Anathema Device 's Techdirt Comments

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• On the post: Yes, Digital Books Do Wear Out; Stop Accepting Publishers Claims That They Don’t

  

  Anathema Device ( profile ), 03 Dec, 2022 @ 02:14pm

  "one that was read once and then sat on an indoor shelf for 20 years?" If you're only reading the book once, isn't that a strong argument for not having a paper version? As I get older, screens are much better for me for reading, and I never pick up paper versions of books any more. I've replaced them all with digital. The books I'm talking about were bought new. Some of them are actually hardbacks, but the paper degrades just the same. I'm in Queensland, Australia where the humidity is high, and not kind to paper products. Apart from all that, I've moved house and countries several times, humped hundreds and hundreds of books back and forth, and I am now saying 'no more'. I won't leave a pile of decaying paper to my inheritors, and they won't want the books in any condition. Good books will survive in some form, and the bad ones will disappear, as is right, to make room for better ones. I despite the idea that books should be kept like religious icons - the value of the book is the content, not the container.

• On the post: Yes, Digital Books Do Wear Out; Stop Accepting Publishers Claims That They Don’t

  

  Anathema Device ( profile ), 03 Dec, 2022 @ 02:09pm

  "Where do you purchase your paperbacks that rot in 20 years, and how do you store them?" From a bookstore, and in a bookshelf. I'm not building a special refrigerated room to keep my cheap books in. It's bad enough I've moved house with them so many times! (Another reason I am getting rid of paper books and replacing them with digital.)

• On the post: Published Author Decries Feds Seizing Online Site Full Of Unauthorized Digital Books

  

  Anathema Device ( profile ), 03 Dec, 2022 @ 02:07pm

  "I have done the work and deserve to be paid" Yes? If someone reads my books and gets pleasure from them, then why is it wrong that they pay for that? I don't mind if they read them in a library, because taxes pay for libraries to buy books, and in some countries, authors receive a small fee for each time a book is borrowed. I don't mind if they buy them second hand and then buy new books when they fall in love with the author's work. Or borrow them. I'm a reader too. I've given away books as an author, hundreds of them. I've sent them for free to many readers who say they can't afford or can't access my works the usual way. I want people to read my works. But I'm buggered if I'm going to listen to people drivel on about the economics when they clearly have no idea. The 'T.P.' argument you think I'm making is simply that it's demeaning and unproductive to replace royalties from sales entirely with begging the small percentage of a potential readership to send you money out of the kindness of their hearts, instead a simple exchange of goods for coin. Read further down this discussion and you'll see someone - by no means a unique someone - proudly proclaiming they pirate almost all the books they read because they say authors 'bully' them. But when I ask them how this happens, you'll note I got no answer. They're greedy, that's all it is. They want everything for free. Patreon won't touch people like this because they don't think they should pay - ever. All this discussion of removing copyright and how evil traditional publishing is boils down to this - like a good capitalist, those arguing that way don't believe a good workman is worth their hire, and want everyone to exist in a tipping culture, so that artists and creators have to beg and fawn and depend on the generosity of those privileged enough to be able to consume their work. That mentality is destroying journalism and good newspapers, and it looks like some of you can't wait for it to destroy good writing as well. "you need to at least listen to any constructive criticism that is offered." No. I have editors and beta readers for that. My books are finished when I put them out. By that time, the criticism is too late, even if it has any value (and it never does). The best feedback for an author is sales. If the book is lousy, it won't sell. If it entertains, it will. People can and do leave reviews for other readers, but reviews are not for authors.

• On the post: Yes, Digital Books Do Wear Out; Stop Accepting Publishers Claims That They Don’t

  

  Anathema Device ( profile ), 03 Dec, 2022 @ 12:09am

  "a book stored for a century is probably fine and can be immediately used" Yes, but a cheap paperback from 20 years ago is falling apart and the pages starting to rot. I have ebooks in various formats going back at least that long, and they're perfectly readable. If you care about the environment, you should be demanding that books written purely as entertainment should always be digitised where possible. Cutting down trees to produce what is essentially ephemera, is immoral. Very little that is currently printed is going to have any value to anyone in a hundred years, so why waste a valuable resource to make paper versions?

• On the post: Published Author Decries Feds Seizing Online Site Full Of Unauthorized Digital Books

  

  Anathema Device ( profile ), 02 Dec, 2022 @ 11:11pm

  "many people want to sample an authors work" That's not an argument for not being able to sell your own books for a fair price. Samples can be review copies, giveaways, free chapters etc. But you simply can't give away book after book, and hope the next one you write will winkle money out of the readers' wallets. It's a reality that many people migrating from fanfiction to pro discovered in a hurry.

