[ExI] commentary by one of ours

[Eugen Leitl]

On Sat, Dec 03, 2011 at 03:07:50AM -0800, Ben Zaiboc wrote:
> Eugen Leitl <eugen at leitl.org> asked:
> 
> >On Thu, Dec 01, 2011 at 07:52:03AM -0800, Aware wrote:
> >
> >> I think it's interesting that both sides of the DRM debate focus on
> >> paying (or not) for product, with no thought of instead paying for
> >> production.
> >
> >Can you expand your remark somewhat more? Are you talking
> >about financing each step of the publishing process instead
> >of just the end result?
> 
> 
> How much did it cost you to publish that email?

Quite a bit more than it cost you to read it.
Not counting the Internet infrastructure in-between
and the (mostly nonrenewable, though the part
I control is) power to run it.

But an email is not a book, of course. You did not pay
me anything for the privilege of reading this message,
and I had not take a few months to years out of my life 
and pay editors and the advertisement machine to spread 
it.
 
> We've entered an era when publishing costs can be 
> negligible, but people still want/need to be paid for /creating/ things.

The only way I'm seeing it to work is to reduce the
transaction friction and reduce the price so that pirates
don't need to bother. Suing your customers and letting
the lobby write your legislation has empirically not turned
out well on the long run.
 
> The traditonal publishers haven't really caught on to this 
> yet, and may well be in the position of dinosaurs 65 myr 
> ago heading for the pretty orange glow on the horizon, 
> thinking it might keep them warm.  Some of them are carrying firetongs to control it.

Beware of stampeding dinos. They might be doomend, but they
can do some damage still.