[OT]Re: Books...

[John Reimer]

Hello Walter,

> Yigal Chripun wrote:
> 
>> I do see the problem in the above idealized argument, but the problem
>> is that the current situation was created by the very organizations
>> who represent content creators like the RIAA and MPAA. They have
>> cultivated this culture of disrespect towards the content creators
>> via their disrespect towards the users of the content and via their
>> DRM schemes. trust and respect goes both ways. This is why in
>> free-software communities copy-rights are always respected (via
>> mutual respect and trust instead of fear and DRM).
>> 
> I'm rather proud that my compilers are not, have never, and never will
> be copy protected, DRM'd, require activation, phone home, nag for
> registration, etc.
> 
> I've been amply rewarded by discovering that my customers are nearly
> without exception decent, honorable, and nice people. I don't know if
> that is cause or effect, but it's fine with me either way.
> 
> They're still copyrighted, though <g>.
> 


Yes, clearly it is unwise to protect a product excessively with the assumption 
that all your customers are criminals.  Doing so speaks volumes; and in the 
end, copy protection schemes probably do little to prevent pirating.  If 
they actually manage some effectiveness, my guess is that the expense involved 
in adopting the anti-pirating scheme might be counteract the profits in the 
the long run (combine that with mounting customer frustration, and the strategy 
is possibly worse... it could mean loss of customer base).  It's the same 
with all controls that are unable to be enforced. 

BUT, the fact that a company uses or doesn't use a copy protection scheme, 
may or may not mean they trust their customers more or less.  In actual fact, 
it may just be another marketing move to make their customers feel good about 
themselves and the company to spin a reason to the Board why it isn't going 
to implement any form of anti-piracy protection in it's software (could be 
a very good reason).  Not to say that's what you do... I'm just saying that 
doing so doesn't necessarily make customer or company respectable.  Such 
respectability could quite easily be destroyed by some other poor customer/company 
relationship.  Respectability, I'm guessing, is more related to a consistant 
track record of conscientiousness, politeness, responsiveness, and honesty 
on the companies part.  But doing all that does not guarantee "decent, honorable, 
and nice" customers (or company).  That's really just a fantasy.

Now, that's not what we're talking about here.  Here we are wondering why 
the D newsgroup needs to be used as a medium for spreading and encouraging 
illegal copies of material -- that's reflects an aspect of honesty in this 
newsgroup.  We are not analyzing Google here and why it's so easy to find 
illegal content by using that search engine.  We are talking about this newsgroup... 
which, I hope, most of us want to keep respectable.  If this newsgroup wants 
to be respectable, it has to act so.  If it doesn't act so, it should be 
encouraged to act so.  If it can't be encouraged to act so, perhaps it should 
be enforced to act so.  If no one enforces this, then we invite problems 
as people with no respect (yes, they do exist!) push the limits to test how 
far they can go.

The fact that this newsgroup seems to allow freedoms that trample out other's 
freedoms (in the name of free speech -- see extreme racism in other posts) 
shows that there is more than a little contradiction going on here about 
what free speech means.  The line always has to be drawn somewhere.  By now 
it should be obvious that people will not always /choose/ to be respectable 
and honorable /even/ if you treat them so... assuming that they will does 
not make problems go away. So there will always be a time where a person 
has to step in and say "no".  If we consistantly choose to overlook problems 
like this, then we are asking to be plagued by much worse ones down the road.

There is no need for dictatorial intervention if these things are just simply 
delt with immediately.  This would be seen as simple policy in any other 
company that cared about it's image.

-JJR