lilfluff

I was writing a reply to seawasp's post about this matter and realized it had become long enough it ought to be a post here instead...


I think that the important question for publishers and authors is not, "Oh hell, how do we stop people from people from pirating our books," but, "Oh wow, people who are interested in us, how do we get them to willingly send money our direction?" (to give a short version of haikujaguar's post yesterday on this matter)

Emphasis on the word willingly because no matter how many layers of DRM and DMCA style law are used, short of a total collapse of society and loss of technology, it is only going to get easier for people to copy things. And yes, that includes physical objects as well as digital data. Ten years from now (if that long) we'll get to see if companies that have invested in design patents on household items will react to tomorrows version of the Rep-Rap any more intelligently than the RIAA did to Napster.

(Which they are still in denial about screwing up. I read an article at some point in the past month where one former RIAA person insisted that the fault in Napster going away was entirely due to Napster refusing to come to the bargaining table and that the RIAA would have been willing to make a deal if Napster had... That's funny, if I recall correctly Napster offered a billion dollars and potentially partial ownership, plus a percentage of profits, plus unfettered access to usage statistics, as a settlement deal, and as I recall the RIAA's response was, 'We'll be more than happy to talk to you once you are dead, dead, dead, you [the following five minutes of ranting censored to protect children, pregnant women, and those of delicate disposition] so we hope you have good lawyers, no settlement! See you in court!')

I won't claim to know what the final answers will be (I don't believe it is going to be one single model), but I do know what the publishers and authors that don't ask that second question will be called. Forgotten. I do suspect part of it will involve relaxing control, because trying to maximize control will simply annoy potential readers (aka customers, aka patrons, aka your source of money) at a time when it will be even easier for them to find alternatives.

Additional note: Publisher's take note, this issue is even more important for you to figure out than for the authors. If the three sides in this issue, the authors, the readers, and the publishers, you the publisher are the most replaceable. The money flows from the reader towards the publisher (and we hope at least some of it makes its way on to the writer). The books flow from the writer towards the readers. We have publishing houses because so far the combination of publishers and book stores has proven to be the most successful in bringing the two together. But that doesn't mean any one publisher or bookstore, or even the two as concepts are not replaceable.

Yes, readers can like publishers, I personally have a liking for Baen when it comes to fiction. But why do I have a liking for Baen that gets me to regularly check their list of upcoming books? Part of it is Baen's company personality. They don't screw the reader. Their website is more than than a collection of blatant advertising, their forum has actual conversations on it (perish the thought!), samples of upcoming books are available to read (whoa, you mean they are confident enough in the books they thing I'll still be interested after the first five chapters?), ebooks aren't delayed (and are not made defective with DRM, and are made available in multiple formats, and are even given a sliding with increasing amounts available prior to the print release).

But you know what? If Baen did something that ticked off the authors and they all jumped ship for someone else, that past good will wouldn't mean all that much if I wasn't seeing authors I liked sending books in for Baen to publish. I would be checking to see where they went and heading in that direction. Fortunately I doubt I'll have to worry about Baen. They seem to be one of the few publishers in any genre to be reacting with anything other than, "Quick, grab some sandbags, guns, and a phone with our lawyers on speed dial!"

I read a rather biting commentary on APS film once. Yes, film, that stuff people put in cameras to record pictures before the existence of SD cards. This person, it might have been Ken Rockwell, had a rather snarky view of the history of film formats. Their shorthand explanation for nearly everything was "Kodak feels amateurs are getting more film that they deserveneed so lets develop something smaller." Sheet film gives way to roll film, the early large roll film was shrunk to 6cm wide roll film 'for amateurs' (and ironically now viewed as a professional film format). 6cm is latched onto by the pros and the cheap stuff becomes 35mm film, using a format developed for movie cameras, just with the frame rotated 90 degrees (except on nifty half-frame cameras like the early non-digital Olympus Pens that the new Olympus micro4/3 cameras are named and ever so loosely styled after).

Only a funny thing happened. After hitting 35mm, the average person said, "That's small enough for me." Leading to Kodak banging its head against the wall repeatedly trying to move people down to something smaller. Disc cameras (because the average person obviously wants something smaller and is scared by having to position the film leader over sprockets)... Which died. 110 with its mini-cartridges. And eventually APS.

