having looked at and responded on Keithpp's blog, its very clear he feels ebooks are of zero value, a quick rundown of the whole thing is, he only thinks paper books have any value and that everybody should agree with him because "an ebook is not a book"
I guess that also means an FLAC album is not a cd, only a cd is a cd..(true but misses the point)
I tried to point out that you can lend and share DRM free ebooks, and infact you can do this much easier then with dead tree books but he just responded with the same "an ebook is not a book" and "why would anybody want an ereader even if its cheap" (paraphrasing actually)
to me, ebooks at 99cents or less are a great deal if you have a decent ebook reader, and you can get a decent reader for 20-30bucks, you can get a great one for 45-60...sure thats more then buying a paperback, but most hardcovers I have run across in recent years are 20bucks or more....so an ereader and reasonably priced ebook would be a better option for me, specially seeing as its much easier to carry a small ereader then a big heavy hardcover book(or even a paperback.)
meh, just wanted to save any new readers some time.
all you can take from his blog is "ebooks suck and have no value, buy real books"
well, heres the funny part, its not the file sharing that directly causes any of it, its their reaction.
they spend MILLION a year to fight a non-problem, rather then looking at ways to maximize profits.
they admit they loose money every year, they act like they are proud of it...
but, having worked with a major game developer for a while as a community rep(paid), I can say, Having listened to the meetings, what the stardock guy a while back said is true.
these kind of people are more worried about ensuring that people who dont pay dont enjoy their products then they are about maximizing sales and profit, so much so that in the case of game companies they will invest MILLIONS on DRM on the world of DRM sales people, despite the fact that those below them try to make them understand it wont help, DRM wont work.
One time we had a video confrance, one of the guys showed how fast you could remove the DRM from a game file using freeware (community created) software, it took around 15 seconds to remove the DRM from 3 games.....that didnt impress the higher ups at all, they said "it will still stop piracy, because XX said so, and their numbers are pretty solid"
makes me sick.....all the money that could be used to create new amazing content, wasted on fucking useless wars with your fans/customers.
he dosnt like DanB's artical, opinions or the man personally, because hes NOT under an industry label and not making the BPI/RIAA money.
nobody should be able to promote themselves, let alone become a success without a bpi/riaa label, Ithought that was common knowledge.....
see, its not fair that danb is making money directly off his work, he needs to be giving the bulk of is earnings to middle men or the system falls apart.
you dont understand, its ok when the RIAA/MPAA do it, they can even use pirated software to do production work on their products, and thats fine, its only when an independant does it that its a problem.
the ONLY time "piracy"(copyright infringement) is ok is when they do it....
and they do it alot.
using music from artists who never even signed with their lables to create completion cd's and sell them, using pirated software to tag and encode their music for sale, lots of examples if you google around a bit, the RIAA and MPAA have both been caught downloading/seeding retail software used in their fields....kinda funny if you ask me....(best one and easiest to find is the riaa being caught downloading retail tag editing softare....)
have you ever ripped a cd you owned to put it on your ipod(because to be this bit a pompous prick you know hes an apple user)
have you ever burned a cd using itunes(or equivalent) so you could listen in the car or using a normal cd player?
have you ever played a youtube video not uploaded by the copyright holder because you liked the song?
have you ever opened a website with random images?
have you ever used your stereo/boombox/car stereo when more then just you where listening to play copyrighted music off of anything but a public radio broadcast?
i could go on....think the point is made tho.
and yes, ripping your own cd's in the eyes of the RIAA is piracy, as is burning tracks you bought to cd, infact, they would much prefer you buy the tracks for each device you own in the format said device supports, and if you delete a track/album to make room for something else, then decide you want that track/album back, they want you to buy it again....only reason they dont push this, nobody but people like the AC above would put up with it....
on a more serious note: this is also a big part of why mega got hit when they did, the MAFIAA saw the news about them readying an alternative to their system and panicked, in the process they hurt and harmed alot of people, Im sure the AC above fully supports those unethical actions because....PIRACY!!!
the industry plan for quite some time now has been to do all they can to discourage and destroy any competing method for people to get their own content out there....be it music or movies or whatever.
if it dosnt make them money and give them control it must be squashed!!!
