In my country you can download any pirated game, movie, tv show, ebook or music legally and store it for 48 hours but you can't share it/upload it. And i am doing it with one exception. There is a company CD Project RED that made Witcher series and even that their games are without DRM (that is their choice - "we can't force you to buy our game but we can convince you") i am buying their games and i will buy them in future also. I could just download and do not pay for it but their product is so good, their policies, customer care is just great. I can see they have put their heart and souls into this games, they don't force you to buy with DRM that's why they get my money. They sold 10 mil copies of Witcher 3 without having any DRM. If you make good product you don't need to worry about piracy.
I used an App on my old iPod to BUY and read the first in a series of books.
I then tried to purchase the second volume, only to have the transaction declined because I don't live in North America.
I wrote to Penguin USA to complain about this, pointing out that the book I wished to purchase was freely available on download sites so Why were they refusing to sell it to me?
Their response was that I should find a US book store online, place an order for a physical copy and then either wait around 4 weeks for it to be delivered via surface mail or pay a premium price (more than the cost of the book) to have it delivered by airmail.
The fact that I actually specifically wanted an electronic copy for its convenience and immediacy was just ignored.
A downloaded copy does not deprive anyone of the original possession. The only issue in these cases is the legitimate right to be recompensed for that copy. However, if the owner refuses to exercise that right, how can downloading a copy still be considered "theft"?
One possibility is that the digital copyright of the second volume you are interested in was not granted in your country. The person you talked to might not know the details.
I disagree to this statement, though. "A downloaded copy does not deprive anyone of the original possession. The only issue in these cases is the legitimate right to be recompensed for that copy. However, if the owner refuses to exercise that right, how can downloading a copy still be considered "theft"?"
"I wanted to buy copy a famous painting from the museum for the market price but they did not agree to sell it to me because they don't ship to my state. So I drove there and took it when nobody was watching. How is that not a theft?"
Don't be ridiculous. A better analogy would be that the museum sold JPEGs of a work of art you wanted to use as a desktop background, but refused to sell one to a different state. So instead you downloaded a copy of the photograph.
Article from 2014, which looks at people engaging in digital book piracy not as thieves but as modern-day librarians or collectors, who are focused more on preservation than providing easy access to the materials. Mainly, the authors write about various online libraries and how they're organized, with a small amount of technical details.
I found it a somewhat interesting article, but I'd hoped they'd go a little more into the ethics of it, and also give more of a view from the perspective of the various stakeholders they mention (publishers, authors, etc.).
There was a very nice spanish community that would scan/ocr books and convert them into epubs. They had very high standards and their forums were full with epub documentation, best practices, boilerplate/skeleton files, scripts, etc. To the point their curated epubs were better than those of some publishers.
It all died when one of the founders was arrested.
Edit: it seems my information was incorrect, the site's owner sold it and the new owners wrapped the download links with malware and closed the forum. Users left and the site closed.
The biggest thing I'd like to see, is fine, DRM everything you want, but file an unencrypted digital master with something long-lasting like the Library of Congress, along with a firm public release date. So much software, media, and books today are not readily available anymore, without a lot of good reason for it. And if it's temporary while copyrights run out, I guess I have to understand that. But my biggest fear is how much of our culture may be lost entirely a few decades from now.
Games should store their source code in similar locations, along with MMO server software and the like. Someday these developers and publishers will be long gone. But hopefully their creations won't be.
It's definitely even worse for games, as copyright law and the nature of the industry can mean that a game might not be legally obtained again for over a century. Nintendo, for example, goes out of its way to punish people for distributing games that they no longer publish or license, even despite their abandonware status.
There's a huge amount of books/music/movies/games that I have no means of obtaining legally. There's also tons of stuff I don't have convenient way to buy (e.g. no way I'm paying full HBO NOW subscription for watching a single TV show).
We are 16 years into 21st century now, it's about time for big-name producers to stop calling people "thieves" and offer them an acceptable service instead.
Listen, you have no right to someone's else own work. If you don't want to pay HBO NOW to watch a single TV show. No problem. If you do however pirate their show, then that's stealing and the owner has a right to call you a thief. If HBO decides to charge $1,000 per episode, that would be very outrageous, but that still doesn't give anyone the right to steal their show. BTW, I know the pain, I really want to watch Showtime's "Billions" but I'm not willing to pay $12.95 for one month to watch it. I pay for Netflix and all my shows is restricted to Netflix, youtube and what's on TV.
