[sillysaurus3]

People put a lot of energy into programming languages, but they don't expect to get paid anything for it. Why is it different when it comes to publishing a book?

That may sound like a dismissive question, but it's at the crux of our disagreement. If we can resolve that, we might be able to see eye to eye.

[sriram_malhar]

I'd hazard that a very large fraction of people who work on open PLs and open operating systems get paid --and expect to get paid -- for the effort they put into that project; take Golang, Rust, Linux, Kotlin, Java/JVM, Scala, Haskell, OCaml, Swift and so on. These are not written by homeless people. Try telling Rob Pike that he's not going to get paid for the ten years he spent on Go, and that he would only get paid for his other contributions to Google.

Further, it is an author's prerogative (whether that author is a company or an individual) to set the terms of the pricing. As a consumer you can choose to accept it and pay the price, or come up with an alternative model (like iTunes or the App Store) that changes the market.

I resent it intensely that after putting my own money and time and effort into a project (took a full year off a job), somebody just pirates it so easily. And then attempts to claim moral high ground with weasel phrases like "knowledge wants to be free" and "class barriers".

[sillysaurus3]

If I understand your position correctly, you feel that even if someone does not have $40 or would not have paid $40 for something that can be freely copied, it is both immoral and unethical to ignore the author's wishes and copy it anyway. Even though you as the author are unaffected by this action. You also feel that it's justifiable to seek out people who do this and tell them that they should not do this, i.e. how to live their life.

Is that an accurate summary? I am trying to respond to the strongest possible interpretation of what you're saying.

What is the difference between someone doing this, which is an illegal victimless crime, and recreational drug use, which is also an illegal victimless crime? Why is one immoral and unethical, but not the other? Furthermore, why is it justifiable to believe that it's an important right to be able to ingest whatever you want into your body as long as you're not harming anyone else? And are you sure the same argument doesn't apply to this case?

[sriram_malhar]

How is this victimless?

I write a book, put it out on the market. Someone copies it and puts it up on a website (crime alert). Someone like you publicises it. I don't get paid because from your point of view, it is out there free for the taking. Meanwhile, I have lost hundreds or thousands of potential sales from people who may have paid, but have now been tempted to join your illegal caper. Everyone revels in the very public theft.

Which is why I seek out comments like yours that glorify piracy and tell them to bugger out of _my_ life. They are most welcome to their lives as long as they don't adversely affect mine.

[srean]

> Meanwhile, I have lost hundreds or thousands of potential sales from people who may have paid, but have now been tempted to join your illegal caper. Everyone revels in the very public theft.

No you haven't, and there lies the crux of the argument. Many of those who helped themselves to the free copy wouldn't have purchased it at the retail price anyways, even if there were no free copy to be had. There is a financial loss yes, but multiplying the total number of free copies by the profit to the author off purchased copy yields a greatly exaggerated figure.

[sillysaurus3]

So many assumptions are embedded in your comment. Firstly, it's not proven that piracy affects sales. Quite the opposite: it usually raises popularity for an item, because – if it's good – people sing its praises, which leads to more sales.

You didn't respond to my actual comment. Again, it is victimless because no one would've bought the overpriced book except for those who have $40 to throw away on a lark.

If we focus on making a quality product at a reasonable price, sales follow. The fact that technology has reduced this price to near $0 is unfortunate but is merely a consequence of computers.

I get that technology is often upsetting, but why take it out on users? The way to win is to pay attention to trends and adapt, not wish the world were different.

Riddle me this: Why did people write books before there was an economic incentive for them to? The crux of our disagreement appears to be this: it wouldn't hurt the world for us to return to those times. And technology seems to make this inevitable.

I wish I could get paid to write programming languages all day, but many people wish they could be paid for many things that are not feasible. Are you so sure your book would have maid those thousands of dollars in an era before it was possible to widely distribute it? Who would buy it? And moreover, who would hear about it and how?

https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.en.html

Of course, Lissa did not necessarily intend to read his books. She might want the computer only to write her midterm. But Dan knew she came from a middle-class family and could hardly afford the tuition, let alone her reading fees. Reading his books might be the only way she could graduate.

It's always interesting to watch Stallman's writings become reality.

In fact, this is so prescient as to be worth quoting in full:

Programmers still needed debugging tools, of course, but debugger vendors in 2047 distributed numbered copies only, and only to officially licensed and bonded programmers. The debugger Dan used in software class was kept behind a special firewall so that it could be used only for class exercises.

It was also possible to bypass the copyright monitors by installing a modified system kernel. Dan would eventually find out about the free kernels, even entire free operating systems, that had existed around the turn of the century. But not only were they illegal, like debuggers—you could not install one if you had one, without knowing your computer's root password. And neither the FBI nor Microsoft Support would tell you that.

Substitute "Microsoft Support" for "Apple". We even have officially-licensed and bonded programmers now: The $100 developer ransom.

Lissa did not report Dan to the SPA. His decision to help her led to their marriage, and also led them to question what they had been taught about piracy as children. The couple began reading about the history of copyright, about the Soviet Union and its restrictions on copying, and even the original United States Constitution. They moved to Luna, where they found others who had likewise gravitated away from the long arm of the SPA. When the Tycho Uprising began in 2062, the universal right to read soon became one of its central aims.

You claim you are a victim. Yet you refuse to acknowledge that there are people who can't afford your work who would otherwise be enriched by it. Of the two victims, it's hard to say which is worse. Especially given that people will continue writing books even when there is no incentive to.

[sriram_malhar]

"Riddle me this: Why did people write books before there was an economic incentive for them to? The crux of our disagreement appears to be this: it wouldn't hurt the world for us to return to those times."

In the middle ages, books were written by the elites, for the elites. Necessarily so, because education itself was an elite activity. You want a return to those times?

"Are you so sure your book would have maid those thousands of dollars in an era before it was possible to widely distribute it? Who would buy it? And moreover, who would hear about it and how?"

Surely you don't mean to say that a product would never be heard of if there weren't the means to copy it. Surely you don't go into a theatre and livestream a play or concert or standup, because the poor "victims" outside wouldn't have a chance to be enriched. If broadway is expensive, go elsewhere for your entertainment. You don't have the right to give away or consume someone else's work just because technology brings the cost of watching it down to zero.

This is the last I am going to say about this argument. I'm quite done.

[grzm]

> "People put a lot of energy into programming languages, but they don't expect to get paid anything for it. Why is it different when it comes to publishing a book?"

The difference is what the people who choose to do the work expect to get out of it. There are people who work on programming languages (or software) that have commercial licenses. That's their choice. Choosing to ignore their choice, to subvert the terms on which they choose to offer the fruits of their labor, is wrong.

If you can convince them to offer their work under other terms, great. Until then, respect the terms the authors (of books, languages, and software) have chosen.