So, lets say you were bored enough to scan all your books into your computer, or better yet get em all on your hard drife in a PDF format. Then lets say you hosted them where the masses could get at them, you think some literary oraganization would come after you like the RIAA has gone after the MP3 swappers? I mean , it definitely is the same crime. I ask this because in the last 2 days I sat at a coffee house and started reading two different books, and I dont really feel like going and finding them at the store...especially not for 7.99 a pop. One is old Koontz, so if I was tenacious I could wander the thrift stores and find it for 50 cents or so. But again...the word lazy comes into play. Not to mention gas at 287 agallon.....
not to mention you can't find everything you want in bookstores and libraries if not in usa...ordering books from across the ocean is really expensive and you must wait for two months via surface mail - air mail is $5 per book
the gutenburg project... spiritual-texts... erowid has some, as does drug-text / psychedelic-library... poke around, there's a lot on the web...
I've wondered about that...if some people scan in every page of new books,say ones on the bestseller list,and then host them for all to see. I wondered if they would get into any kind of legal trouble for doing that. It would be the same with older books,but newer books would probably draw more attention.
yes, some people are legally prosecuted in usa couple of years ago, for example to others. nothing drastic, but at least unpleasant. mostly people post to newsgroups via proxy and using tricks. luckyly for us who love ebooks, there are some russian sites where you can find a lot of reading material. they dont take copyrights very seriously there, lol.
Doesn't a copyright expire after 50 years? I found an awesome web-site (wish I still had the address) a long time ago that hosted probably 5,000+ books that had their copyright expired. Alice in Wonderland was the one I was reading off that website
that thing with 50 years vary in different countries. tolkien's books will never be free of copyright, for example, all his grandsons live exclusively of his work. as for this site, it's probably project gutenberg - google it and enjoy
Project Gutenberg is cool for books in the public domain. However, newer books they get fairly serious about. I seem to remember some prosecutions with the early Harry Potter books. Moreover, I have to ask - how is the author to make his rent and groceries if we do not get some $ to him in some way. I think writing is a social good and needs to be rewarded. I buy a lot used, get a lot from the library and buy new when I have to. I wish there was a better system for spreading goods around but not sure how it would work. Smarter people than me have tried to figure that one out.
I was looking for a koontz book when I thought of it, I mean anything out of print they could make some money off. just sell member ships instead of individual books...and if the book goes movie, pull it off the site and reprint away...
So do something like Napster (sp?) did - you pay to join the site and then they pay some of it to the authors? That would work I guess but I don't think folks like Koontz would work for that kind of bread. Even with that some folks - without credit cards or puters would be left out.
i think it's the rule that booklovers and passionate readers buys, lend(sp?) from libraries and steal (ebooks) books. in my life i spend a few annual salaries on books, new and used, and i seriously doubt that any writer will much suffer from paralel editing of ebooks. nobody will bother to steal ebook if it costs 2-3 bucks. i can't think of fair and legitimate reason for ebook that cost $7, and same paperback cost $7.5-8. as for pure fantasy, imagine exclusively ebook publishing - without paper edition. author don't need agent nor printing nor distribution costs. i think most authors get up to 20% from their work, so this way book can cost $1-3 and author gets full price for his work.
I am with you 100% on E-publishing. Once we get to that point the author and the reader can get rid of the middle man. It's what to do till then that I don't have a good grip on.