No, it isn't "stealing". You're not depriving them of the content, you're copying it. And you're not even depriving them of the price they charge to access that content, unless you would've bought it had it not been available through piracy. And that's I think really the exception, not the rule.
I know I download a hell of a lot of movies, tv shows, etc. that I would definitely never watch if they were not available easily like that.
As for the moral aspect of this, I personally consider that the advantages to society provided by the free, widespread availability of cultural material far outweighs the inconvenience to content distributors & creators; moreover, I consider downloading content 'illegaly' like that to be a form of social protest; to be practiced until their outdated, absurd model changes. Part of this is certainly me rationalizing my behaviour, but I genuinely believe that most of it is not.
And when content is available without any form of DRM and with a minimal amount of intermediaries, I always pay for it (a good example is games through gog.com). Personally, I'll stop downloading illegaly when all content is available like that. And no, netflix doesn't cut it; I want the same, convenient service I get through piracy: a mkv/mp4/whatever without any form of DRM that I can store, read on any of my devices, copy, backup, etc.
One takeaway from his words is brutally practical: if access to information (including entertainment) is not cheap and plentiful, people will pirate. All that attempts to prevent piracy (i.e. enforce rent-extracting monopolies)accomplish is encourage it, and create not just sympathy, but public acceptance and encouragement of it.
Historically speaking, the only reason anyone "owns" media is due to literally hundreds of years of lobbying. Books, stories, and songs were all once free to copy. This is the nature of religious books, fairy tales, and folk songs.
Ethically speaking, "ownership" has a tenuous position. I find it easier to argue that ownership is a construct of society than it is an innate part of anything. That means it's flexible to what society decides. Right now, on this issue, that's definitely in flux.
From a utilitarian perspective, it's really pretty weird too. Ignoring economics for a second (that's my next point), it is probably better for all society to have information free of barriers. A lot more people can enjoy it if more people have access, particularly when the cost of copy and distrubution is so cheap.
Economically it costs a LOT of money though. HBO would not produce game of thrones without being able to get said money back. And they're only going to put as much money into it as they expect to get back. Why don't we have more CGI dragons? because HBO, while rich, is not an endless supply of money. and CGI dragons are really expensive. Yes, to reiterate the point, if HBO had enough money we'd have more dragons.
And as for the cost? $15/month for one show is actually VERY reasonable. Remember it costs millions of dollars to produce - just that one show. Even if you don't watch any other show you are still getting more than your money's worth. If you do watch other shows (And I highly recommend it), it's still easily worth your money. BTW, Netflix, HuluPlus, etc are also all worth their relative costs relative to what you get out of them.
You make me think about that commercial you couldn't skip on DVD. "YOU WOULDN'T STEAL A CAR" Bitch if I could copy a car on street for free I would do it.
Not to mention the only people seeing that fucking clip were the ones that bought the DVD. Way to ensure returning customers, well done.
"We are creating a world that all may enter without privilege or prejudice accorded by race, economic power, military force, or station of birth.
We are creating a world where anyone, anywhere may express his or her beliefs, no matter how singular, without fear of being coerced into silence or conformity.
Your legal concepts of property, expression, identity, movement, and context do not apply to us. They are all based on matter. There is no matter here."[1]
When I read comments like yours I can't help missing the early visionaries of the cyberspace.
It's not like the person would have oome up with whatever without their environment. He is in a constant flow of input and draws his art from that. This goes for every kind of art so the product in the end is as well a product of the environment as by the guy who decided to fix it on the medium.
The owner has the right sure. It's given to him by another product of the environment a certain portion of people agreed upon some time ago.
It doesn't make it right or some kind of physics law. Especially not in the digital world where there is no "stealing". There is more of it after the act.
Copyright only prevents producing and distributing unlicensed copies, i.e. uploading or sharing.
Downloading, streaming, or attending an unlicensed performance is not copyright infringement.
Without Copyright, and when it expires, the natural state of culture is to be copied, that is how it evolves - all works exist naturally in the public domain.
