Patents are (in theory anyway) designed to foster innovation. Who would create something new if it would simply be stolen away the moment it was made? Likewise, why would a publisher put the time and effort into publishing a book if the second it was seen to be a success, every other publisher would republish it? But we're entering a new era where digital goods are not adhering to old theories. Look at the innovations coming out of open-sourced software. No patents at all, yet the software is often better than anything available commercially. That's not supposed to happen. Or the author David pointed out who gave away his entire book, and then got a book deal and landed on the NY Times list. That's not supposed to happen either.
I think I have to agree with Eric that whatever the principles involved, the fight over text-to-speech rights is a losing battle. Change is coming, and business models will have to change as well. -- Jonathan Sherwood Sr. Science & Technology Press Officer University of Rochester 585-273-4726 On Thu, Feb 26, 2009 at 9:35 AM, Eric Scoles <[email protected]> wrote: > > > On 2009-02-26, delancey <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> >> OK, I wish I'd written "infuriatingly counterproductive" in place of >> each instance of "idiotic" and other such adjectives. > > > > There's also the fine distinction between "the guild are infuriatingly > counterproductive" and "the guild's *behaviors* are infuriatingly > counterproductive." > > One is, strictly speaking, an ad hominem. The other is a statement about > observed behaviors. > > Of course, sometimes we do want to say, directly, that someone seems to be > an idiot based on what they've been doing or saying. I try to remember > (don't always) to still talk about the behavior: "The guild are behaving > like idiots." > > I've become convinced it makes a difference. One way of speaking starts > from the position that the other party is an idiot (and, maybe, that you're > not), whereas the other leaves open the possibility that you can learn > something from or about them. > > SHIFTING GEARS: > > For what it's worth, I think this issue is past due for the Guild's > attention, but that they're ill-suited to address it. > > Creators of original works have come to have a very privileged legal status > in recent centuries. I don't know when the patent and the copyright were > invented, but they were invented: They're not basic human rights. (For that > matter, neither are 'basic human rights,' but that's another story.) Before > some point in the relatively recent past -- I'm going to guess it was during > the Englightenment, sometime -- you told a story, it got re-told wherever > and whenever someone wanted to re-tell it, however they had the means to do > so. LIkely as not it got altered, somehow, in the process. (Literary, and > especially poetic, forms came to be in large part to constrain those > changes. They were the first document standards, in that way.) > > We essentially take the basic position in the modern time that the old > times were bad old times in that way -- that people ought to have control > over what they create. FWIW, I'm with that program, mostly -- I'm a modern > guy. But it's clear to me that we have to be willing and able to deal with > change as it comes to us, and that furthermore the fighting of losing > battles (which this would surely be) is usually a bad thing for society. > Better to find a way that the battle doesn't have to happen. Battles waste > resources that could be put to better use elsewhere. (I've long believed > that the common received wisdom, that conflict normally leads to better > 'product', is a crock. *Competition* can lead to better product. It does > not inherently do so, and when it escalates into certain types and > scales of competition, as far as I can see, the result is usually bad. But I > digress....) > > That the fight to control text-to-speech readings is a losing battle, I see > little doubt. I don't dispute that there may well be a legal foundation for > the idea that text-to-speech is not permissable use, or at least that Amazon > is in violation for providing a means to do that. But as Craig, I, and Jason > have pointed out, getting the text into speech borders on trivially easy. So > it becomes both an unenforceable and absurd restriction. (I say 'absurd', > because we have a pretend-difference, where we let it happen 'for the > handicapped', but not for general use: So you could build a Kindle 2 that > was sold only to the visualy impaired [or to people who can't read, for that > matter], and that would be allowed, but you couldn't sell it to the general > public. It would be the over-zealous protection of property rights > re-inforcing the Nanny State.) > > > > >> -- > eric scoles ([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 -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
