customer would otherwise pay. This seemed to make sense at the time, but in retrospect it is kinda BS because most printers have double-sided multi-page-on-one-sheet capabilities that collapse toner/paper costs.
In the end, we didn't see sales drop off that much. Customers still wanted to order old-fashioned books. Most didn't have the time/patience to print out the books from the internet, didn't have the technical knowledge to do so (hard to believe, but we're talking about MBAs here), or (most likely) it didn't even occur to them.
People who were likely to print out the whole books online were probably also the ones borrowing copies from friends, photocopying from the library, buying used copies, etc. etc.
All, that said, I have to side with the Authors Guild. In the case I described above, our web site was relatively unknown whereas Amazon is among the top end-destinations on the Internet. Book counterfeiters are one perl-script away from obtaining the full-text of the latest Harry Potter book and printing up their own illicit copies for street sale. Yeah, there are already fake copies of bestsellers floating around out there, but now making them will become that much easier.
Comparisons to Napster and pirated music are obvious - however, unlike musicians, authors can't really draw income from "concert tours" as recording artists do. Authors live almost exclusively off royalty checks (with the exception of those lucky enough to pen books that can be cross-merchandised, made into movies, etc.)
Still, I was skeptical that Amazon's text-search system delivered the advertised goods. Getting all those publishers to hand over their text - their lifeblood - is a monumental task in itself. But I guess the system does work after all - too well, in fact!
America's also more successful than the EU and those who choose to work hard in America enjoy a higher standard of living.
Your argument is based on the potentially erroneous argument that "higher standard of living" equals "more happiness." Just because Americans have "more stuff" doesn't mean that they are happy. Basically - "Woo hoo, I have an Escalade, a Tivo and a 27" plasma TV - too bad I'm on my way to the hospital for my 2nd heart attack after my divorce."
Ref: This study by New Scientist. Note that Denmark is one of the happiest countries in the world despite having a substantially lower "standard of living" than the US.
Also, I remember hearing that a survey showed a majority of Americans would rather have and additional week off from work rather than a raise of equal value, but I don't have time to look it up now.
Visual Basic 6 may be the most popular programming language, but its days are numbered. "VB 6 is the dinosaur of old. There's tons of legacy code out there, but no self-respecting developer wants to go there anymore"
.NET) will be with us for years to come. Maybe "self-respecting developers" won't want to maintain this code - but what self-respecting developer used VB6 in the first place?
I wonder if we could find an article from 20 years ago saying the same thing about COBOL...and 20 years from now we'll have an article by some wizened VB guru extolling the virtues of the Variant data type and COM programming over whatever (sort of like this guy in his column about COBOL vs. Java).
The fact that "there's tons of legacy code out there" is proof enought that Visual Basic 6 (not
Many of the space shuttle's missions have involved putting classified military satellites into orbit and other secret stuff.
Thanks for the link. Check out the zinger from this article
No doubt the most paranoid Linux fans will view this indemnification issue as just another example of FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) being spread by the invisible hands of companies like Microsoft and Sun, whose proprietary systems are threatened by Linux.
But some CEOs might fret. They are, after all, writing hefty checks to companies like IBM and Red Hat for maintenance and support. Red Hat charges up to $2,500 per server per year for maintenance and in its last fiscal year (ended February 2003) generated $91 million in revenue.
Wow, he has already silenced his critics in advance! "Take that Slashdot." This guy must get reams of anonymous hate-spam.
Having read that article, I have to agree with Lyons' general point...SCO "gets its way" not by being right but by suing the f*** out of other companies using its bastion of lawyers. The "linux community" should therefore not waste so much energy on there is no stolen code in linux! rant and start thinking how do we beat them at their own game? (that is, the courts - judges don't always care about "the facts" - i.e. whether the code was "stolen" or not - so time to bone up on legalese and get ready for legal dirty tricks).
Of course, Lyons seems to underestimate IBM's army of lawyers. It would be interesting to see how IBM has fared in copyright disputes over the years vs. SCO's track-record...
Seeing a "zinger" like that in the article's introduction really makes me question the journalistic integrity of the Slashdot's editors (yes, yes, I know I will catch flack from implying that they have any at all...but I believe some of them do...)
They could at least just link to a response from FSF or something criticizing the Forbes article. Or link to the authors previous FSF-bashing articles and say "this guy has an anti-FSF history." Geez...
I started to watch the trailer, but I couldn't finish. I just couldn't...I want to save all my enthusiasm for the actual movie which - based on both the last two movies and what happens in the book - can't NOT be good. I was watching the trailer and I was like "I don't need a trailer to know that this movie is going to ROCK." So you guyz can have my bandwidth :)
Point taken!