Copyright is a limited right to encourage the arts by providing a temporary monopoly.
The word theft is entirely out of place in discussions of copyright.
When you say "convenient" you're really saying "inexpensive". At least in the US, HBO NOW is only $14.99, which for a season of a TV show is not ridiculous (by comparison to what other shows cost on DVD or streaming through Amazon), made less ridiculous by the fact that you actually have access to all seasons of that show.
As for whether it's stealing or not, it seems difficult to rationalize it. Is sneaking in to see a movie stealing? Is stealing perishable food stealing (or is it only stealing if all of the rest of the food is purchased before it spoils)?
Legalities aside, ethically it seems pretty clear; if everyone acted as you propose to act, then there would either be no reward for producing content, or content producers would need to physically lock down the ability to view the content (like having movies or TV shows only available in theaters).
HBO puts their shows on iTunes as one off downloads a couple months after premiere. If you aren't willing to wait that long you should be willing to pay full price to subscribe.
HBO now is an acceptable service. One pirates demanded for years. The lack of which they used to justify piracy. And now I see pirates have now decided it's too much. Let's face it, your piracy is due to be cheap ass.
So you want an 'acceptable service', despite admitting you're not willing to pay for multitude available to you already (iTunes/Play/Amazon for one offs and then all the Sub ones for library access)?
If I would rather not be tracked and profiled by these companies, which service would you suggest? In the terms of service of iTunes, Play store, and Amazon it appears those three do track and profile users. Is it too much to ask? How much more would digital copies cost for the 'privilege' of not being tracked and profiled?
I'm not opposing the subscription model in general. It's just that I don't find the particular implementation appealing. I am currently subscribed to iTunes, iCloud, and several other services.
There is no law prohibiting 'watching infringing material'. One may think downloading is immoral or should be illegal, I am simply stating there is no law against it.
Thus you can and do obtain it legally, so long as you don't publish or share the work.
The original uploader or unlicensed streaming site or seller of unlicensed DVD copies is commiting copyright infringement - the downloader or viewer is not.
Drug users are punished with posession, not as smugglers or distributors. Equivalenty downloaders are not infringing copyright.
That's a counter-example. Drug punishments aren't related to this at all, but we do charge people for possession AND we charge people for distribution.
It is theft whether you like it or not. They don't have to provide you with the service if they don't think you're not the right customer or if you can't afford it. You are in no way entitled to watching that single TV show if you don't have the subscription.
Theft deprives the owner of something. Making a copy leaves the original intact. Technically HBO would not be providing them with the service. HBO provided the service to someone who paid for it. That person then made a digital copy and gave it to someone else. HBO is not involved in the second transaction. After I purchase something, am I not entitled to do what I wish with it, including giving it away?
Let's say I made a video. If I wanted to sell you a performance of that video and not your brother, and your brother manages to watch it anyway, fine, an offense has been committed.
But what if I sold the publishing rights to that video to a corporation who is bound by law to maximize revenue for my benefit? I've declared by releasing my video for public consumption that my interest is purely commercial.
That corporation does not generally have the legal ability to restrict who buys the rights to watch my video. Let's say the corporation decides to price viewings at $100 a pop. Your brother pirating my video and sharing it with his friends would arguably be doing more good for me than the alternative of fewer people watching it and me making a somewhat smaller amount of money.
Now the ethics are way more muddled. I'm not saying copyright is a bad thing or that infringement is a good thing. What I'm saying is that technological, cultural, and legal hurdles have made the content distribution market non-efficient and therefore non-optimal for content producers. It's virtually impossible for pricing mechanisms to maximize revenue, so there's always going to be situations where piracy makes sense because the content creators won't be able to make money on every viewing, but still derives a benefit from broader consumption anyway.
One sees this kind of thing within niche P2P communities. For example, on a popular BitTorrent tracker dedicated to music, one often sees indie artists "leak" their content. Consequently, the artists receive more recognition and appreciation for their work. I'm not claiming that piracy is victimless, nor that P2P sharing is more beneficial to the preservation of arts/academia than it is harmful. There is, however, some degree of promotion and conservation that occurs through sharing.