with the example of DRM, I honestly feel if the "Creator" is going to treat me like a crook/thief/exct, I may as well just be one and not have to deal with the complications said DRM add.
its unethical to treat paying customers like thieves, so I do not see how its any more unethical for me to act as they would treat me if I paid.
now another point: no 2 people have the exect same sense of ethics, its a very personal thing, you think all of us here are unethical, and we feel the same way about you, your not going to change our minds, and we arent willing to pay to change your mind....so what was the point of you posting again?
this is where tiered pricing/licensing comes in, many software suits offer diferent pricing based on how your going to use it.
for example Torque game engine use to offer a few licence options, one for indi dev's making casual games, one for more serios dev's and one that was a flat fee.
as i remeber they had a few tiers(may be off a bit, this was a couple years ago)
they had the indi licence that was targeted at small studios or users who just tinkered to make casual games, this licence was cheap and had a royalty setup that was graduated. and torque logo on games load screen.
2nd teir was more for mid sized indi firms or small commercial firms, fees based on sales numbers(i think..again been a while) and you needed to have a torque logo on the game load screen.
3rds tier was a flat fee where you owed NOTHING to GarageGames and didnt even need to include the torque logo on the games load screen.
this lead to decent sales of the engine to normal users, and said users got access to the community to community help forums as well as some direct help from the creators on the same forums.
If Waves where to look over the market, I bet they could keep their current pricing for studios and professional users and offer a license that people like DanBull could afford without harming their studio market.
infact, and heres the the funny thing, they may even gain some sales to up coming studios at the higher price that they wouldnt have gotten before, because their people are already using the software due to the tiered pricing.
Im not insulting them, I have worked at companies who had products like what you describe with waves, and many times, its just that nobody has ever shown them the advantages to offering other options, or even suggested it.
one example would be when MS almost gives or flat out give their software and even OS to students, those students are more likely to stick with ms's options when they move to the working world(like somebody going from starting indi to running their own indi studio/lable)
its not a perfect analogy but, its an easy example that most can relate to.
I can say, thanks to "piracy" a few companies have made alot of money off me.
one, who gave me a free license a few years back was the creators of textaloudmp3.
I had a client who was in need of text to speach software that could be used with multi voices and had more advanced features then anything free could offer, the problem was none of the big name apps had working demo's at the time.
so i turned to p2p, tried out 6-8 of the top names, found textaloud to be the best, so i had him give it a look on my system, as well as try out the voice options I was able to find(4 dif voice packs that each had multi voices to choose from)
in the end he picked TextAloudMP3 and bought every single voice option they had...
move on a few months I ran into a few other people who where interested in the same ability to use a computer to read to them, in each case I was able to sell a copy of TextAloudMP3 and at least 1-2 voices(not cheap), one woman wanted it to read emails and web page news to her, reading the monitor causes her eye strain and headaches.
after that it was surprising, i had quite a few of their friends(older people) wanting the same thing on their computers OR they wanted computers AND the software.
so i contacted the company and told them the truth, also told them how many more keys i needed and asked about a bundle deal for the software and my favorite voices, we worked out a deal, and the rep i was dealing with tossed me a free license and key for my own personal use and thanked me for being honest.
he also thanked me for about half a dozen bug reports I had turned in and worked with him on, tracked down a pesky bug with the voice pack, got it fixed up...
so yeah, it wasnt "ethical" and having delt with them now, I can say, they likely would have given me a working demo to try had i contacted them, (they are nice people), I didnt because I have found very few developers who are easy to work with when you need a more advanced demo OR their demo they already have out wont work(they have since fixed that issue)
but hey, they made thousands off me in the end, in a very niche software market, all thanks to their software being pirated.
yet another AC who claims to know all about free software vs pay software.
first, I do know profecinal graphix artist and editors, none of them would agree that you can get the same results using 100% free software that you can use using a mix of free and pay.
most of them have adobe, gimp, pain.net, inkscape among other apps.
gimp isnt a replacement for adobe, its good for a free app but its not to the quality and ability level of adobe, eventually it will get there, but as it stands now, your analogy implying gimp is just as good as adobe ps.....anybody who works in the field or works with people in the field will laugh their asses off at that....next you will say TN is just as good as IPS...
not really true, many of my friends have read books based purely on my suggestion and word of mouth, sames true for me, many of the books I have where grabbed due to somebody telling me "hey you gotta read this"
I dont really think your implication that ebooks/ereaders arent good is true, I will say, I wouldnt lend out a high end ereader, tho, some of the cheaper ones wouldnt be bad as lender units...cheaper then some hard cover books I have bought inthe past.