Say it with me
Episode III spoiler FREE
Only THREE ways to make money in this world:
1) Marry It
2) Inherit It
3) Steal It
A list like this already exists (in one form or another):
Media Research Center
and
NewsMax.com
Have fun.
When is slashdot going to let us link to images in our journals? I don't want to go over to blogspot or *shudder* livejournal, but every time I see one of those pages I feel a pang of jealousy.
At least add one or two more features! At least we could be allowed to choose what section (and thus color-scheme) our journal goes under?
On the Internet, nobody knows you're a 12 year old girl...
Time for EFF to do a "reverse-sting" - have 12-year old girls pose as 35 year-old male file-sharers with the goal of drawing more RIAA lawsuits.
(The reciprocal of how law-enforcement snags pedophiles in chat rooms - they have 35 year-old men posing as 12 year-old girls).
The NY Times article mentions that Nova is doing an string theory episode this fall (Oct 28,2003 and Nov 4, 2003) based on Brian Greene's book The Elegant Universe. Turns out the homepage for this episode is already online with plenty of interviews and animations.
Reading about this story makes one German word in particular spring to mind (no babelfish required either):
Schadenfreude
I was thinking about this too. Microsoft has already started edging towards TiVo's turf with its Windows Media Center (Sony has co-branded their own DVR that runs the Tivo software).
So the thing I'm wondering is: will we see Microsoft use the same tactics it used against Netscape in a "DVR War" with Tivo - resulting in the crash and burn of Tivo and a assertion of "superiority of closed source" by Microsoft? Only time will tell.
The other thing to realize is that this guy is based out of Palestine - as such, his rhetoric is probably a LOT more reserved than the stuff he is hearing from Hammas and other militant groups on a daily basis. It is also probably reasonable to assume that the anti-Israel propaganda that he hears and reads constantly influenced his writing style. He was probably also going for maximum PR exposure (it seems to have worked) - I just think that he has bitten off more than he can chew.
Choice quotes from Earthstation's Press Release:
Earthstation 5 is at war with the Motion Picture Association of America
(MPAA) and the Record Association of America (RIAA), and to make our point
very clear thattheir governing laws and policys have absolutely no meaning to
us here in Palestine, we will continue to add even more movies for FREE.
and finally:
Ras Kabir's warning to the RIAA and the MPAA, "The next revolution in P2P
file sharing is upon you. Resistance is futile and we are now in control".
I would wager that - barring support from say, Saudi millions - the RIAA and MPAA has just a little more combined resources (man-hours, money, contacts) then Ras Kabir and EarthStation5 has in their refugee camp. And, let us not forget the fact that the US has incredibly tight diplomatic relations with Israel - so diplomacy may very well allow the RIAA/MPAA to extend their reach over there in a physical sense (ever hear of "extradition"?).
As for the Tiananmen Square/tank analogy...I think one David of Goliath makes much more sense.
(Of course, it would seem that the author of the statement would prefer to be compared to the Borg - those villians from the Start Trek series that slaughtered millions).
Anyway, that brave soul, who stood down a column of tanks, did so without beating his chest and boasting that he was going to single-handedly take down the Chinese government. Nor, for that matter, did he brag about self-perceived criminal behavior as the proprietors of Earthstation clearly do - note their reference to defying "governing laws and policies."
Instead, he became through his deeds, a symbol of the triumph of non-violent resistence against oppressive forces. While certain parties in the struggle against the RIAA/MPAA certainly are certainly kindred with the spirt of Tiananmen Square, Earthstation5's obnoxious tirade and actions demonstrate that they is not among their number.
Try, can you say "Apache Gunship"?
Yeah, I thought of that but decided to nix it because it seemed to extreme. Then I changed my mind in a subsequent comment.
IMO The Earthstation 5 dudes are pretty arogant and naive to to think that their foreign location prevents the RIAA from taking action. Since they are in Palestine and outside the US borders, I would imagine that the RIAA has a carte blanch to unleash mercenary hackers/crackers upon their servers. I really doubt the Israeli gov't will do anything to protect them.
And now that I think about it...Israeli-US relations...bulldozers...the apache strike-helicopters are probably powering up even as I write this.
Provided this whole thing isn't some kind of hoax of course.
Well, whatever their motivation, those guyz over at "Earthstation" better hope that the RIAA doesn't have any friends in high places in Sharon's gov't. Can you say "bulldozer?"