• On the post: Published Author Decries Feds Seizing Online Site Full Of Unauthorized Digital Books

  

  Anathema Device ( profile ), 02 Dec, 2022 @ 11:09pm

  "What’s the relevant difference here?" A platform is how you tell the prospective customers about a product. Publishing is a suite of services - editing, printing, distribution, and marketing - to make the product from the raw material (the book draft.) Books go out of print but the author can then claim back the right to release the book themselves with another publisher. Platforms disappear and we rebuild the audience. But it all takes time and money and talent for the game which is a combination a lot of authors don't have. So when the latest Herr Murdoch or Oberfuhrer Musk comes along and destroys that platforms, you lose self-published authors from the market. Not so with publishers, who just take their advertising elsewhere. "self-publishing on Kindle didn’t [solve the problem]' Amazon has been hands down one of the most destructive forces in the book market, and one of the worst things for authors in the last fifty years. They were never going to be a solution, because like Musk, Bezos wants to own and control all the things, and doesn't care who gets hurt or what businesses are razed in the process.

• On the post: Published Author Decries Feds Seizing Online Site Full Of Unauthorized Digital Books

  

  Anathema Device ( profile ), 02 Dec, 2022 @ 03:50pm

  "you might be surprised how much effort little-known authors spend on promotion" I'm intimately aware of that, thanks. I'm also intimately aware of how unrewarding it is. Authors are not naturally good at promotion. This is why publishers make money doing it for them. "People have been getting screwed by publishers for 500 years" I notice you are in one part of your reply singing the praises of self-promotion, and in another part, utterly ignoring my point that platforms can disappear overnight. Platforms and publishers are different things. Do try to keep up.

• On the post: Multiple Former Twitter Employees Note That Musk’s New Favorite Tool, Polls, Are Easily Gamed By Bots

  

  Anathema Device ( profile ), 02 Dec, 2022 @ 02:23pm

  "probably just the moderation-at-scale problem as usual" More like a lack of any attempt at organised moderation at all problem, due to him having sacked almost all the moderators.

• On the post: Multiple Former Twitter Employees Note That Musk’s New Favorite Tool, Polls, Are Easily Gamed By Bots

  

  Anathema Device ( profile ), 02 Dec, 2022 @ 02:21pm

  This is all illusion to placate his rabid fans, and nothing more. He doesn't believe in what he's saying or doing, and he's not fooling anyone who isn't in thrall to the myth of his magical powers.

• On the post: Published Author Decries Feds Seizing Online Site Full Of Unauthorized Digital Books

  

  Anathema Device ( profile ), 02 Dec, 2022 @ 01:36pm

  "Says an anonymous person on the internet. " Says someone called "Anonymous Coward". At least I've signed in, and Mike Masnick knows my real name. Publishers have been slow to work with new media, it's true, and it's been a source of fierce discussion and hand-wringing for over twenty years among those in the industry and those dependent on it. However, making authors work for free isn't going to help, nor is depriving them of a legal right to charge for their own work.

• On the post: Published Author Decries Feds Seizing Online Site Full Of Unauthorized Digital Books

  

  Anathema Device ( profile ), 02 Dec, 2022 @ 01:33pm

  "You build up a fan base by making your books available for free, and using social media, podcasts etc. to connect to fans." Well, yes, you can do that. It's a lot of work with little reward, and the real money still has to come from sales. You'd be amazed how many readers and how many authors do not use social media at all. "they have an easier time making a living, as they produce many more works that a typical author, like one or two videos a week." Yes. You've just made the strongest argument against your own idea. Also, a youtuber can promote and win fans in the very act of promoting their own work. An author needs to spend time writing, and the time spend tooling about on SM and promotion, is time they can't spend writing. Most writers have a full time job. Writing time is already precious and sparse. The authors who are best at self promotion either don't have jobs or - and this is the important point - are already successful because they've sold lots of books. You also forget that a creator can spend hundreds of hours building a presence on a platform and then some giggling shitgoblin can buy that platform for, oh let's say, $44 billion, and sweep it away from under them. Which is already happening to thousands of small creators and artists and authors on Twitter. If what you suggest worked at any scale, authors would already be doing it at scale. I can tell you from personal knowledge, it doesn't work for everyone, or even most authors.

• On the post: Published Author Decries Feds Seizing Online Site Full Of Unauthorized Digital Books

  

  Anathema Device ( profile ), 02 Dec, 2022 @ 01:25pm

  "The 1% goes to artists who ask politely instead of threatening me with police" So 99% of authors threaten you...how? By asking a purchase price? By noting they own the copyright? Please explain this, because somehow I doubt most of the authors you are stealing from - and that's what it is, however you justify it - threaten you in any way, any more than a restaurant does by posting prices on its menu or a shop does when it asks for payment at the cashier. "I pirate 99% of my content out of principle" Whatever the reasoning is, principle has nothing to do with it.