4,000-150,000% sales boost based on people who would have bought at full price.....not very likely.
and from what i have read, I really think the author would keep the price at .99 perpetually if he could. but his publishers likely will want it back up at "full price"
ereaders arent really that high priced, for example geeks.com always seems to have them in the $30-$60 range, the nook simple touch can be found for 60-70 refurbished sometimes even on their own site.
i do agree about drm sucking, but at least stripping nook book drm is fast and simple :)
Obama sucks, biden is even worse, mind you, this coming from a guy who voted for obama because palin(aka crazy hockey mom) scared the shit out of him(the thought of her being near any sort of button....even one on a coffee pot....scares the hell out of me)
you do realise that to these types, an accusation=trial and conviction....they are just upset they cant move directly to punitive action or execution of "offenders"
if i was in countrol of these sites, i would just regon block countries who want this shit link a page explaining how their gov dosnt want them to have access.
On the post: Paulo Coelho Ebook Sales Jump Way Up Thanks To $0.99 Sale
Re: missing the point
I guess that also means an FLAC album is not a cd, only a cd is a cd..(true but misses the point)
I tried to point out that you can lend and share DRM free ebooks, and infact you can do this much easier then with dead tree books but he just responded with the same "an ebook is not a book" and "why would anybody want an ereader even if its cheap" (paraphrasing actually)
to me, ebooks at 99cents or less are a great deal if you have a decent ebook reader, and you can get a decent reader for 20-30bucks, you can get a great one for 45-60...sure thats more then buying a paperback, but most hardcovers I have run across in recent years are 20bucks or more....so an ereader and reasonably priced ebook would be a better option for me, specially seeing as its much easier to carry a small ereader then a big heavy hardcover book(or even a paperback.)
meh, just wanted to save any new readers some time.
all you can take from his blog is "ebooks suck and have no value, buy real books"
On the post: Dan Bull Shares His Thoughts On The Pirate Bay Being Blocked Right After Helping His Music Get On The Charts
Re:
they spend MILLION a year to fight a non-problem, rather then looking at ways to maximize profits.
they admit they loose money every year, they act like they are proud of it...
but, having worked with a major game developer for a while as a community rep(paid), I can say, Having listened to the meetings, what the stardock guy a while back said is true.
these kind of people are more worried about ensuring that people who dont pay dont enjoy their products then they are about maximizing sales and profit, so much so that in the case of game companies they will invest MILLIONS on DRM on the world of DRM sales people, despite the fact that those below them try to make them understand it wont help, DRM wont work.
One time we had a video confrance, one of the guys showed how fast you could remove the DRM from a game file using freeware (community created) software, it took around 15 seconds to remove the DRM from 3 games.....that didnt impress the higher ups at all, they said "it will still stop piracy, because XX said so, and their numbers are pretty solid"
makes me sick.....all the money that could be used to create new amazing content, wasted on fucking useless wars with your fans/customers.
On the post: Dan Bull Shares His Thoughts On The Pirate Bay Being Blocked Right After Helping His Music Get On The Charts
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Dan the Pirate
and toothpicks
and ice picks
and shovels
and pitch forks
and wires/cables
and bleach
and and and....
On the post: Dan Bull Shares His Thoughts On The Pirate Bay Being Blocked Right After Helping His Music Get On The Charts
Re: Re: Dan the Pirate
http://www.venganza.org/
On the post: Dan Bull Shares His Thoughts On The Pirate Bay Being Blocked Right After Helping His Music Get On The Charts
Re: Re: Dan the Pirate
nobody should be able to promote themselves, let alone become a success without a bpi/riaa label, Ithought that was common knowledge.....
see, its not fair that danb is making money directly off his work, he needs to be giving the bulk of is earnings to middle men or the system falls apart.