I have a friend who doesn't only preserve media, but also makes it more accessible. Specifically DVDs of the non-english sort are digitized, translated, and subtitles added, without removing any of the existing content. If there are space limitations, existing content is slightly compressed (for example audio commentary tracks). Additionally great care is taken to strictly adhere to (or even make adherent to) industry standards, so the resulting files, when burned to any dvd, will work with any player regardless of age or compatibility.
Some would call it piracy.
But effectively media from the 80s and earlier, that would otherwise become completely unavailable, or rot, becomes preserved and available for many generations to come.
I absolutely love that, and hope that I can one day contribute in a similar way. It's a shame that these people get clumped in the same camp as that college kid who watches bootleg theatre films just so they don't have to pay for an admission ticket. There is a community that attracts these people: https://www.reddit.com/r/datahoarder
Going off of that, it'd be really cool to have a wiki for movie transcripts that covers multiple languages. I just searched real quick for a wiki for transcripts and found transcripts.wikia [0] but it doesn't seem to have transcripts translated in other languages. Would such a wiki for transcripts be legal anyway ?
I believe it, this reminds me of this rapper called Benefit that got popular using Napster:
'Benefit is up there with MF Doom when it comes to being mysterious. He popped onto the scene in the early 2000's when Napster first blew up, when (by a longshot) he won a rap contest out of over 1000 MC's put on by Napster. This made him the first MC to truly use the internet to blow up (seems like forever ago, huh?). He never really put an album together, just happened to make enough tracks out of his $18 setup to release 2002's Benefit, which is filled with too many dope tracks. ' [0]
I can see how even without the help of a contest, indie artists could use sharring platforms to get traction.
I think the most fascinating aspect of this article is the conflict between preservation and curation. The world of books is no different than the world of content online: it's mostly low-quality and not worth the reader's time. The authors' observe that for book preservation, building a curated library of high-quality texts demands a certain amount of exclusivity in who's doing the curation. At the same time, this exclusivity increases the centralization of the repository and makes it more prone to being taken down if hosting copyrighted content. Whereas a distributed library reduces the exclusivity, but also reduces the overall quality of the library because anyone can contribute to it.
They cite Wikipedia as an example of these competing qualities, where user-contributions declined as stricter quality controls were put in place. I've watched this debate over what qualifies as "notable" for Wikipedia rage for years now, as the community tries to strike a balance between hosting an expansive encyclopedia with one that hosts relevant content that isn't watered-down with too much trivia.
I'm curious what others think about this conflict? Will algorithms and machine learning one day curate out the literary gems for us?
To me it depends on the meaning of where they are applying quality.
For content to be preserved I would personally hope that the direction is more on the preservation angle, personally.. There is very little cost for storing information these days, so there's no real reason to me not to cast a wide net on exactly what content is archived. There is no single good definition of "quality content" after all; even the works considered "top quality" can shift over time, plus there are people out there who really get into niches that a group of curators seeking "top quality content" might miss. (Some of these niches after all deliberately include kitschy or trashy "low quality" content.)
From what I gather from the article, the barrier was more on the technical side of preservation. This is easier to see: the "barrier to entry" is more making sure an e-book isn't fuzzy low-resolution junk, or making sure the e-book has correct title, author, etc.
I have family members who are writers. By association, we know many writers. They are in a dilemma. From talking to them, I think they agree, in principle, that books ought to be "distributed, [...], spread abroad, given to all, given cheaply, given at cost price, given for nothing." They are book-lovers in essence.
In reality, most writers can hardly make a living from writing. Their book deals are essentially decided by if the book will sell. For published writers, the biggest factor in publishers' minds is the selling history of her/his previous books. So writers are trying all the means to boost the sale of their books. As far as I know, most writers hate book tours, public readings, etc. They will, however, fly 10 hours to another city, give two readings, each of which may have only 10 people show up, so as to sell several copy of their books, as long as the publishers can cover the travel costs. Most writers are poor and can't afford the travels at their own expense.
So writers really want people to buy their books, not to become rich, simply as a way to support, so that they can afford to write. Writer friends buy each other's books once they are published, as a means to support, both in spirit and in finance. I remember once my family member gave a reading to promote her newly published book. After the reading, a writer friend came to say bye to us, empty-handed. She didn't say anything, but with a very apologetically expression. We know she was having a hard time financially. That expression really hurts.
