Chris Taylor
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1 year ago
in Lulu.com: Self Published Plagiarism? on Plagiarism Today
First do not take this the wrong way but copyright holder privileges are secondary to me. Copyright has gotten so out of hand lately its insane. Copyright is a misnomer. its not a right its a limited privilege granted by the United States Government to foster creativity and innovations from major authors. Over Reaching copyright STIFLES innovation. I think the RIGHTS of the people to have potential access to things like this (lulu is the utmost execution of free speech and free press)
ITS need to exist is far more important than ANY copyright concerns.
Lulu.com FOR copyright reasons CAN NOT make your book searchable online because this would enable exceedingly EASY copying of the book. You need to understand WHY file sharing is a problem for digital media.
No matter how much WORK it takes to copy a digital file even copy and paste one page at a time it only has to be done ONCE and then can be easily distributed.
There is no such thing as working DRM on a digital file. It just can not work (effectively) Only ONE user needs access to ONE file ONE time. onces its converted to an unrestricted format it can then be distributed easily quickly and efficiently.
DRM has one purpose and that is to strip users of there Personal Property Rights in product they purchase but thats another topic.
So you see in order to make it reasonably serachable they have to make it FULLY available on SOME level. EVENTUALLY someone will do the work to copy it that ONE TIME (no if its hard enough it will not be common place but again it only has to be done ONE TIME)
My question for you is why do you not insist on monitoring and "searchability" on everything a copy machine copies ?
Or hey why not spy on all our inkjet printers. I mean my keyboard and printer are just another for of printing press or copy machine. I can buy your poems. Transcribe them with OCR software or even by hand just one time and now its digital I can print copy distribute to my hearts content.
Authors and Publishers are LOSING the focus here. I do not buy books because I HAVE TO (I can download and DO download pretty much any book I want anytime I want)
I buy books because I WANT TO BUY BOOKS. I LIKE owning that nice soft or hard cover print edition of a book. It feels good. it conveys a sense of ownership and pride.
I ENJOY my books. Even books I get as ebooks legitimately I usually end up buying a print edition.
Note I will never purchase an ebook (sony gave me $50 credit with my ereader) at least not as they are today. I will not pay the same price for a digital locked down restricted controlled not actually owned by me legally file as I would for a print book. Just not going to happen. An OPEN do anything I want with it ebook is worth about 25% what a soft print edition costs to me and a locked down restricted file ? about 1/100th the value of a soft print book. SO if your book costs $20 in the store I will not pay more than 20 cents for a DRM'd ebook. I would pay $5 for a OPEN format non DRM's file.
In either of these cases I would just download the book from a torrent or newsgroup and go buy the print edition. I buy the book to OWN it I download the txt file or pdf file for convenience.
Lulu rocks. it allows authors who normally only have websites or ebooks to actually send me a nice printed book. I LOVE this !!! they are not cheap but so worth it! Its just nice to HOLD it in your hands.
When authors realize that there readers are NOT there enemies and that they do not have copy RIGHTS but copy PRIVILEGES things will start to return to normal and people can start making money from there customers instead of enemies out of there customers.
You handled your situation perfectly. You found a way to stop the infringement. Good for you I am glad it worked out.
Now in reality how much would it have hurt you? You would probably have NEVER felt or seen a difference if you had not know about it.
If a big company pillages your work FINE now go get them. Will be a lot easier than tracking down the girl too.
If a single person pillages your work. GO AFTER them as is your right and as you should but don't let it BOTHER YOU. its normal. Status quo. Its gonna happen and there is nothing you me the government police or lulu are EVERY going to be able to do about it.
I have no concerns about lulu allowing illegal works to be sent to them. Its not there job or responsibility NOR should it be. SO LONG AS there reaction when it IS brought to there attention is the correct one and it seems they are doing a good job on this side of things.
Elizabeth LULU is by far the cheapest option for a small run. Talk to a normal publisher and see how much is involved in getting your book on store shelves. I think you will be frighteningly surprised at some of the dollar figures that get vollied around :-)
The only other way to get semi affordable is to have someone who is already doing big time print runs do a small "digital run" for you. (kind of like what lulu does but cheaper because they expect you to order tens of thousands of them when you do the real run)
So if you can find a friend in a magazine company that already prints a zillion mags they might be able to get your book run off a few hundred times as a digital print. (maybe)
Otherwise you have to go in line and sinker and its way way to expensive for us average critters.
