Apple basically got started against IBM, and borrowed their business model of owning the user from cradle to grave. Everything proprietary and "mine, mine, mine." And IBM, perhaps unintentionally, gave the PC design away, effectively "crowdsourcing" the PC market with lots and lots of innovators and competitors.
The result, the PC tsunami ended up swamping Apple into being a niche for highly graphics-oriented stuff while the rest of the world pretty much ignored them.
Apple still hasn't learned their lesson that openness and being the "standards-bearer" (Here are the specs. Make your stuff compatible. Thank you, that will be one dollar.) is a much better role.
Proprietary control-freakism may be a way of life for some firms, but it's NOT a viable business model in the long run.
Copyright is a TOOL. Nothing more, nothing less either. And, like any tool, it can be and is being viciously misused by a culture of "my lawyer can beat up your lawyer" and where the ONLY entities who have rights are either people like La Amstutz or greedy corporations.
Don't blame the tool. Blame the hands that hold it.
Lack of DRM (to say the least), not so much. It's as if Harlequin/Carina is trying to lay the (perceived) risk of DRM-free encouraging piracy off on the authors.
In any event, here's my reply to the lady:
Geoffrey Kidd says:
DRM translates to "You don't OWN the things you've bought." Period.
My favorite publisher, Baen Books, started selling DRM-free books from their website(webscriptions.net) back in late 1999. Their prices have always been reasonable, and the loyalty of their customers is unshakable.
If Carina and Harlequin go down that road, they'll find the same results for the same reasons. Forcing people to jailbreak what they've bought just so that they can choose HOW, WHEN, and WHERE to read what they've paid for is very poor marketing practice.
If people have a choice between paying and free, they will pick free, provided there is no downside to free.
Really? I guess I don't qualify as "people." My local library got a donation copy yesterday of Cory Doctorow's new novel "Makers" from me after I had already downloaded the book from the author's own website for free. The UPside of "free" is it gave me a reason to buy.
And it comes down to a long-ago case that went all the way to the Supreme Court: United_States_v._Paramount_Pictures,_Inc., which ended the studios' ownership of theaters.
The theaters went from being studio properties, with all the incentives this gave the studios to make going to the theater a pleasant, enjoyable experience, to making the theaters just another customer. (And we all know how warmly and generously the studios treat their customers.)
So of course, now that everybody's a customer, the studios are looking for new ways to sink pumps into everybody's wallet.
Author Christopher Anvil, in his story Top Line, reprinted by Baen Books in War Games (Amazon), had what I think is the best exchange ever on the topic of businesses and customers. It's a scene where an inventor is answering questions about how he runs his business:
Q: "If your car is too durable, there go your replacement sales."
A: "I got a little tired of cars wearing out every three years, didn't you? The idea is to give solid value, not plant a suction pump in the customer's wallet."
Q: "You'll cut your bottom line, won't you?"
A: "We haven't forgotten the bottom line. But there's another line you don't want to forget, either."
Q: "What's that?"
A: "The bottom line is the gain you get. The top line is the gain you deliver in return. If you provide the customer with a buy well worth having, you've taken care of the top line. That doesn't guarantee a profit, but Ford, Edison, Bell, Land, and a host of others have done right by the top line, and everyone was better off because of it. Naturally, the bottom line is important. But there needs to be something on the top line first!"
His "Salvos Against Big Brother" column in the Jim Baen's Universe e-Magazine are or should be required reading for any debater in the copyright/DRM/piracy arena.
As far as I can tell, his position is that the Great Enemy of artists and creators isn't piracy but lack of exposure, and for every sale supposedly lost by unauthorized copies, an artist (and his publisher) actually end up with a net gain in new customers, who might otherwise never even find out the good stuff exists.
This huge disconnect has happened to every obsolete or obsolescent industry, since executives seem to end up with huge blind spots as to what their business really is.
Railroad executives saw themselves as the be-all and end-all of transportation, and never noticed that highways and airlines would end up eating their lunch.
The telephone companies are wrestling with and trying to suppress VOIP, and demanding that everybody pay for using "their" pipes.
Book executives try to charge hardcover prices for electronic editions because they fear that cheap eBooks will destroy hardcover sales, never bothering to notice that paper and eBooks are NOT THE SAME MARKET.
And so with newspapers.
I wonder if there's any way to sell the New York Times company short about five years in advance.
Most of our legislators at all levels are lawyers. The drawback of this is that there's not a chance in hell they'll vote sanctions against their own profession for anything that might make them a few bucks.
Inevitably, regulatory agencies become captives of the industries they're supposed to keep an eye on. The FCC delayed FM broadcasting for years because the AM stations "didn't like it." The ICC eventually got so bad that it was abolished. The FDA is openly in bed with Big Pharma. The CAB for years "regulated" competition right out of the airline industry.
