Delicious LiveJournal Links for 7-6-2010

[andrewducker]

• Flamboyant Bravery Under Fire
  (tags: war military bravery)
• The Woo of Lost, reviewed by Adam Roberts
  (tags: lost scifi)
• Govt. announces big constitutional changes
  66% to get force an election - unless no government can be formed in 14 days. I like that.
  (tags: politics reform uk)
• Things I won't work with - a catalogue of really unpleasant chemicals
  (tags: chemistry science funny dangerous explosives)
• Fighting with teenagers: A Copyright story
  (tags: copyright music law filesharing sheetmusic)

Comments

Re: Fighting with teenagers

[ashfae.livejournal.com]

What about legitimate copies? The obvious: burning a CD so that I can listen to it on my mp3 player. I've legally bought the music. Should I be required to buy it in CD and mp3 format?

(granted, my attitude towards CDs has changed; it used to be that the CD was the end in itself and I'd listen to that on a discman; mp3s mean that now I buy a CD, rip it to my computer, and keep the CD as a sort of backup in case something goes wrong with the mp3 version somehow)

Re: Fighting with teenagers

[broin.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure what you're responding to in my post.

I don't think selling MP3s and CDs makes sense, no. In fact, selling CDs without giving away the MP3s seems daft. Selling the CDs as something more than a container of music also makes sense to me - whether that's including a lock of hair or a picturebook or something else unique.

Re: Fighting with teenagers

[ashfae.livejournal.com]

I was responding to "Sell stuff you can't copy." What if you've bought something and wish to make a copy for your own personal use? Making things that are uncopy-able (huh, is there a word for this?) would make that impossible, yes?

Or for another example, I've been known to take my books of sheet music and photocopy the piece I'm currently working on, so that I'm only hauling the one piece around rather than the weight of the whole book of sheet music. If it's uncopy-able I wouldn't be able to do that, though it's a completely legitimate use.

Re: Fighting with teenagers

[broin.livejournal.com]

I mean sell stuff which is literally not ever possible to copy. :)

Concerts, meeting the band, artbooks, anything unique like that. Sell unique experiences. Sell memories.

Re: Fighting with teenagers

[ashfae.livejournal.com]

That makes more sense! Though quite a lot of those can be copied too. Even if only to an inferior extent. ;)

But it's true, you can't copy an experience. It's unique!

Re: Fighting with teenagers

[broin.livejournal.com]

Yeah, we were totally talking past each other. :)

What you're making isn't necessarily going to make money. But stuff around it might make money.

Re: Fighting with teenagers

[zornhau.livejournal.com]

"What you're making isn't necessarily going to make money. But stuff around it might make money."

Yes, but of course this will change the art forms.

Re: Fighting with teenagers

[broin.livejournal.com]

Definitely, but I don't think the art forms are precious.

And I remember another analogy I heard recently. How much is a drink?

In a pub, it's a few quid. In a strip club, it's a lot of money. In a casino, it's free.

Re: Fighting with teenagers

[andrewducker]

Absolutely. I don't think that art forms are necessarily precious, but nor do I want to see Terry Pratchett out there on the road doing paid-for signing tours rather than at home typing.

Whether that's achievable via non-draconian means is the big question for me.

Re: Fighting with teenagers

[zornhau.livejournal.com]

Depends on what you mean by draconian.

At the moment DRM on e-books is usually so annoying that there are good economic reasons for not doing it. This may change with the rise of handheld books.

Personally, I would embed the user's name in e-books, and explicitly invite them to share their books with 3 friends.

Simultaneously, I would go after file sharing sites - especially the smug ones claiming to be online libraries circumventing greedy publishers and authors etc - using ninjas or possibly Serbian mercenaries in such a manner that my name would supplant that of Dracon in common usage.

Re: Fighting with teenagers

[zornhau.livejournal.com]

>Definitely, but I don't think the
>art forms are precious.

Dunno. I rather like the well rounded 100K SF/F novel... as do the people who download pirate copies.


>How much is a drink?
Not a good analogy because, whatever the source, a bottle of Becks is a bottle of Becks.

Analogies really just obscure the simplicity of what's happening: the Tragedy of the Commons.

Re: Fighting with teenagers

[broin.livejournal.com]

Not a good analogy because, whatever the source, a bottle of Becks is a bottle of Becks.

Yes... but that's my point. :) The content is the same, and we pay for the medium (venue). I've paid for physical copies of books that are free and Creative Commonsed. I've bought electronic copies of books I own. The actual *stuff* might not be what I'm paying for.