<cynicism>It's all about the money.</cynicism> Now for the real response.
On Wed, Feb 25, 2009 at 11:51 PM, delancey <[email protected]> wrote: > > > That creates a precedent that would allow everyone to take > > another licensing right from me just because they could. > > Does it? What right is being taken away? The right to ensure that > people don't apply some kinds of algorithms to your work? Which kinds > of algorithms? > > And what if I buy my own software to read text and connect it somehow > to my Kindle? Should I send you a check if I feed your book via > Kindle into it? These examples don't apply to the particular situation Blount addresses. A major factor behind the Guild's effort is that Amazon is specifically marketing the Kindle's ability to read books aloud in a near-human manner. I think that's a nice feature, and, being a user of audio books, I see that buying a Kindle, buying Kindle editions of books, and having the Kindle read them to me while I drive back and forth between Hartford and Rochester would save me a lot of money over my Audible subscription. If I'm willing to part with the higher quality readers I usually get through my subscription, I would cancel my subscription and stop downloading audio books in favor of the less expensive Kindle-read Kindle editions. Amazon is effectively, if not actually, trying to compete with the audio book market/sellers. This can lead to lost profits by the audio book makers/sellers and the authors who would have received royalty checks. This is actual financial damage. Of course, if you don't believe that authors should be compensated for sales of audio editions of books, then that whole scenario is moot. Additional response below. > > > And flip the precedent argument over: should we pursue every possible > licensing right just because we could? (I strongly believe that if > American public libraries were not started when they were, they'd > never have occurred -- corporate interests and many writers alike > would today decry them as theft if the precedent were not already > established and someone tried to start a public library now.) We probably shouldn't, and you're probably right about libraries. > > > > > Why shouldn't I and every writers group fight that? > > Because a machine is reading it. It's not a performance. There's an > algorithm between the purchased text and the reader/listener. So a performance is only a performance if it's done by a human? What about animals? And isn't the human brain of the performer (or animal brain, as the case may be) simply a very sophisticated set of algorithms between the purchased text and the listener? Less abstract response below. What's the idea here? When people read the book without any > intervening machinery that's OK, but if they apply some machinery to > it then the author should be paid extra? This is a digital reader -- > it's code all the way down, it's all machine. What if I plug a Kindle > into my computer so I can read a book on a bigger screen (whether the > Kindle allows this is irrelevant -- suppose a future version did)? > Should the Guild demand the reader should have to pay again, this time > for bigger font rights? What if Kindle came out with an add-on screen > that was more colorful? Should readers be paying more-colorful- > reading rights? And if not, what's the difference? It's code doing > the major work in all these cases -- whether putting it to a screen or > "reading" it. > OK, what if it were a play? You write a script. Someone buys a copy, feeds it into their computer, and programs very convincing robots/androids to perform the play in a theater down the street from the place where your play is being performed by humans at half the price per ticket with marketing touting the performance as nearly as the human one because of new programs the robots are running. Oh, and the robot performance is just an extra feature - the "main attraction" is the text of your play on display. First, why should you be compensated for the performance by the humans? After all, you were paid for the copies of the scripts they use, and they are putting hard work into the performance while you sit back and get a check. Why do you get the check? The show is just a different form of the text you wrote, a form that you really have nothing to do with. Second, if you think you should be paid for human performances of your play, and the robots do it as well as humans or nearly so, why shouldn't you get paid for the performance rights? What if your audiences were suddenly half the size they were before the robot show opened, the people instead going down the street to the robot show? Would that change your mind if you were against payment when you weren't actually seeing money walking down the street? Such sophisticated robots/androids are still a good time away. However, what about screenplays? Why should a writer of a screenplay receive a dime from movie/ticket sales at all if he/she receives payment for copies of scripts? (I know this probably isn't the way it's done.) And what about home video? But say the writer does receive payment for human performed versions of his/her screenplay (movie/ticket/home video sales and all). What if Pixar or Dreamworks also buys the screenplay and produces it all with computer generated actors and voices, then releases it in a theater near the one where the human performed version is playing and selling tickets for half the price? That is doable *now*. And some of the computer generated movies are getting very life-like. Should the writer receive payment for this version of the text? Why? It's just software processing the writer's text into speech, descriptions into scenery, and forming and animating the virtual actors. [snip] I suggest that while one may strongly disagree with the principle behind the Guild's effort, the principle has a reasonably rational basis and so is not any more "idiotic" than generally accepted ideas about copyright and compensation for rights to use a work. Should there even be a copyright in any work? If so, why? Maybe we should do away with copyright altogether and simply rely on contracts alone. This feeds into the discussion Eric wants to have about intellectual property, the law, and you. :-) That last "you" is the figurative "you," not the personal "you." -- Dave Henn [email protected] --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "R-SPEC: The Rochester Speculative Literature Association" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/r-spec?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