On the post: Dan Bull Shares His Thoughts On The Pirate Bay Being Blocked Right After Helping His Music Get On The Charts
Re: Re: Dan the Pirate
the ONLY time "piracy"(copyright infringement) is ok is when they do it....
and they do it alot.
using music from artists who never even signed with their lables to create completion cd's and sell them, using pirated software to tag and encode their music for sale, lots of examples if you google around a bit, the RIAA and MPAA have both been caught downloading/seeding retail software used in their fields....kinda funny if you ask me....(best one and easiest to find is the riaa being caught downloading retail tag editing softare....)
good stuff...
On the post: Dan Bull Shares His Thoughts On The Pirate Bay Being Blocked Right After Helping His Music Get On The Charts
Re: Re: Re: Dan the Pirate
have you ever burned a cd using itunes(or equivalent) so you could listen in the car or using a normal cd player?
have you ever played a youtube video not uploaded by the copyright holder because you liked the song?
have you ever opened a website with random images?
have you ever used your stereo/boombox/car stereo when more then just you where listening to play copyrighted music off of anything but a public radio broadcast?
i could go on....think the point is made tho.
and yes, ripping your own cd's in the eyes of the RIAA is piracy, as is burning tracks you bought to cd, infact, they would much prefer you buy the tracks for each device you own in the format said device supports, and if you delete a track/album to make room for something else, then decide you want that track/album back, they want you to buy it again....only reason they dont push this, nobody but people like the AC above would put up with it....
On the post: Dan Bull Shares His Thoughts On The Pirate Bay Being Blocked Right After Helping His Music Get On The Charts
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Entitled?
on a more serious note: this is also a big part of why mega got hit when they did, the MAFIAA saw the news about them readying an alternative to their system and panicked, in the process they hurt and harmed alot of people, Im sure the AC above fully supports those unethical actions because....PIRACY!!!
the industry plan for quite some time now has been to do all they can to discourage and destroy any competing method for people to get their own content out there....be it music or movies or whatever.
if it dosnt make them money and give them control it must be squashed!!!
On the post: Dan Bull Shares His Thoughts On The Pirate Bay Being Blocked Right After Helping His Music Get On The Charts
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Entitled?
its unethical to treat paying customers like thieves, so I do not see how its any more unethical for me to act as they would treat me if I paid.
now another point: no 2 people have the exect same sense of ethics, its a very personal thing, you think all of us here are unethical, and we feel the same way about you, your not going to change our minds, and we arent willing to pay to change your mind....so what was the point of you posting again?
On the post: Dan Bull Shares His Thoughts On The Pirate Bay Being Blocked Right After Helping His Music Get On The Charts
Re: Waves, as another Techdirt (counter?) example
for example Torque game engine use to offer a few licence options, one for indi dev's making casual games, one for more serios dev's and one that was a flat fee.
as i remeber they had a few tiers(may be off a bit, this was a couple years ago)
they had the indi licence that was targeted at small studios or users who just tinkered to make casual games, this licence was cheap and had a royalty setup that was graduated. and torque logo on games load screen.
2nd teir was more for mid sized indi firms or small commercial firms, fees based on sales numbers(i think..again been a while) and you needed to have a torque logo on the game load screen.
3rds tier was a flat fee where you owed NOTHING to GarageGames and didnt even need to include the torque logo on the games load screen.
this lead to decent sales of the engine to normal users, and said users got access to the community to community help forums as well as some direct help from the creators on the same forums.
If Waves where to look over the market, I bet they could keep their current pricing for studios and professional users and offer a license that people like DanBull could afford without harming their studio market.
infact, and heres the the funny thing, they may even gain some sales to up coming studios at the higher price that they wouldnt have gotten before, because their people are already using the software due to the tiered pricing.
Im not insulting them, I have worked at companies who had products like what you describe with waves, and many times, its just that nobody has ever shown them the advantages to offering other options, or even suggested it.
one example would be when MS almost gives or flat out give their software and even OS to students, those students are more likely to stick with ms's options when they move to the working world(like somebody going from starting indi to running their own indi studio/lable)
its not a perfect analogy but, its an easy example that most can relate to.
