The line must be drawn here! this far, no further! I will make pay for the music they've stolen!
Stealing Trek Literature
- Thread starter Scott Pearson
- Start date
Also keep in mind that books themselves are already in a transitionary process. Ebooks are getting more and more popular, and I mostly only buy ebooks anymore due to the convenience of being able to read a book without travelling to a strore to buy it, on a device that fits in my pocket and carries a libraries worth of books. Its the same thing that is happeneing with CDs, being replaced with the MP3 format, slowly but surely.
With that said, I don't think books will die out, just like how the CD hasn't died out. I DO think that digital media will begin to be more of a contender though. The biggest problem in the book arena is that there's no solid format, you have the two big boys with the Kindle and Nook, than a bunch of small guys also in the works. I don't think adoption will grow at a faster rate until there's one leading format (I hope its Kindle, I love Whispersync)
With that said, I don't think books will die out, just like how the CD hasn't died out. I DO think that digital media will begin to be more of a contender though. The biggest problem in the book arena is that there's no solid format, you have the two big boys with the Kindle and Nook, than a bunch of small guys also in the works. I don't think adoption will grow at a faster rate until there's one leading format (I hope its Kindle, I love Whispersync)
If this device is any good, it should make this conversation even more interesting a year from now.
I have an Ion turntable that I use to rip some of my old vinyl that was never ported to CD, or the occasional song that was skipped (like the B-52's version of "Don't Worry" from their second album -- it was removed after Yoko sued.) It's a great piece of technology and pretty easy to use. And if it's legal, I can't see why the scanner would be any less legal.
I have lots of old books that haven't yet been ported to ebooks. Some are surprisingly recent, and surprisingly well-known, like Julian May's Saga of the Pliocene Exile and many of Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover titles. I already own the books (often multiple copies -- I'm like that) or I can acquire "reading" copies for pennies on Amazon that I can comfortably sacrifice to whatever wear and tear the scanning process inflicts on them.
I'd also love to have the Babylon 5 novels available as ebooks, but as nobody currently has the right to publish them, and as they'd presumably sell in tiny numbers, nobody will ever convert them. Ever. Now I'll be able to do it myself and put them on my iPad.
Now I will be able to conveniently take them all along on vacations or plane trips.
I have an Ion turntable that I use to rip some of my old vinyl that was never ported to CD, or the occasional song that was skipped (like the B-52's version of "Don't Worry" from their second album -- it was removed after Yoko sued.) It's a great piece of technology and pretty easy to use. And if it's legal, I can't see why the scanner would be any less legal.
I have lots of old books that haven't yet been ported to ebooks. Some are surprisingly recent, and surprisingly well-known, like Julian May's Saga of the Pliocene Exile and many of Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover titles. I already own the books (often multiple copies -- I'm like that) or I can acquire "reading" copies for pennies on Amazon that I can comfortably sacrifice to whatever wear and tear the scanning process inflicts on them.
I'd also love to have the Babylon 5 novels available as ebooks, but as nobody currently has the right to publish them, and as they'd presumably sell in tiny numbers, nobody will ever convert them. Ever. Now I'll be able to do it myself and put them on my iPad.
Now I will be able to conveniently take them all along on vacations or plane trips.
It won't be AZW. ePub is to entrenched in other countries. Plus, library eBooks are becoming more and more popular. So unless Amazon goes ePub, they will eventually lose out.
This is a rather interesting topic we got right here. I'd never think I'll live to see Trek authors themselves protest against replicators, and yet, here it is.
Because this whole "piracy" thing is, basically, the very same problem replicators will be facing one day. "Computer, scan this cup of tea and store it in your memory so I can drink it every morning for free. Also, upload it to rapidshare.sol.ufp so other people can download it."
Indeed, Captain Picard couldn't care less about those poor Asian tea farmers when drinking his downloaded "tea, Earl Grey, hot" again and again without paying as much as a dime for it.
Because this whole "piracy" thing is, basically, the very same problem replicators will be facing one day. "Computer, scan this cup of tea and store it in your memory so I can drink it every morning for free. Also, upload it to rapidshare.sol.ufp so other people can download it."
Indeed, Captain Picard couldn't care less about those poor Asian tea farmers when drinking his downloaded "tea, Earl Grey, hot" again and again without paying as much as a dime for it.
Ahh but once we reach that point we're in a different position. The problem now is that writers (and other artists) can easily have their work distributed for free, but the food, drink and housing they need to live and continue creating can't easily be replicated for free.
My thoughts are this:
If you let someone borrow a book you physically have the book removed from your posession.
If you lend someone the eBook on the Nook then the book is removed from your nook for two weeks....you physically lose that file until the time limit is up and then it's restored (assuming it's bought from the B&N of course)
If you let someone borrow your file and you no longer have it anywhere that's fine. If you still have it and let even ONE PERSON borrow it and you maintin your copy, that's piracy.
If you notice libraries with ebooks only have one or two copies to send out, that's why there is a waiting list a mile long.
Very valid point. Being in the "creative business" myself, I know how it feels not to get paid.
On the other hand, I feel there's no reason to get hysteric about it, since we can't stop the future anyway. Instead of trying to prevent people from sharing our work, we should think about ways to get money from sharing itself. Sharing could be a valuable distribution channel, if the price is right. Would you rather get ten dollars from ten thousand people, or half a dollar from half a million people?
The DRM on those replicators is nuts. Remember when they were all worried about the losing the Doctor because they couldn't make a copy of him? It was that damned holodeck DRM that was causing the problem!
Advertisement. Every ebook copy comes with an ad. Even the pirated ones, lol. And if someone clicks on it, it generates a hit with the info about the author, book and publisher, so that the advertisers know who they have to pay.
That's even more shameful. It has an author showing that it's OK to share a book with an entire crew. So if we do that then it's OK?
What point are you even trying to argue right now?
What? That "only the good stories survived", or that the "bad storytellers and wandering minstrels were chased out of town, and were probably stoned to death"?
"The economics of the future are....different."
I don't think that TNG/DS9 situation is comparable. We don't see people "working to eat" in the Federation: they pursue careers of interest to them, and derive pleasure from the careers themselves -- science, service to the community, artistic expression, whatever. Friends aren't stealing from the author's mouth by reading other people's books. "Stealing" in the 24th century seems to be more a manner of denying personal recognition --as when that Bolian agent tried to pass The Doctor's work off as his own.
And in "The Final Reflection" ST novel. A novel within a novel.
"Strangers From the Sky" was a novel (within a ST novel), purported to be fact, about Vulcans having First Contact instead of Alpha Centauri.
There. Are. Four. Lights.
Ooops, wrong torture thread.
What? That "only the good stories survived", or that the "bad storytellers and wandering minstrels were chased out of town, and were probably stoned to death"?
Yes.
Where were you when this thread started?
Anyway, everyone repeat that sentence over and over to themselves until it sinks in.
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