Examples go on and on, because people keep forgetting that the most important question a bureaucrat ever asks is: "What will I do after I leave government service?" and a job in the industry they "regulate" is the obvious answer, since they know the territory. And nobody wants to knock over their own rice bowl.
A "Copyright Czar" will inevitably make darn sure that "established businesses" will be copyrighted/DRMed/"by any means necessary" kept in the game, and upstarts kept out. If you want to kill innovation in the "intellectual property" industries, you can't do it better than that.
Author Eric Flint, who knows more than a little about eBooks, weighed in on this over on Baen's Bar (bar.baen.com).
The most striking thing about the report -- assuming it's true, which you always have to wonder with anything in Drudge -- is that it indicates that the chief executive of one of the world's largest publishing corporations is abysmally ignorant of the most basic facts concerning electronic publishing. You can start with his belief that a $9.99 e-book is going to automatically drive down the price of a hardcover.
Gah. This is on a par with arguing that the world can't be round, because if it was the people living in China would fall off.
There is very little relationship between the prices of e-books and hardcovers. This, for several reasons:
The first and simplest is that for e-books to determine the prices of hardcovers would be a genuinely surreal instance of a tiny little tail wagging an enormous dog. The sales of e-books, whether measured in terms of units or money, is miniscule compared to the sale of hardcovers.
Secondly, they are two very different products, rather than being -- as he obviously believes -- essentially the same product with a minor packaging difference. What actual experience demonstrates is that the BIG market in e-books is complimentary to paper editions, not in place of them. What most people want is _both_ formats of the same title, because they use them for different purposes.
Thirdly, we have the experience with e-ARCs, which demonstrates quite clearly that many people are willing to pay a premium price for an early release of a title.
But... never mind. It's been my experience that people in the upper echelons of corporate publishing have wants amounts to mystical religious fervor on this subject. They know what they know, don't confuse them with the facts.
And they asked me how I did it, and I gave 'em the Scripture text,
"You keep your light so shining a little in front o' the next!"
They copied all they could follow, but they couldn't copy my mind,
And I left 'em sweating and stealing a year and a half behind.
RSS
Twitter
And how is this new? (as sehlat)
Apple basically got started against IBM, and borrowed their business model of owning the user from cradle to grave. Everything proprietary and "mine, mine, mine." And IBM, perhaps unintentionally, gave the PC design away, effectively "crowdsourcing" the PC market with lots and lots of innovators and competitors.
The result, the PC tsunami ended up swamping Apple into being a niche for highly graphics-oriented stuff while the rest of the world pretty much ignored them.
Apple still hasn't learned their lesson that openness and being the "standards-bearer" (Here are the specs. Make your stuff compatible. Thank you, that will be one dollar.) is a much better role.
Proprietary control-freakism may be a way of life for some firms, but it's NOT a viable business model in the long run.
Joining Micro$oft might be hazardous to your rep. (as sehlat)
Anybody stupid enough to take money to lock the Big G out would probably get a response of: If they're that stupid, they're not WORTH finding.
Re: Anymous Coward (as sehlat)
Copyright is a TOOL. Nothing more, nothing less either. And, like any tool, it can be and is being viciously misused by a culture of "my lawyer can beat up your lawyer" and where the ONLY entities who have rights are either people like La Amstutz or greedy corporations.
Don't blame the tool. Blame the hands that hold it.
American as seen by a customer (as sehlat)
I think the following column pretty much describes the status of American's relationship with its customers:
http://www.fredoneverything.net/Dillinger.shtml
Title:
Air John Dillinger
American Airlinies: World's Worst Airline
Kipling (as sehlat)
They copied all that they could follow
but they couldn't copy my mind
and I left 'em sweating and stealing
a year and a half behind.
Lack of advances is troubling... (as sehlat)
Lack of DRM (to say the least), not so much. It's as if Harlequin/Carina is trying to lay the (perceived) risk of DRM-free encouraging piracy off on the authors.
In any event, here's my reply to the lady:
Geoffrey Kidd says:
DRM translates to "You don't OWN the things you've bought." Period.
My favorite publisher, Baen Books, started selling DRM-free books from their website(webscriptions.net) back in late 1999. Their prices have always been reasonable, and the loyalty of their customers is unshakable.
If Carina and Harlequin go down that road, they'll find the same results for the same reasons. Forcing people to jailbreak what they've bought just so that they can choose HOW, WHEN, and WHERE to read what they've paid for is very poor marketing practice.
Waste of time and money by Big Content? (as sehlat)
Good. It means the illegitimi aren't using it to buy Congresscritters.
Re: Re: Re: (as sehlat)
Really? I guess I don't qualify as "people." My local library got a donation copy yesterday of Cory Doctorow's new novel "Makers" from me after I had already downloaded the book from the author's own website for free. The UPside of "free" is it gave me a reason to buy.
