On the eBook Community list a few days ago, a poster by the name of Bill Czygan posed this question:
I notice that there is quite a good selection of recent books, and especially popular series of books, available on P2P. Does anyone think this is a beginning of the wave toward freely available electronic texts for everything? In other words, does this bode the complete breakdown of copyright as a method of protecting an interest in works.
On the face of it, this seems like a typical newbie question on a subject that has probably been discussed dozens of times on that list (sorry, Bill). But the question, and some of the responses in the thread, led me to some interesting thoughts.
It was Mary E. Tyler’s response that really started me thinking. She succinctly stated, “Not for a generation yet. But in a generation, we’re all in trouble.” I thought, “Why a generation? The MPAA and RIAA are acting like the sky is falling right now.” But then it hit me: the book publishing industry is not in the same situation as audio and video publishers, even though their publications are being shared just the same.
Machines do a better job of creating content than humans. Look at the rise of RSS.