The financial burden hits hard when writers have family and children. The majority of writers hate teaching, as far as I know. Whenever there is an opening position in a college's writing program, there would be hundreds of applications, including some well-known writers, even although they are aware that teaching will take a big part of their time, their energy from them to work on their own novels, their own books. It seems the cost of context switch between teaching and writing are very high for most writers. A well-known writer, whom I believe most educated people should at least have heard of, can't work on his own books at all when he is teaching. So he has to negotiate with the college to teach only one semester per year, so he can write in the other semester without teaching obligations. I wish his books have higher sale number, so that he can get higher book deals. Thus he doesn't have to teach.
Today must be a golden age for writers. Many local libraries are struggling. With the historical source of free books in peril, writers can once again prosper!
Most fiction writers don't face a piracy problem, they face a marketing problem (nobody knows their book exists) and an economic problem (there is an abundance of supply of novels).
Every new novel has to compete not just with novels released that year, but with all novels still in print. In that way it is unlike most other markets. If you make soap, you only have to compete with the soap manufacturers of today.
I understand perfectly what you're trying to say here. As someone who published some papers, wrote a simple book, and write software, I really wished I did not have to participate in this market economy and could build things and give them for free.. That is why I understand the reason for things such as the Universal Basic Income..
However, it is not as the world currently works, unfortunately.
I don't think yesteryear's industry where only a few people could get published, or even find the time, knowledge and/or motivation to write, was particularly fair. We're in the information age, a lot of people can write, you can distribute things to almost anyone.
It's not good enough to just have the skills anymore you need to have context that an audience can relate to. It used to be that you either wrote quality and let the audience find you, as with books, or you wrote quantity and convinced the audience that you were relevant, like in news papers. Today you need both.
Readit News
I then tried to purchase the second volume, only to have the transaction declined because I don't live in North America.
I wrote to Penguin USA to complain about this, pointing out that the book I wished to purchase was freely available on download sites so Why were they refusing to sell it to me?
Their response was that I should find a US book store online, place an order for a physical copy and then either wait around 4 weeks for it to be delivered via surface mail or pay a premium price (more than the cost of the book) to have it delivered by airmail.
The fact that I actually specifically wanted an electronic copy for its convenience and immediacy was just ignored.
A downloaded copy does not deprive anyone of the original possession. The only issue in these cases is the legitimate right to be recompensed for that copy. However, if the owner refuses to exercise that right, how can downloading a copy still be considered "theft"?
I disagree to this statement, though. "A downloaded copy does not deprive anyone of the original possession. The only issue in these cases is the legitimate right to be recompensed for that copy. However, if the owner refuses to exercise that right, how can downloading a copy still be considered "theft"?"
(I do agree that the situation is ridiculous though)
That's pretty much what it boils down to.
I found it a somewhat interesting article, but I'd hoped they'd go a little more into the ethics of it, and also give more of a view from the perspective of the various stakeholders they mention (publishers, authors, etc.).
It all died when one of the founders was arrested.
Edit: it seems my information was incorrect, the site's owner sold it and the new owners wrapped the download links with malware and closed the forum. Users left and the site closed.
Games should store their source code in similar locations, along with MMO server software and the like. Someday these developers and publishers will be long gone. But hopefully their creations won't be.
I know I download a hell of a lot of movies, tv shows, etc. that I would definitely never watch if they were not available easily like that.
As for the moral aspect of this, I personally consider that the advantages to society provided by the free, widespread availability of cultural material far outweighs the inconvenience to content distributors & creators; moreover, I consider downloading content 'illegaly' like that to be a form of social protest; to be practiced until their outdated, absurd model changes. Part of this is certainly me rationalizing my behaviour, but I genuinely believe that most of it is not.
And when content is available without any form of DRM and with a minimal amount of intermediaries, I always pay for it (a good example is games through gog.com). Personally, I'll stop downloading illegaly when all content is available like that. And no, netflix doesn't cut it; I want the same, convenient service I get through piracy: a mkv/mp4/whatever without any form of DRM that I can store, read on any of my devices, copy, backup, etc.
One takeaway from his words is brutally practical: if access to information (including entertainment) is not cheap and plentiful, people will pirate. All that attempts to prevent piracy (i.e. enforce rent-extracting monopolies)accomplish is encourage it, and create not just sympathy, but public acceptance and encouragement of it.
