David Rothman writes “I recently suggested that billionaire writer J.K. Rowling could make a little more money and help the cause of literacy if she authorized electronic versions of her works. Why let this omission create a demand for pirated Rowling? Guess what. As reported by MobileRead and TeleRead, the inevitable is now happening with Rowling’s latest novel, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. The pirates have been spreading around Potter–even in audio, as a sample shows–without a nickel reaching Rowling.
David Rothman writes “I recently suggested that billionaire writer J.K. Rowling could make a little more money and help the cause of literacy if she authorized electronic versions of her works. Why let this omission create a demand for pirated Rowling? Guess what. As reported by MobileRead and TeleRead, the inevitable is now happening with Rowling’s latest novel, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. The pirates have been spreading around Potter–even in audio, as a sample shows–without a nickel reaching Rowling.
There are some other angles here, too, ranging from basic library economics to copyright terms and even the ’08 presidential race. Rowling won’t authorize electronic editions of her works. But e-books, used with suitable business arrangements, are far better than libraries’ loading up just on paper copies that may go unread after the demand has peaked. Of course, format standards would also help to give libraries more for their money. And so would repeal of the Hollywood-bought law known as Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, which will reduce appreciation of modern classics by Net-oriented young people. Repeal, granted, wouldn’t help immediately in the case of very recent works like the Potter series. And I don’t know about some older works, either–that’s for the lawyers to puzzle out. If it weren’t for the Bono Act, however, American high school students right now could be downloading the Great Gatsby and many other popular modern classics for free off the Net. Doesn’t copyright law exist for schools, libraries and society at large–not just as a profit-optimizer for entertainment conglomerates and rich heirs? Thanks to the Bono Act, even legal Harry Potter e-books may not reach the Net for another century or so, given Rowling’s distrust of e-books and the possibility that her publishers will feel the same way in the case of the Potter series.
Hello, John Edwards? As a believer in Poverty Fighter One, education, and as a former member of the copyright-related Senate Judiciary Committee, can’t you take a stand on Bono, the DMCA and other cost-increasers for schools and libraries? Ideally the ALA can elicit a substantive statement from Edwards on such issues, given that he has focused so much on economic and educational opportunities. So far he’s been resolutely mute. Edwards counts. If he can be turned around, then other prospective ’08 presidential candidates such as John Kerry and Hillary Clinton may follow. Meanwhile some Edwards supporters who should know better, such as Paul Jones at UNC, the mastermind behind the ibiblio archive, virtual home of Project Gutenberg, refuse to use their blogs to encourage Edwards to be a full-service populist on copyright issues. Perhaps the Potter case can help remind Edwards and his ’08 presidential supporters of their responsibilities. Schoolchildren won’t be able to download public domain copies of Potter until 70 years after the death of Rowling, who’ll be 40 on July 31. Bono extended the time by two decades; it earlier had been a mere 50 years. Recently the Economist suggested copyright terms of no more than 14 years, renewable once–too short as I see it as a supporter of balanced copyright law, but still far better than the Bono-esque outrage. Pre-Bono could be a good, realistic compromise with Hollywood.
Will John Edwards care about cash-strapped libraries and schools and oppose the Bono Act–this multi-billion-dollar diverter of wealth to the entertainment elite? Interestingly, a Net- and library-friendly strategy could help Edwards in the end by strengthening his Web-based efforts–very likely, enough to offset the reduction in Hollywood money, especially given the Net’s growing importance on American life.
His true supporters in Hollywood will contribute regardless of his copyright stands and maybe even appreciate the display of courage here. Without spine, “populist” Edwards in the end will be remembered as just another commodity pol.
Please note that I am picking on Edwards because of his populism and because he went to my old school–I’m a lifelong liberal Democrat who voted for him and Kerry. I’d encourage library advocates of all political stripes to use the Potter example to lean on their own candidates to take library-friendly stands on copyright.
Reality
When are these people going to realize that, if it can be copied, it will be copied?
We are reaching a new era in information. A person can put forth relatively little in the way of capital and have a machine ready to copy and pirate a great amount of stuff that people find desireable- namely books, CDs, and DVDs. It’s a fairly inexpensive machine and one person can handle all the functions needed to pirate the above.
It’s called a personal computer.
I’m a digital artist and I watch movies on my PC and I listen to music on my PC. My PC functions as a sort of creative/entertainment system. That’s not weird, most everybody’s personally owned PC funcions in such a manner.
But because of my digital art, and because I work in graphite and ink before going digital to paint, I own a pretty decent scanner. My scanner can easily scan books.
I listen to music and I wish to burn some of my projects to a CD-R. That means I need a sound card to listen to music and a CD burner to make CDs. That gives me everything I need to copy music CDs and many data CDs as well.
Then there’s times I need to back up my files and data because I’ve suffered enough HDD crashes to know how important that is. (I’ve had one. That was enough.) So I also have a DVD burner. Now I can copy movies.
If I want to make my own audio CD of me or someone else reading a book, I plug in a five dollar microphone to my soundcard and hit record on any media player I choose. If I wanna get really technical and nifty I can buy an honest to goddess digital audio editing programme like CoolEdit. Or, why buy that when I can pirate it too?
DRM doesn’t work, we’ve seen that time and time again, and people will always want to have a backup of some kind. My friend wishes they’d had some backup copies of favourite books they lost in a house fire. And, strangely enough, there’s people out there willing to fork over money for a book, and then take it apart to scan it.
Without a penny reaching Rowling?
Am I supposed to care about how much more money a billionaire can make? Because I don’t and I’m not motivated to feel sorry if a billionaire pays more for something or is not compensated for some work that they do. I’m far closer to finding it revealing that she isn’t writing books because she finds it creatively fulfilling, then releasing them into the public domain or at the very least licensing them to share.
I care far more about the inordinate and unjustified power she exerted over some Canadian readers recently by getting a Canadian Supreme Court to issue an order to stop some Canadians from reading her book before its official distribution date. That this could happen at all is horrible.
–J.B. Nicholson-Owens ([email protected])