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(linux_command_line)-> (Parent)->RE:Libraries as theft |
submited by Russell Tue 18 Apr 06 |
Since I actually work in the publishing field, I can tell you that books sold to libraries pay the authors the same royalty that they that they get if the book was sold in a store. Unless the author donates them, which sometimes happens. Now on the face of it this does look like a bad deal to the author. Sell one copy of his book and have 100's of people read it. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. But you don't hear much wining about it. I don't know if this is because it has always been this way, so they don’t try to change it, or if they actually believe this might lead to more sales down the road.
But Libraries really are different than bittorrents. In a library the books are in short supply. If they only have one copy of a single book only one person can have it at a time. If it is in great demand, you may have to wait a long time for your chance to read it. Also when you are done with it ( or your time is up) you must return the book to the library. You can’t use this method to build your own in-house collection. The library may respond to popularity of the book by buying more copies of it. ( more royalty for the author) You might respond to the short supply of the book buy buying a copy for yourself. ( again more for the author)
The only way that the author benefits from the bittorrent model, is if you response after downloading it is to buy it. The bittorrent popularity has no direct benefit for the author.
I think the case can be made for music, that if you bt-download a song, you might buy that artists album. I think there are statistics that support this.
Don't get me wrong. Bittorrent is a great technology. I use it for Linux iso downloads. I use it to download programming that is legally available ( pure pnage, star trek new voyages ) But to use it as a method to acquire something that you should have paid for, for no other reason that you are too cheap, or to lazy to get it properly, this is not justified.
I do, feel that this is a problem for people in countries where the product is unavailable. But, if all the potential customers in that location just downloaded the product of the net (w/o paying for it) the publisher would continue to have no incentive to make that product or similar products available in that location.
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