I can say, thanks to "piracy" a few companies have made alot of money off me.
one, who gave me a free license a few years back was the creators of textaloudmp3.
I had a client who was in need of text to speach software that could be used with multi voices and had more advanced features then anything free could offer, the problem was none of the big name apps had working demo's at the time.
so i turned to p2p, tried out 6-8 of the top names, found textaloud to be the best, so i had him give it a look on my system, as well as try out the voice options I was able to find(4 dif voice packs that each had multi voices to choose from)
in the end he picked TextAloudMP3 and bought every single voice option they had...
move on a few months I ran into a few other people who where interested in the same ability to use a computer to read to them, in each case I was able to sell a copy of TextAloudMP3 and at least 1-2 voices(not cheap), one woman wanted it to read emails and web page news to her, reading the monitor causes her eye strain and headaches.
after that it was surprising, i had quite a few of their friends(older people) wanting the same thing on their computers OR they wanted computers AND the software.
so i contacted the company and told them the truth, also told them how many more keys i needed and asked about a bundle deal for the software and my favorite voices, we worked out a deal, and the rep i was dealing with tossed me a free license and key for my own personal use and thanked me for being honest.
he also thanked me for about half a dozen bug reports I had turned in and worked with him on, tracked down a pesky bug with the voice pack, got it fixed up...
so yeah, it wasnt "ethical" and having delt with them now, I can say, they likely would have given me a working demo to try had i contacted them, (they are nice people), I didnt because I have found very few developers who are easy to work with when you need a more advanced demo OR their demo they already have out wont work(they have since fixed that issue)
but hey, they made thousands off me in the end, in a very niche software market, all thanks to their software being pirated.
On the post: Dan Bull Shares His Thoughts On The Pirate Bay Being Blocked Right After Helping His Music Get On The Charts
Re: Re: Re: Entitled?
first, I do know profecinal graphix artist and editors, none of them would agree that you can get the same results using 100% free software that you can use using a mix of free and pay.
most of them have adobe, gimp, pain.net, inkscape among other apps.
gimp isnt a replacement for adobe, its good for a free app but its not to the quality and ability level of adobe, eventually it will get there, but as it stands now, your analogy implying gimp is just as good as adobe ps.....anybody who works in the field or works with people in the field will laugh their asses off at that....next you will say TN is just as good as IPS...
On the post: Paulo Coelho Ebook Sales Jump Way Up Thanks To $0.99 Sale
Re: missing the point
not really true, many of my friends have read books based purely on my suggestion and word of mouth, sames true for me, many of the books I have where grabbed due to somebody telling me "hey you gotta read this"
I dont really think your implication that ebooks/ereaders arent good is true, I will say, I wouldnt lend out a high end ereader, tho, some of the cheaper ones wouldnt be bad as lender units...cheaper then some hard cover books I have bought inthe past.
On the post: Paulo Coelho Ebook Sales Jump Way Up Thanks To $0.99 Sale
Re: Re: Re: Re:
On the post: Paulo Coelho Ebook Sales Jump Way Up Thanks To $0.99 Sale
Re:
and from what i have read, I really think the author would keep the price at .99 perpetually if he could. but his publishers likely will want it back up at "full price"
On the post: Paulo Coelho Ebook Sales Jump Way Up Thanks To $0.99 Sale
Re: Re:
i do agree about drm sucking, but at least stripping nook book drm is fast and simple :)
On the post: EU Commissioner Kroes: 'We Are Now Likely To Be In A World Without SOPA And Without ACTA'
Re:
On the post: How Can You Tell If Uploading Your Cover Song To YouTube Is Infringing? You Can't
As soon as i read this,
http://www.youtube.com/user/meytalll
kickass stuff :D
On the post: Judge Lets Feds Censor Blog For Over A Year So The RIAA Could Take Its Sweet Time
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
On the post: Kuwait Says Social Networks Must Be Regulated To 'Safeguard The Cohesiveness Of Society'
if it was up to me
On the post: Pirate Bay Block Initiates Streisand Cascade, Drives Record Traffic
Re: Re: Re:
the dif being, that their accountants inflate losses, and deflate royalties.... using the same mathmatic principle...
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