Ah, APS, where your frame had less than half the area of a 35mm frame, so they had to use superior film to keep a level of quality that people would accept. Only of course nobody was going to keep those film improvements for APS, they migrated to 35mm so the cameras that most people had could see a bump in image quality. Which is not to say APS didn't have some nice features, it did. The film had a coating that could record information magnetically. So cameras could record what frames had been exposed, want to change from color to black and white? Retract the film back into the cassette and pop in the B&W cassette, when you swap film again the camera can auto-advance to the first unexposed frame. It could also record on the film what aspect ratio you wanted, Normal, Wide, and panoramic. The date and camera settings could potentially be recorded magnetically onto the film for each frame. There was the previously mentioned higher resolution film stock. Markings on the cassette told you at a glance whether the roll was new, partially exposed, fully exposed, or developed (developed film was to be put back in the cassette for dust free storage).

None of the APS developments really required shrinking the film to below 35mm size. That was a decision made to allow for smaller cameras. So what if the smaller camera idea was put by the wayside and the camera companies said, "Let's do something that will get everyone excited with all around easily seen improvements." Take the improved film and cassette developments and instead of shrinking the film, bump it up by one measly little centimeter.

That doesn't sound like much does it. One centimeter. Slightly more than a third of an inch. Here is the thing, a normal 35mm camera frame is roughly 24x36 mm, or 864 mm^2 in area. Bump the narrow measure up by one centimeter and keep the same aspect ratio and you get a 34x51mm frame, or 1734mm^2 which is twice the area of the original frame. Considering that they had developed higher resolution films to make up for the smaller area of the original APS, giving a doubling ought to have allowed for quite a bit of marketing fun. Imagine an ad showing a 35mm picture blown up to poster size, and next to it a picture make on the new film. Visible grain on one, barely visible grain on the other (never mind that posters aren't normally viewed at one step away).

It would have essentially been an APS version of medium format film vs 35mm film. It would also likely have still allowed cameras that were nearly the same weight as 35mm vs the exercise equipment that medium format can be. And it might well have allowed film companies to add a few more years of mainstream success versus digital cameras. Probably no more than five even in an idea world. When people were buying 2 megapixel cameras it wasn't because they thought the image quality was matching their film-SLR, it was for the other advantages that digital had. But a more accessible medium or near medium format film might have kept the film market healthier for longer by giving people more of a reason to stick with film.

Or even stuck with the same film size and brought in everything else that APS had. That would possibly have been even more successful than shrinking or growing the film size. Those both would involve developing new lenses and camera bodies. a 35mm-APS version could probably have been made from nearly any 35mm camera body with only few changes. Nikon and Canon could have even done will with 35mm-APS SLRs by letting people keep using their existing lenses (even in a world with $12,000 DSLRs your real investment quickly becomes the lenses and not the camera body. There are plenty of lenses that could $1-2000 and up, and way, way up for specialty lenses).


Just some thoughts that popped to mind and quickly outgrew twitter posting size...

Happened upon a link to this story about the headaches smart weapons could cause if they become too smart.

Smart Weapons

I had a sudden thought come to mind of a series of commercials involving the Priceline De-Negotiator. In which people brag to the camera about the great deals they made -- only to have mirror-universe Shatner arrive and cause the deals to be broken.

"What! Four days at a five star resort for only $76 a night? I don't think so. You deal has been De!-nego!-tiated!"

"Wait! No, don't say... No, please, that wasn't me that was the de-negotiator! Wait! Don't hang up!"

Dear Pat Robertson,

Please never attempt to represent me on matters of faith, on matters of national pride, or on any other matter whatsoever. For if you had listened to even the slightest grain of true faith, wisdom, or empathy you would not have uttered those hateful, shameful, and Christ hating words. You claim to be Christian and to believe in God. May I recommend that this would be a good time to close your own mouth, to go into private as directed by your claimed savior, and there to beg forgiveness and ask for wisdom and empathy.

For, to borrow and gently modify a phrase from your fellow paleo-conservatives, when you act like this the devil wins. These words do nothing to advance the word of God and everything to aid that which is destructive of anything humanly or spiritually good.

About a month ago haikujaguar put the following in one of her posts:

• Cylithria Dubois, Marine Corps Novelist. She puts all your excuses for not doing something you say you want to do to shame. Absolutely amazing story.

