begin quoting [EMAIL PROTECTED] as of Tue, Nov 21, 2006 at 05:51:05PM -0800: > On Tue, Nov 21, 2006 at 05:08:34PM -0800, Stewart Stremler wrote: > > Erm... Do you know what a slush pile is? > > no
Okay, you need to look into how the publishing industry works, just a little bit closer. A slush pile is the pile of manuscripts that an editor gets to go through looking for something worthwhile to publish. It's mostly crap. His job is to find the stuff that isn't crap and publish it, or to find the stuff that's fixable crap, and to help the author to get better so that the author can write something other than crap. Sturgeon's law applies: 90% of everything is crap. Other people apply the 80/20 rule: 80% of the slush pile is unfixable crap, and 80% of what's left is fixable crap. So, technically, all those people who are writing crap aren't making money from their "creativity". But let's say that they could -- let's say we had a publisher that would publish each and every one of those manuscripts. They couldn't sell 'em. Okay, so let's say that all published books were available in every bookstore. I'd never want to go into a bookstore. You couldn't find anything decent to read. > > > As long as there is demand for creative works people will be motivated > > > to give something to keep the creators creating....e.g. if they don't then > > > their favorite rock band won't be able to make a new album for 'em etc. > > > > Really? > > > > /me looks at all the people who pirate huge amounts of music without > > guilt or remorse. > > > > I ain't buyin'. > > Yes new way would mean not everyone would contribute evenly. From your > 'pirating' example it appears the current copyright system is not working very > well either. I shudder at what it would mean in order to make copyright > system > work for digital music.....TC, DRM, DMCA, on and on. (Trusted Computing is *not* a bad word. It all depends on who is in control of your computer. If it's you, it's good; if it's someone else, it's bad.) Copy-protection technology isn't part of a (decent) copyright system; rather, it's what's used when the copyright system can't enforce copyrights. We'd see *more* copy protection. > Sometimes the 'cure' is worse than the disease. Indeed. The abolition of copyright would mean that nobody would ship software unless it was copy-protected. Anyone who did would find that their software was stolen, improved upon, and then sold, with copy protection... Imagine if M$ could steal any software they wished, without even having to pretend that they're nice. Anything vaguely superior would immediately be incorporated into their codebase, albeit with M$ characteristics added. -- _ |\_ \| -- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