If Warner Brothers had been smart (as sehlat)
Instead of:
"you need our consent." (signed Voldemort(TM))
Should have been:
"Attached is the consent form, fully filled out on your behalf and approved. Our warmest regards to you and your fellow diners."
There's a *reason* for the studios' attitudes toward theaters (as sehlat)
And it comes down to a long-ago case that went all the way to the Supreme Court: United_States_v._Paramount_Pictures,_Inc., which ended the studios' ownership of theaters.
The theaters went from being studio properties, with all the incentives this gave the studios to make going to the theater a pleasant, enjoyable experience, to making the theaters just another customer. (And we all know how warmly and generously the studios treat their customers.)
So of course, now that everybody's a customer, the studios are looking for new ways to sink pumps into everybody's wallet.
So what else is new? (as sehlat)
It's not as if Microsoft hasn't always regarded whatever hardware you have as "theirs."
Value for the Customer (as sehlat)
Author Christopher Anvil, in his story Top Line, reprinted by Baen Books in War Games (Amazon), had what I think is the best exchange ever on the topic of businesses and customers. It's a scene where an inventor is answering questions about how he runs his business:
Q: "If your car is too durable, there go your replacement sales."
A: "I got a little tired of cars wearing out every three years, didn't you? The idea is to give solid value, not plant a suction pump in the customer's wallet."
Q: "You'll cut your bottom line, won't you?"
A: "We haven't forgotten the bottom line. But there's another line you don't want to forget, either."
Q: "What's that?"
A: "The bottom line is the gain you get. The top line is the gain you deliver in return. If you provide the customer with a buy well worth having, you've taken care of the top line. That doesn't guarantee a profit, but Ford, Edison, Bell, Land, and a host of others have done right by the top line, and everyone was better off because of it. Naturally, the bottom line is important. But there needs to be something on the top line first!"
Why am I not surprised? (as sehlat)
Expecting honesty from a politician? Good Lord, next you'll be expecting charity from bankers!
Author Eric Flint's Column on eBooks and Piracy (as sehlat)
His "Salvos Against Big Brother" column in the Jim Baen's Universe e-Magazine are or should be required reading for any debater in the copyright/DRM/piracy arena.
As far as I can tell, his position is that the Great Enemy of artists and creators isn't piracy but lack of exposure, and for every sale supposedly lost by unauthorized copies, an artist (and his publisher) actually end up with a net gain in new customers, who might otherwise never even find out the good stuff exists.
It's not just newspaper executives (as sehlat)
This huge disconnect has happened to every obsolete or obsolescent industry, since executives seem to end up with huge blind spots as to what their business really is.
Railroad executives saw themselves as the be-all and end-all of transportation, and never noticed that highways and airlines would end up eating their lunch.
The telephone companies are wrestling with and trying to suppress VOIP, and demanding that everybody pay for using "their" pipes.
Book executives try to charge hardcover prices for electronic editions because they fear that cheap eBooks will destroy hardcover sales, never bothering to notice that paper and eBooks are NOT THE SAME MARKET.
And so with newspapers.
I wonder if there's any way to sell the New York Times company short about five years in advance.
Sanctions? Dream on. (as sehlat)
Most of our legislators at all levels are lawyers. The drawback of this is that there's not a chance in hell they'll vote sanctions against their own profession for anything that might make them a few bucks.
Beautiful (as sehlat)
This will end up being poison for the newspapers, and google is artfully giving them what they want, in a golden chalice.
The REAL problem is regulatory capture. (as sehlat)
Inevitably, regulatory agencies become captives of the industries they're supposed to keep an eye on. The FCC delayed FM broadcasting for years because the AM stations "didn't like it." The ICC eventually got so bad that it was abolished. The FDA is openly in bed with Big Pharma. The CAB for years "regulated" competition right out of the airline industry.
Examples go on and on, because people keep forgetting that the most important question a bureaucrat ever asks is: "What will I do after I leave government service?" and a job in the industry they "regulate" is the obvious answer, since they know the territory. And nobody wants to knock over their own rice bowl.
A "Copyright Czar" will inevitably make darn sure that "established businesses" will be copyrighted/DRMed/"by any means necessary" kept in the game, and upstarts kept out. If you want to kill innovation in the "intellectual property" industries, you can't do it better than that.
An Author Weighs In (as sehlat)
Author Eric Flint, who knows more than a little about eBooks, weighed in on this over on Baen's Bar (bar.baen.com).
Kiplng said it best. (as sehlat)
From: THE "MARY GLOSTER"
And they asked me how I did it, and I gave 'em the Scripture text,
"You keep your light so shining a little in front o' the next!"
They copied all they could follow, but they couldn't copy my mind,
And I left 'em sweating and stealing a year and a half behind.