• On the post: Published Author Decries Feds Seizing Online Site Full Of Unauthorized Digital Books

  

  Anathema Device ( profile ), 01 Dec, 2022 @ 11:17pm

  I'm a writer (pro/fan, fic/non-fic). Copyright which exists for a hundred years after the death of the author does nothing whatsoever to help the author or their dependents. It's all about benefitting big companies, principally the Mouse. Copyright for forty years would be more than long enough, and perhaps some additional protections could be added for still living authors. But more than that stifles creativity and doesn't help the people who do the work. Piracy exists, has always existed since the first mass-produced books were made, and crackdowns never work. Piracy isn't as harmful as what Spotify does to artists. The answer is to find a way to make paying attractive and to make sure actual creators get a proper reward for their work.

• On the post: Published Author Decries Feds Seizing Online Site Full Of Unauthorized Digital Books

  

  Anathema Device ( profile ), 01 Dec, 2022 @ 11:11pm

  "Selling copies of books is an obsolescent business model anyway" Yeah? Says who? I sell books I've written all the time. "it would make more sense to collect money to fund the writing of the next book" And how would this work? "Hello, I have written a book, will you pay for me to write another one? No, I don't know how many people would want to read it, and I didn't sell any copies of it, but I'm sure it's brilliant." Would you hand over money to someone saying that? I'm thinking, no. The only way to get money for a creative work is to either have a wonderful track record, or to sell a finished product. No one is going to fund every rando's big tits fantasy about their manic pixie dream girl, or allow 'authors' to loll around on chaises longues complaining about writer's block. You don't have the first idea about how writing and publishing (two separate and not always related businesses) work. Piracy is a mixed blessing for authors. Yes, those are books they won't get paid for. But since the kind of person who pirates books etc wouldn't pay for the books if they couldn't get them another way, then we don't lose much. You can convert pirates over to paying if the price point comes down low enough, which is how Apple and other companies managed to get people to pay for music instead of stealing downloads, but music is sold in volumes that most authors can't ever dream of. A lot of self-pubbed authors have gone that route and make a little money, as I do myself, but you can't get rich that way without spending a lot of money upfront in marketing.

• On the post: If Twitter Goes Down In Flames, What Happens To Its Huge And Historically Important Collection Of Tweets?

  

  Anathema Device ( profile ), 29 Nov, 2022 @ 05:14pm

  "maybe lobby Apple to not team up with Google and destroy Twitter" Why do you think Elon Musk, super genius, needs any help to destroy his own company? He's doing just fine in that respect.

• On the post: Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

  

  Anathema Device ( profile ), 27 Nov, 2022 @ 09:41pm

  I should ask for my money back, if I were you. And use it to set up your own tech news site where you can take about all the democratic donors to your heart's content, and make wild claims about the political bias on all the other tech sites as much as you like.

• On the post: It’s Not The Decision, But The Process: Musk & The Trump Decision

  

  Anathema Device ( profile ), 21 Nov, 2022 @ 11:55pm

  Trump and Dumb

  1. Yeah, the thing about his first born child sob sob is bullshit. Musk just doesn't want to be part of the enlarging black hole that is Alex Jones's legal situation and finances. Also, there is probably a one to one relationship between Musk's fans, Jones's fans, and Trump fans. He's probably already done enough to keep them on his side, so too bad so sad for Jones.
  2. Trump being on Twitter again is a travesty, and an outright accelerator in the coarsening of public discourse, but the harm he can do is only to the GOP at this point. Every time he opens his yap, the Democratic will to resist and remove him goes up, as does voting intention. He will continue to remind every non-Maga sane person (who make up the majority of voters, don't forget) what the price of letting him back in the White House is, and take attention away from those trying to edge out from under his shadow. And those who sought to imitate him for gain, will continue to yoke themselves to his reputation and fall.

  In other words - Lord, make him a convicted felon, but not yet :)

• On the post: Twitter’s Former Head Of Trust & Safety Explains Why, For All His Billions, Elon Musk Can’t Magically Decide How Twitter Will Work

  

  Anathema Device ( profile ), 21 Nov, 2022 @ 08:43pm

  For a mere $44 billion

  Musk could have let Twitter operate free of the need for advertising at all, which would remove one constraint on his apparently insatiable need for Nazis, anti-semites, and shit posting racist, misogynistic trolls to overrun the platform. But then he would end up with another Parler, Gab, truth.social etc. Why did he not use that fabulous amount of money to build the platform he wanted from scratch? His fanboys would have flooded to it, he would be the god emperor of his own imaginings, and could have bled Twitter dry for a tenth of the price? Oh right, that's because he doesn't actually build things himself. And destroying Twitter in a month serves a rightwing/disruptive agenda which is becoming more and more obvious.

• On the post: Attorney General Formally Bans The Collection Of Journalists’ Records During Leak Investigations

  

  Anathema Device ( profile ), 07 Nov, 2022 @ 08:39pm

  Hope not. Assange's activities were not genuine journalism.

• On the post: Websites Now Have One Hour To Remove “Terrorist Content” Online Or Face Massive Fines. What Could Go Wrong?

  

  Anathema Device ( profile ), 11 Jun, 2022 @ 05:10pm

  I'm sure the juxtaposition of the Chinese tank cake story and this one is just an accident of history ;)

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