Fwd: Please Stand Against the New Copyright Bill

[Ken O. Burtch]

I don't think I can write a convincing reply, but you asked how I felt 
about the impact of electronic copies of my book.  Colin could probably 
argue it better.

I once slid my car into a ditch and walked down the road for help.  The 
farmer said he'd pull me out if I paid him $20.  When I didn't have that 
much money, he took down my drivers license and threatened to take me to 
court if he helped me and I didn't pay him.  I don't want to live in a 
world like that, where people are vicitmized in the name of turning a 
profit.

As I wrote in the article, there is a difference between 
making something freely available and being paid for your effort.  My 
book IS freely available, legally or not, on file sharing servers.  I'm 
earning acceptable royalties from book sales.  Why would I want to charge 
somebody 15 cents every time they quoted an example from my book, or 
giving examples about what a great book it was to their friends?  That's 
part of what this bill is about.  It's not just about electronic copies. 
We're already paying money to music companies when we burn our Linux DVD's 
and that makes me ashamed of being Canadian.  And does anyone remember the 
DVD decryption fiasco fueled by corporate greed and the DMCA?

In the IT industry today, people are often overworked 
and underpaid and underappreciated.  Everyone wants to make more money, 
get more respect.  But it seems to me that earning a living and charging 
for electronic copies are two entirely different issues.  Do I want to 
earn money to pay for my food and rent during the time I wrote my book? 
Sure.  Do I think the best revenue stream is to launch an attack on the 
changing nature of technology and create laws that pimarily target the 
poor?  Not really.  I'm far more concerned at the low royalty rates paid 
to authors: an author writes the book, but the vast majority of the money 
goes to the big corporate publisher.  I also elude to this in the article.

I don't see free electronic copying as an attempt to exploit creative 
people.  The bill is not an attempt to help people to earn a living.  It's 
a money grab by the rich targetting the poor that will leave Canada in the 
electronic dark ages, a legal morass.  In my opinion, the bill will 
actually cost authors like me money.

I'm not sure that was explained well.  Like I said, read the article.

Ken B.

On Tue, 26 Aug 2008, Scott C. Ripley wrote:

>
> Ken,
>
> as an author of a book...
>
> are you fine with someone making (or do you make?) an electronic copy freely 
> available?
>
> Scott
>
>
> On Tue, 26 Aug 2008, Ken O. Burtch wrote:
>
>> 
>> See my Lone Coder blog, "If Free is Illegal, Who is the Pirate?"
>> (http://www.pegasoft.ca/coder/coder_august_2007.html) for a detailed look 
>> at why getting something for nothing isn't stealing.
>> 
>> Ken B.
> --
> The Toronto Linux Users Group.      Meetings: http://gtalug.org/
> TLUG requests: Linux topics, No HTML, wrap text below 80 columns
> How to UNSUBSCRIBE: http://gtalug.org/wiki/Mailing_lists
>
--
The Toronto Linux Users Group.      Meetings: http://gtalug.org/
TLUG requests: Linux topics, No HTML, wrap text below 80 columns
How to UNSUBSCRIBE: http://gtalug.org/wiki/Mailing_lists