Ethically speaking, "ownership" has a tenuous position. I find it easier to argue that ownership is a construct of society than it is an innate part of anything. That means it's flexible to what society decides. Right now, on this issue, that's definitely in flux.
From a utilitarian perspective, it's really pretty weird too. Ignoring economics for a second (that's my next point), it is probably better for all society to have information free of barriers. A lot more people can enjoy it if more people have access, particularly when the cost of copy and distrubution is so cheap.
Economically it costs a LOT of money though. HBO would not produce game of thrones without being able to get said money back. And they're only going to put as much money into it as they expect to get back. Why don't we have more CGI dragons? because HBO, while rich, is not an endless supply of money. and CGI dragons are really expensive. Yes, to reiterate the point, if HBO had enough money we'd have more dragons.
And as for the cost? $15/month for one show is actually VERY reasonable. Remember it costs millions of dollars to produce - just that one show. Even if you don't watch any other show you are still getting more than your money's worth. If you do watch other shows (And I highly recommend it), it's still easily worth your money. BTW, Netflix, HuluPlus, etc are also all worth their relative costs relative to what you get out of them.
Not to mention the only people seeing that fucking clip were the ones that bought the DVD. Way to ensure returning customers, well done.
We are creating a world where anyone, anywhere may express his or her beliefs, no matter how singular, without fear of being coerced into silence or conformity.
Your legal concepts of property, expression, identity, movement, and context do not apply to us. They are all based on matter. There is no matter here."[1]
When I read comments like yours I can't help missing the early visionaries of the cyberspace.
[1] https://www.eff.org/cyberspace-independence
Pirating is wrong, but I do it because I don't have the money to spend.
It's not like the person would have oome up with whatever without their environment. He is in a constant flow of input and draws his art from that. This goes for every kind of art so the product in the end is as well a product of the environment as by the guy who decided to fix it on the medium.
The owner has the right sure. It's given to him by another product of the environment a certain portion of people agreed upon some time ago.
It doesn't make it right or some kind of physics law. Especially not in the digital world where there is no "stealing". There is more of it after the act.
Copyright only prevents producing and distributing unlicensed copies, i.e. uploading or sharing.
Downloading, streaming, or attending an unlicensed performance is not copyright infringement.
Without Copyright, and when it expires, the natural state of culture is to be copied, that is how it evolves - all works exist naturally in the public domain.
Copyright is a limited right to encourage the arts by providing a temporary monopoly.
The word theft is entirely out of place in discussions of copyright.
Deleted Comment
As for whether it's stealing or not, it seems difficult to rationalize it. Is sneaking in to see a movie stealing? Is stealing perishable food stealing (or is it only stealing if all of the rest of the food is purchased before it spoils)?
Legalities aside, ethically it seems pretty clear; if everyone acted as you propose to act, then there would either be no reward for producing content, or content producers would need to physically lock down the ability to view the content (like having movies or TV shows only available in theaters).
HBO now is an acceptable service. One pirates demanded for years. The lack of which they used to justify piracy. And now I see pirates have now decided it's too much. Let's face it, your piracy is due to be cheap ass.
Arrr, but ye shall remember...pirates will be pirates matey!!
Thus you can and do obtain it legally, so long as you don't publish or share the work.
The original uploader or unlicensed streaming site or seller of unlicensed DVD copies is commiting copyright infringement - the downloader or viewer is not.
Drug users are punished with posession, not as smugglers or distributors. Equivalenty downloaders are not infringing copyright.
That's a counter-example. Drug punishments aren't related to this at all, but we do charge people for possession AND we charge people for distribution.
But what if I sold the publishing rights to that video to a corporation who is bound by law to maximize revenue for my benefit? I've declared by releasing my video for public consumption that my interest is purely commercial.
That corporation does not generally have the legal ability to restrict who buys the rights to watch my video. Let's say the corporation decides to price viewings at $100 a pop. Your brother pirating my video and sharing it with his friends would arguably be doing more good for me than the alternative of fewer people watching it and me making a somewhat smaller amount of money.
