[Slight OT] TDPL in Russia

[Steven Schveighoffer]

On Fri, 27 Aug 2010 16:40:43 -0400, Leandro Lucarella <luca at llucax.com.ar>  
wrote:

> Steven Schveighoffer, el 27 de agosto a las 15:03 me escribiste:
>
>> No, libraries don't steal, they buy their copies or are given books
>> that other people have bought.  If I lent you my copy of TDPL then
>> it wouldn't be stealing either, someone paid for that book.  If you
>> have a copy of a book from the library, then nobody else has that
>> copy.  This falls under fair-use.  You are allowed to transfer your
>> copy of IP to someone else (despite what EULA's try to enforce), or
>> lend it to them as long as you are not also using it.  There is a
>> difference between copying and lending.
>
> That being true, the practical consequences are the same: A doesn't buy
> the book, but reads it anyway. So according to the argument about
> downloading the book via torrent was "A is stealing profit from the
> author". If A lends the book instead of downloading it, he is still
> getting the knowledge but not paying from it (so the author doesn't get
> paid either). I really have a lot of trouble understanding why one is
> reasonable or fair use and why another is stealing.

See my response to retard.  The publisher prices his book with the  
*understanding* that libraries will buy the book and lend it to people, or  
that some people won't buy it and will just borrow a copy from a friend.   
They have done lots of research to find the correct price point so people  
will buy it (not to expensive) and they make a profit (not too cheap).

What screws up the pricing is when people can easily get copies without  
paying for them, without following the "one license, one book" model.   
Then they lose money.  Look at what it has done to the music industry.   
The losses are hard to comprehend, because a "non-sale" doesn't cost  
anything.  But when you invest so much money expecting a return on the  
investment, only to not get your money back, the model doesn't work, the  
industry suffers, and the eventual beneficiaries from the industry (i.e.  
you) suffer.  It wouldn't happen overnight, but if copyright law was  
abolished, eventually we would have only poetry to read :)

If you bought a $20 savings bond with the promise that in 5 years, it  
would be worth $100, but at the end of 5 years, you were given back $20,  
would you consider that fair?  They had your $20 for 5 years, using it to  
make money, and you only just got back what you invested!  Is that a model  
that will convince people continue to buy savings bonds?  Even though  
nobody lost any money?

At the same time, nobody is going to pay $500 for a book, so copyright law  
was put into place to lower the prices of things, with the promise "if you  
lower your prices, we'll give you assurances that more people will buy  
your books."  It's an agreement the government put in place to stimulate  
innovation, and it works very well.

> I'm not convinced about the argument about the paper book taking
> a "time-slice" to be read so it's OK to share because 2 people can't
> read the same book at the same time, I think libraries usually have
> a few copies from the same book because there is usually little people
> reading the same book concurrently.
>
> I'm not talking any side here, I really think authors should be
> encouraged to keep writing books, and for that to happen, they have to
> live, and to live, get some profit, but I'm not convinced the topic is
> so black & white. There is a lot of discussion about IP because of
> digital media, and it's not very clear how the future will be, but I do
> think the old model is exhausted (CC and FLOSS making an excellent point
> that there are viable alternatives).

FLOSS only exists because writing software is profitable :)  Think about  
it...  I write software because I can make a living doing it.  If FLOSS is  
all that existed, then I wouldn't write software (gotta make money  
somehow), so I wouldn't have the skills to contribute software to the OSS  
community.  Same for Walter, Andrei, etc.

-Steve