I bumped across that link while poking about older posts on my friends list and gave it a follow. Now there is a story. A NaNoWriMo 50k completed while part of a forward observation team in northern Iraq. Completed mostly in evenings, after sundown, in a place where it would not be a great idea to be basking in the glow of a laptop screen...

Two weeks off, you know, I bet I can get more of Unquiet Past written during this.

Warning! All insects read notice! Entering my home shall be considered agreement to the following terms.

*All cockroaches squished on sight! Entering home shall be considered consent to be force fed noxious substances.
*Spiders shall stay in inaccessible corners for maximum longevity. Crawling on any body part shall be considered a request for flattening.
**NOTE: No mercy nor quarter shall be granted to Black Widow spiders.
*Attention flies, this residence shall purchase and employ miniature scale anti-aircraft style anti-insect devices as soon as they enter the market. Until then you shall have to settle for being swatted the old fashion way.

*Geckos are welcome to dine in this domicile. However, please go outside to take care of waste management issues.


How long until I can buy a real HoiHoi-san?

Although a three million euro ($4.5m) bail isn't cheap, I have the suspicion it won't be that hard for him to raise.

And that's all I have to say for now.

Another post got me thinking about pharmacists who want to be allowed to pick and choose which prescriptions to fill. Now, there are some reasons I can think of why this could be reasonable. They might see that Doctor A has prescribed Medication X while Doctor B has prescribed Medication Y, which in combination will have serious side effects. It would be reasonable for the pharmacist to say, "Whoa! I don't think Doctor B knew what Doctor A prescribed. You really, really ought to make sure he knows this. If you want we can call his office and ask if he still wants you to take Medication Y when you are also taking X, or if it really has to be that medication we can call the other doctor and ask if he can change his prescription." Or perhaps they might have just received some kind of notice about previously unknown side effects. Perhaps most importantly they might see reason to believe that the prescription is fraudulent. (I actual saw this happen about a month back. The pharmacist said they wouldn't be able to fill the prescription until the next day. Then as soon as the person left, they called the doctor who had supposedly written the prescription. Strange, but the doctor's office says they have no patient by that name, nor is other information on the form correct.).

That said, whenever people come out arguing for pharmacists to get to pick and choose what to fill, they hardly ever seem to be giving more than token time to these issues. Probably because pharmacists are already able to take those issues into account. Nope it's given as a moral argument. "But it would be horrible to force the poor pharmacists to fill prescriptions that offend their beliefs."

To which I have to say, "Yeah, and who held a gun to the pharmacists head and told them, 'Go take pharmacy classes, get licensed, and work as a pharmacist -- or die!'? No one? Really? Then how is the possibility of this occurring a big surprise?" Should I be allowed to get a job as a bartender, and then say, "Whoa! Wait! Hold on! I'll serve people soda, or soda water, or if they insist mock cocktails, but I don't believe in drinking alcohol. No way I'm serving beer! And don't you dare fire me for this, I'm just obeying by moral principles!" I'd get laughed out of court, and if I went to ask my state or federal reps to change the law for me, I'd get laughed out of their office.

You know, you walked into the job eyes open. Either fill the prescriptions without a darn good reason, which doesn't include, "But I don't wanna," or maybe *you* ought to pay the expense of hiring your replacement.

It makes about as much sense to me as the kid who enlisted in the Marines, and then come Gulf War I said, "Whoa! Wait! I only joined for the college money, I don't believe in killing people, even in time of war, let me out!" Really? In you joined the Marines? The Gung Ho, storm the beach, kick the door in, and clear the way for the rest, Marines? You're a pacifist and you somehow didn't realize joining the Marines might mean going into battle? Right. You think my IQ is lower than my height in miles, don't you.

I am rather unlikely to reach 50k words by the end of the month. I only have just over 4k now and would need a to a touch over 3k a day for the rest of the month to hit 50k. But that doesn't mean that I'm giving up entirely. I'm just acknowledging the unlikeliness of reaching the NaNoWriMo goal.

That said, since posting part one I've got a dream (which is clearly a dream from the start, none of that "Oh my what's happening... psych, fooled you, just a dream sequence" nonsense from me), a little of the aftermath of the dream, and skipped ahead and did a portion of the school play (which will probably later be ruthlessly cut -- too much, "Look at the nifty background history I came up with," most of which can safely be trimmed).

After November I think I'll work out what my average daily output was and use that to help set a continuing goal. Then when next November hits I'll be better prepared.