You write:
Truth is, most people don't care about sharing information, or about sharing
at all. That's not their motivation. Their motivation is not having to pay to
watch some movie that is in the theaters.
That is *not* the "truth". That is Hollywood's propaganda. All serious study
show a positive correlation between the amount of movies taken from the
Internet and the money spent in movie theaters. Heck, the box office figures
almost increase every year! Take the All Time Worldwide Box Office Grosses.
The average year of a movie in the top-100 is 2006 (according to awk '{ sum
+= $NF } END { print sum / 100 }')! If you take the top-15, it is 2009!
You write:
You sell your first book and you feel so proud! You believe it will be the
start of a new life for you and your family. But the next day you discover
that people are "sharing" your book in the internet without paying you a
cent! All your time and energy and hard work... And you now are not getting
anything. What do you feel? What do you think? Please, don't tell me it's
right.
It is right. Illegal (today) but right. People should be free to
non-commercially share books. There exist ethical ways to raise money. As I
explained in a previous post, a tax on Internet connections would be fine.
Furthermore, setting up such a tax would be the occasion to discuss how the
money should be distributed. Because, guess what, the world of writing is no
different from other artistic fields: 0,1% of superstars (like J.K. Rowling)
who make millions (J.K. Rowling is richer than the Queen Elizabeth II) and
the less popular writers that do not make a living from their Art.