Now the ethics are way more muddled. I'm not saying copyright is a bad thing or that infringement is a good thing. What I'm saying is that technological, cultural, and legal hurdles have made the content distribution market non-efficient and therefore non-optimal for content producers. It's virtually impossible for pricing mechanisms to maximize revenue, so there's always going to be situations where piracy makes sense because the content creators won't be able to make money on every viewing, but still derives a benefit from broader consumption anyway.
Some would call it piracy.
But effectively media from the 80s and earlier, that would otherwise become completely unavailable, or rot, becomes preserved and available for many generations to come.
[0] http://transcripts.wikia.com/wiki/Star_Wars_Episode_VI:_Retu...
'Benefit is up there with MF Doom when it comes to being mysterious. He popped onto the scene in the early 2000's when Napster first blew up, when (by a longshot) he won a rap contest out of over 1000 MC's put on by Napster. This made him the first MC to truly use the internet to blow up (seems like forever ago, huh?). He never really put an album together, just happened to make enough tracks out of his $18 setup to release 2002's Benefit, which is filled with too many dope tracks. ' [0]
I can see how even without the help of a contest, indie artists could use sharring platforms to get traction.
[0] http://djbooth.net/news/entry/underground-rappers-vol-3
They cite Wikipedia as an example of these competing qualities, where user-contributions declined as stricter quality controls were put in place. I've watched this debate over what qualifies as "notable" for Wikipedia rage for years now, as the community tries to strike a balance between hosting an expansive encyclopedia with one that hosts relevant content that isn't watered-down with too much trivia.
I'm curious what others think about this conflict? Will algorithms and machine learning one day curate out the literary gems for us?
For content to be preserved I would personally hope that the direction is more on the preservation angle, personally.. There is very little cost for storing information these days, so there's no real reason to me not to cast a wide net on exactly what content is archived. There is no single good definition of "quality content" after all; even the works considered "top quality" can shift over time, plus there are people out there who really get into niches that a group of curators seeking "top quality content" might miss. (Some of these niches after all deliberately include kitschy or trashy "low quality" content.)
From what I gather from the article, the barrier was more on the technical side of preservation. This is easier to see: the "barrier to entry" is more making sure an e-book isn't fuzzy low-resolution junk, or making sure the e-book has correct title, author, etc.
In reality, most writers can hardly make a living from writing. Their book deals are essentially decided by if the book will sell. For published writers, the biggest factor in publishers' minds is the selling history of her/his previous books. So writers are trying all the means to boost the sale of their books. As far as I know, most writers hate book tours, public readings, etc. They will, however, fly 10 hours to another city, give two readings, each of which may have only 10 people show up, so as to sell several copy of their books, as long as the publishers can cover the travel costs. Most writers are poor and can't afford the travels at their own expense.
So writers really want people to buy their books, not to become rich, simply as a way to support, so that they can afford to write. Writer friends buy each other's books once they are published, as a means to support, both in spirit and in finance. I remember once my family member gave a reading to promote her newly published book. After the reading, a writer friend came to say bye to us, empty-handed. She didn't say anything, but with a very apologetically expression. We know she was having a hard time financially. That expression really hurts.
The financial burden hits hard when writers have family and children. The majority of writers hate teaching, as far as I know. Whenever there is an opening position in a college's writing program, there would be hundreds of applications, including some well-known writers, even although they are aware that teaching will take a big part of their time, their energy from them to work on their own novels, their own books. It seems the cost of context switch between teaching and writing are very high for most writers. A well-known writer, whom I believe most educated people should at least have heard of, can't work on his own books at all when he is teaching. So he has to negotiate with the college to teach only one semester per year, so he can write in the other semester without teaching obligations. I wish his books have higher sale number, so that he can get higher book deals. Thus he doesn't have to teach.
Most fiction writers don't face a piracy problem, they face a marketing problem (nobody knows their book exists) and an economic problem (there is an abundance of supply of novels).
Every new novel has to compete not just with novels released that year, but with all novels still in print. In that way it is unlike most other markets. If you make soap, you only have to compete with the soap manufacturers of today.
However, it is not as the world currently works, unfortunately.
It's not good enough to just have the skills anymore you need to have context that an audience can relate to. It used to be that you either wrote quality and let the audience find you, as with books, or you wrote quantity and convinced the audience that you were relevant, like in news papers. Today you need both.