[WEB4LIB] RE: "Piracy is Progressive Taxation"

[Edward Wigg]

On Thursday, December 12, 2002, at 04:12 PM, Karen G. Schneider wrote:

> :Lesson 1: Obscurity is a far greater threat to authors and creative
> :artists than piracy.
>
> (Edward, I know you aren't making the argument here, just citing the
> arguments.)
>
> Oh, pish tosh.  That's a false dichotomy.  What if you're as well-known
> as you wanna be, and someone steals your work?  Imagine my shock at
> finding Northern Light had stolen my American Libraries columns--freely
> available on the ALA Web site, and owned by ME according to the generous
> AL copyright agreement--and to add insult to injury, was selling them
> for $2.95 a pop!  (No royalties to me, of course--but then I only
> discovered the theft by accident, while doing research, and thanks to AL
> for going after them for me...)
>
> Yes, I suppose if it were handed to me, I'd like fame, fortune, and a
> MacArthur fellowship.  But really, I was perfectly happy with the level
> of exposure AL provided, and felt very well compensated for my columns
> both in exposure and payment, and I certainly didn't need my own
> personally owned works to be sold like stolen books on a street-corner.
> Please, spare me from "information wants to be free, as long as it's
> yours."

I'm not sure I understand the "well-known as you wanna be." AL might 
seem a sufficient backwater to you that nobody reads it so publishing in 
it amounts to not being published at all, but I'm not sure that everyone 
would agree with you. All the writers I know who publish (and I know 
people who write exclusively for their own enjoyment and therefore do 
not even try to have their work published) write to be read. They think 
they have a voice that they wish to be heard (with many motivations 
behind that). Nobody's really talking about fame and fortune here, as 
the whole point is that very few people make even a living out of 
writing books, just the chance for a few more readers. If you already 
feel "very well compensated" why would you care if you gained extra 
readers by on-line swapping rather than people passing the print version 
around?

Your response makes me suspect that you didn't actually read the 
article, as Tim O'Reilly actually argues that people would rather pay if 
it is made reasonable for them to do so -- rather the opposite of 
"information wants to be free" -- and that he sees a continuing role for 
publishers, or other equivalent middlemen.

Edward