February 20, 2012
January 24, 2012
“I started asking audiences to just raise their hands for one question. Which is, I’d say, “Okay, do you have a favorite author?” They’d say, “Yes.” and I’d say, “Good. What I want is for everybody who discovered their favorite author by being lent a book, put up your hands.” And then, “Anybody who discovered your favorite author by walking into a bookstore and buying a book raise your hands.” And it’s probably about five, ten percent of the people who actually discovered an author who’s their favorite author, who is the person who they buy everything of. They buy the hardbacks and they treasure the fact that they got this author. Very few of them bought the book. They were lent it. They were given it. They did not pay for it, and that’s how they found their favorite author. And I thought, “You know, that’s really all this is. It’s people lending books. And you can’t look on that as a loss of sale. It’s not a lost sale, nobody who would have bought your book is not buying it because they can find it for free.”
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Neil Gaiman on Copyright, Piracy, and the Commercial Value of the Web (X) [shortened]
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(via pigtailsandcombatboots)
This is a very good point, especially that last line.
(Source: roominthecastle, via pigtailsandcombatboots)
May 20, 2011
Criminal.
“Instead, the organization has previously promised to spend the money to reinvigorate its unprofitable campaign of threats and lawsuits, in addition lobbying politicians to offer greater enforcement of copyright infringement at their constituents’ tax expense and outlaw consumer practices like creating backup copies (which the RIAA contends is “stealing”).
RIAA spokesman Jonathan Lamy previously stated, “Any funds recouped are re-invested into our ongoing education and anti-piracy programs.”
The RIAA would surely argue that artists would eventually benefit by reducing piracy. However, the organization’s past efforts have proved only marginally effective at best as piracy rates have waned and waxed with the years passing years, always remaining relatively high.”
‘Eventually benefit’, huh?? The RIAA is just a different kind of pirate.
