Stop the Petition!

A recent edition of a newsletter I receive called Editor's Notes brought to my attention a petition which is circulating to stop Amazon's practice of allowing Kindle book buyers to receive a refund for books which they have purchased.  I believe this is a dangerous petition which is detrimental to the very people who are striving to have it passed.  Their viewpoint is extremely myopic and out of touch with today's reality.

 

This is an issue on which I've turned 180˚ … piracy and the whole topic of Intellectual Property.   One of the best examples of how this applies to the real world today is in the position of Paulo Coelho who reports that because of piracy he has sold 12 million copies of his books in Russia that he would have never sold otherwise.  See: http://paulocoelhoblog.com/2012/01/20/welcome-to-pirate-my-books/.  

The petition explanation makes two gross errors:  First it states that if anyone buys, then returns a book from Amazon, the author is "out of pocket" a certain amount of money.  This is absolutely false.  You can't lose something you never had.  Yes, you have received less than you would have if the person kept the book.  But you certainly are not poorer because you are in exactly the same position you were in before that potential buyer ever appeared on the scene.

Next, it compares the sale to going into a restaurant and eating a meal then asking for a refund after you have eaten it.   In the case of the restaurant, the eater has physically used up the food and the owner of the restaurant is "poorer" because he cannot sell it again, eat it himself, or do anything else with the food which was consumed.  In the case of the book, the author still has the ideas which he is free to use, to offer to others, or to modify in any way they wish, but also, as Coelho points out he is actually potentially richer because he may have gained a supporter who will advertise his work for free.

Amazon's policy is like having your books put out in millions of public libraries (which wouldn't have been possible without Amazon).  I don't know if I'm typical, but I have borrowed books in a library and because I enjoyed the work of a certain author have subsequently purchased something from them.  If I hadn't read that "free" book I might never have bought the thing I did.  If you had a choice between having your own book in just a hand full of libraries, or millions of them, which would you choose?   

I would suggest that even if you received nothing, and if your book were given free to everyone on the planet, you would still be better off when it came around to the next thing you write because you would have a certain number of recipients of your first book who would love to read whatever came next.  Cohuelo gained 12 million of those, and that was just in one country.

An essay  which really convinced me of the errors in current IP laws was written by Stephan Kinsella: Against Intellectual Property.  I highly recommend this to anyone who has an interest in IP.

You’re Wrong Fred!

Fred Reed is an interesting blogger and he doesn’t shy away from taking on controversial topics, but in his blog which he calls A Polity of Castrati he argues that women are purely consumers of what men produce.

Actually, on the surface, the arguments he presents are quite convincing, but I believe he is missing an essential point:  That women’s role in most of the world today is a cultural distinction, not one which is determined by the essential nature of women.

He spends considerable time developing the idea that women do not produce the things which make our lives and civilization as a whole what it is to day, the implication being that they are not capable of doing so.

I’m wondering, however, if in many areas, if there aren’t achievements or discoveries which women have made that he has overlooked and that perhaps our whole society doesn’t easily recognize.

I agree wholeheartedly with the observation that women are essentially different from men.  They are physically different and I’ve little doubt that these physical differences don’t lead to some differences in the way that they think and act.

In his conclusion Fred seems to imply that his country is being feminized right up to the governing level and seems to be dubious over the future prospect over that happening.

I do agree with some of his observation that many affirmative action laws and similar actions have produced some strange and undesirable results, but I think he is missing the point when he fears for the future because of women’s role in government.

I would agree with the assertion that gender equality, just for equality’s sake is not a good policy.  Women should be allowed to do what they do best, and men what they do best and people must be given the freedom to choose the best person for whatever they want done based on who can perform best … not on some arbitrary formula dreamed up by someone who believes that everything should be homogenous.

It is not so much women’s role in government which is producing the problems that loom in the world today, it is the nature of government itself – regardless of who (or what sex) it is comprised of.

Technorati Tags: women,government,laws,fred reed

Sample Blog with Windows Live Writer

This is an effort to see what can be accomplished in this blog using Windows Live Writer.

We can add photos and manipulate them in several ways.

The text can be manipulated also and tables can be added

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