ITS need to exist is far more important than ANY copyright concerns.
Lulu.com FOR copyright reasons CAN NOT make your book searchable online because this would enable exceedingly EASY copying of the book. You need to understand WHY file sharing is a problem for digital media.
No matter how much WORK it takes to copy a digital file even copy and paste one page at a time it only has to be done ONCE and then can be easily distributed.
There is no such thing as working DRM on a digital file. It just can not work (effectively) Only ONE user needs access to ONE file ONE time. onces its converted to an unrestricted format it can then be distributed easily quickly and efficiently.
DRM has one purpose and that is to strip users of there Personal Property Rights in product they purchase but thats another topic.
So you see in order to make it reasonably serachable they have to make it FULLY available on SOME level. EVENTUALLY someone will do the work to copy it that ONE TIME (no if its hard enough it will not be common place but again it only has to be done ONE TIME)
My question for you is why do you not insist on monitoring and "searchability" on everything a copy machine copies ?
Or hey why not spy on all our inkjet printers. I mean my keyboard and printer are just another for of printing press or copy machine. I can buy your poems. Transcribe them with OCR software or even by hand just one time and now its digital I can print copy distribute to my hearts content.
Authors and Publishers are LOSING the focus here. I do not buy books because I HAVE TO (I can download and DO download pretty much any book I want anytime I want)
I buy books because I WANT TO BUY BOOKS. I LIKE owning that nice soft or hard cover print edition of a book. It feels good. it conveys a sense of ownership and pride.
I ENJOY my books. Even books I get as ebooks legitimately I usually end up buying a print edition.
Note I will never purchase an ebook (sony gave me $50 credit with my ereader) at least not as they are today. I will not pay the same price for a digital locked down restricted controlled not actually owned by me legally file as I would for a print book. Just not going to happen. An OPEN do anything I want with it ebook is worth about 25% what a soft print edition costs to me and a locked down restricted file ? about 1/100th the value of a soft print book. SO if your book costs $20 in the store I will not pay more than 20 cents for a DRM'd ebook. I would pay $5 for a OPEN format non DRM's file.
In either of these cases I would just download the book from a torrent or newsgroup and go buy the print edition. I buy the book to OWN it I download the txt file or pdf file for convenience.
Lulu rocks. it allows authors who normally only have websites or ebooks to actually send me a nice printed book. I LOVE this !!! they are not cheap but so worth it! Its just nice to HOLD it in your hands.
When authors realize that there readers are NOT there enemies and that they do not have copy RIGHTS but copy PRIVILEGES things will start to return to normal and people can start making money from there customers instead of enemies out of there customers.
You handled your situation perfectly. You found a way to stop the infringement. Good for you I am glad it worked out.
Now in reality how much would it have hurt you? You would probably have NEVER felt or seen a difference if you had not know about it.
If a big company pillages your work FINE now go get them. Will be a lot easier than tracking down the girl too.
If a single person pillages your work. GO AFTER them as is your right and as you should but don't let it BOTHER YOU. its normal. Status quo. Its gonna happen and there is nothing you me the government police or lulu are EVERY going to be able to do about it.
I have no concerns about lulu allowing illegal works to be sent to them. Its not there job or responsibility NOR should it be. SO LONG AS there reaction when it IS brought to there attention is the correct one and it seems they are doing a good job on this side of things.
Elizabeth LULU is by far the cheapest option for a small run. Talk to a normal publisher and see how much is involved in getting your book on store shelves. I think you will be frighteningly surprised at some of the dollar figures that get vollied around :-)
The only other way to get semi affordable is to have someone who is already doing big time print runs do a small "digital run" for you. (kind of like what lulu does but cheaper because they expect you to order tens of thousands of them when you do the real run)
So if you can find a friend in a magazine company that already prints a zillion mags they might be able to get your book run off a few hundred times as a digital print. (maybe)
Otherwise you have to go in line and sinker and its way way to expensive for us average critters.