Life In 19x19

Redbeard wrote:Sorry I don't accept that. A whore is a whore no matter how much they make or how popular they are. If you look at the history of publishing from scribes in monasteries to Guttenburg through to PDFs and Kindles, open platforms succeed and closed platforms, although more profitable, fail and cause more harm than good. If the world is forced to buy an iPad or Kindle to access proprietary content we are heading for a corporate dark age of digital feudalism.

Let's just take it as a given that my response violates the terms of service about as hard as they can be violated, so that I can make this post a bit shorter.

P.S. Does anyone else have the suspicion that Redbeard's post was really just an excuse to use the dirty word he learned yesterday?

hyperpape wrote:

Redbeard wrote:Sorry I don't accept that. A whore is a whore no matter how much they make or how popular they are. If you look at the history of publishing from scribes in monasteries to Guttenburg through to PDFs and Kindles, open platforms succeed and closed platforms, although more profitable, fail and cause more harm than good. If the world is forced to buy an iPad or Kindle to access proprietary content we are heading for a corporate dark age of digital feudalism.

Let's just take it as a given that my response violates the terms of service about as hard as they can be violated, so that I can make this post a bit shorter.

P.S. Does anyone else have the suspicion that Redbeard's post was really just an excuse to use the dirty word he learned yesterday?

... from Horton Hears a Whore, no doubt.

hyperpape wrote:Let's just take it as a given that my response violates the terms of service about as hard as they can be violated, so that I can make this post a bit shorter.

Redbeard wrote:Sorry I don't accept that. A whore is a whore no matter how much they make or how popular they are. If you look at the history of publishing from scribes in monasteries to Guttenburg through to PDFs and Kindles, open platforms succeed and closed platforms, although more profitable, fail and cause more harm than good. If the world is forced to buy an iPad or Kindle to access proprietary content we are heading for a corporate dark age of digital feudalism.

Idealism doesn't feed people. Within a few seconds, I can find most DRM protected ebooks (format doesn't matter) on torrent sites. Likewise, you can easily find pirated versions of paid apps (iOS and Android alike) on similar web sites. What you can't easily, or at all, find are pirated versions of iOS apps that include IAP (in-app purchases). SmartGo Books are IAPs. If I were to publish a Go book (which is already a niche market) and was willing to take the risk of making an ebook version, I would use the most secure method of doing so. For now, the iOS platform is the safest way of doing this.

References to monasteries and such don't apply, because before the digital age it didn't take a fraction of a second to get a 100% identical copy of a book. I'm not fond of DRM, but what's the alternative? It's been shown over and over that a large number of people will not pay for a product if they can easily get it for free. If you want to blame someone, blame those who pirate software and digital media, not the authors and publishers who want to protect their property and continue making money from it.

As I said, there is much to idealism and "perfect world" scenarios. But rent has to be paid, food needs to be put on the table, and that's the reality most content providers (and everyone else) has to deal with. Do you work for free? I unfortunately can't afford this form of idealism because my landlady doesn't share it. My supermarket doesn't either. Shame.

Except the Redmond book, all other SmartGo Books are available in other formats too (paper), so the exclusivity is limited to the electronic editions. And while I believe they will be made available in other formats as well, if it didn't happen, then you'd just have to accept that some things have requirements that you may not meet. A book on Sanrensei isn't "essential" and not having access to it (you do, you just chose not to buy a device you can read it on) doesn't impact your "freedom". Reality check, please.

You don't want digital feudalism. Publishers don't want digital anarchy.

Very well then,

This thread has gone way OT (of which I am mostly to blame). Most of the people who responded to my inflammatory comments did not read what I wrote, interpreted it through their own prejudices, or do not understand the definition of the terms I have used. I do not see any point in continuing to discuss this matter.

You have all made good points and you are welcome to your opinions whether I agree with them or not. I will not post in this thread further.

Good Day.

Certainly none of what you say is an unbreakable law. Most people I know downloaded or swapped thousands of songs back in college, but we all pay for music now and most of us don't use file-sharing or sneakernet anymore. The convenience of iTunes/Amazon is too great.

I don't buy that much music because I have very little money, but I still don't use file-sharing services--they're just too much trouble compared to something like iTunes or even Amazon. And those files are DRM-free because customers preferred it and rightsholders eventually saw the light.

Will that apply to books? Perhaps not, since they're more expensive. I don't assume that a well run market can persist without DRM, but there is a model for how it could work.

Judicata:I'm very much an advocate of personal liberties

That is a great pun ^^