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.

Saying what you mean

We often are told that being effective in what we do is, in part, dependent on how well we can differentiate between what is important and what is urgent.  This is an example of the former which got displaced by the latter.

I started writing this in January 2010 after watching Glenn Beck attempt to show how Progressivists have misrepresented or disconnected history from people today.  That particular issue has nothing to do with my topic, nor is this supporting or disputing Beck’s arguments, but I mention it because it provided me with the jumping off point for my thinking.

On at least two occasions in his program Beck said, “Back in a second” before a break.  For some reason I counted those seconds and, the first time counted 210, the next one I didn’t count accurately, but estimate that it was at least 150 seconds.

The point here is that we use many words and expressions which do not mean what they say, and when we use them we often don’t even consider what it is that we intend to say … rather we just utter something that expresses an approximate idea that we haven’t even clarified for ourselves.

One of the most frequent terms that comes to mind which is used by younger people is “whatever,” as a response to somehow indicate that no further discussion is wanted.  I’m not intending to be critical of young people when I say this, but wouldn’t it be much better to simply say something like, “Let’s talk about something else”? Or, “This topic bores me,” or whatever really expresses the mood of the moment.

If we, ourselves do not take the responsibility of choosing and using terms which express clearly what it is that we want to communicate, why should we be the least bit surprised if politicians, journalists, teachers, children, or anyone are misunderstood or ambiguous.

Like anything else, if we wish to see change in things around us, we must initiate a change in ourselves and if we want others to start meaning what they say, we, too, must do the same and the start to that is to choose words that allow us to say what we mean and to insist that others who are trying to communicate with us do the same.

Technorati Tags: Glenn Beck,Progressivism,communication,language,journalists,meaning

Coming back to haunt you

I think that one of the greatest challenges we face in life is being honest with ourselves. 

We may be conscious of using some deception or attempts to influence the thoughts of other, but somehow we even go to great lengths to avoid the fact that we may be doing

the same to ourselves.

When my children were small, I always attempted to teach them what I believed would be helpful to them in their lives, although I may not have always realized that there was some variance between what I said and what I did.  You may remember the old saw: “Do as I say, not as I do.”

One of the things I frequently would say to my girls whenever they complained that some rule or outcome or event “wasn’t fair”, was “Who ever told you that life was fair?”, or as an alternative I’d say “Fare is what you pay to the bus driver.”

Recently I’ve moved from being an active worker into the realm of the retired, and as such, have felt that my life should be much more relaxed and free from obligations imposed by the needs and desires of others.

My wife, however, decided to take up employment where she was on call, and could be called at a pre-dawn hour to work.  On a couple of occasions I was awakened and asked to drive her to her place of employment, arising several hours before I would have otherwise.

On one of these times I found myself thinking: “This isn’t fair! Now that I’m retired, why should I have to ‘work’ too, just so my wife could work”?

Then, as I was searching for the answer to that question, I recalled what I had attempted to instil into my children … now I have to decide:  Do I live by my own teachings, or do I decide that I’d been wrong all that time?

Technorati Tags: teachings,honesty,values

You can say whatever you want

A package of soymilk reads:

 IT’S FREE! Silk Vanilla is free of lactose, dairy, cholesterol, eggs, casein, MSG and worries. You still have to pay for it though.

Before I get to my point, I’d like to say I love this product and find it an excellent replacement for regular milk.

The thought that struck me, when I read that statement on the package is that it seems so typical of what we hear everywhere in the media from politicians and about most everything.  Statements are made which are the complete opposite of what they say …. and as long as the person somewhere, somehow, clarifies what they are saying, it is considered totally acceptable.

A defendant of this kind of action would likely state: “Why should a person be criticized just because a reader didn’t read on a bit further to learn the real, full meaning of what was said.”

I would tend to agree with that kind of defence, and yet I also see that there is a lack of trustworthiness demonstrated by the person who makes a statement of this nature, because he is relying on his own cleverness and his listeners’ lack of acuity to actually create a false impression which is serving his own ends and not those of his listeners.

It is tragic that this kind of thinking is too prevalent today.

Technorati Tags: advertising,politicians,language,honor,trust

The Woman in the other time zone

Last night I had a most fascinating dream.

I dreamed I was beginning an intimate relationship with an exotic woman who told me that she, and her entire family lived in a different time zone. She explained that they did this to constantly remind themselves that they were different from the rest of the people around them.

I became acquainted with her when she came to do some work for me. What I didn't know until we began our relationship was her different time zone. In effect she was living one hour different from me. If I asked her to come to work for me at 8 am she arrived on time, but it was 7am in the world in which she lived and while I thought she finished the day a 4pm, she was leaving at 3pm according to her watch.

She told me, that if she committed herself to me, she would be willing to live in my time zone, but if I wanted to really become accepted by her family I'd have to adopt their time zone.

Of course this was just a dream, but it seems to me that the idea could be expanded into an interesting story or novel. If anyone is inspired by the idea, please feel free to use it ... and let me know: I'd be delighted to read what you come up with.