I wonder if Sterling has any thoughts on this question coming out of his Hacker Crackdown experience?

I just sent a long reply to Canadian SF. Here 'tis:

Cory is broadly right in his analysis; however, I think he missed a few
tricks.
 
Firstly, it's essential to recognize that books have *always* been read by
more than one person. One of the reasons for the push to ebooks secured by
DRM systems is that your average paperback novel is read by about half a
dozen people, over its lifetime -- maybe your average book only gets sold
second-hand once or twice, but library copies are replicated endlessly. To
this extent, DRM is an attack on the institution of the public library --
on the informational commons. (Thomas Jefferson must be spinning in his
grave!)
 
Secondly, most readers are trustworthy; most readers will *not* file off
the serial numbers and start selling your ebook under their own imprint.
Some publishers recognize this. Baen books are a noteworthy case -- their
ebook business model is to bundle their monthly production cycle up in
an archive and charge US $10 for access to it -- considerably less than
the cost of buying it on paper -- and make it available in advance as
a serial. They're also focussing on building a reader community, with
discussion sites, author interviews, chat sessions, and so on. Given
that Baen have a well-characterised audience (they publish fairly
specific types of work), they can make this work and they haven't seen
a significant ebook copying problem, despite providing the books in a
variety of formats (including plain old-fashioned HTML).
 
It's probably too early to tell for sure, but if Baen are successful in
their webscriptions venture, then this likely points the way forward for
SF readers and publishers. (Focus on your audience and the type of book
they like to read, build a community, release books in open online formats
as a serial, charge less for ebooks than for paper. Make buying an ebook
an impulse purchase that's easier to carry through than hunting down an
illicit copy.)
 
Finally, there's one important insight the software industry had many
years ago that seems to ellude the copyright totalitarians at Disney. It's
this: if you sell a software product for, say, $5000, someone who is using
an unauthorised copy should _not_ be viewed as a loss of revenue. They
probably couldn't afford to buy the program in the first place! Therefore
the choice is not between having them use an illicit copy and having them
pay for it -- the choice is between having them use an illicit copy or not
use your program at all. SCO in 1993, when I worked there, discovered that
they were selling the most popular UNIX flavour in China -- but sold two
copies there in a year! They decided, after due consideration, not to go
after the Chinese user base with a bull-whip, but to offer fairly cheap
support contracts and view their market penetration as sowing the seeds of
a future user base; that is, once the Chinese users had enough money to
think about buying software, it'd be better to have them thinking about
going legit by buying a license for the SCO product they were already
using than to drive them into Microsoft's arms.
 
Because media products are generally much cheaper than software, the lesson
doesn't seem to have sunk in yet: accepting a certain level of illicit
copying is good for business because it establishes brand loyalty. But
the escallating price of music and video media -- and of books -- is going
to make this an issue sooner or later. I wonder if anyone at Disney realises
that in the long run they're sawing off the branch they're sitting on?



-- Charlie Stross
 
    next upcoming story: "Troubador", October/November Asimov's SF.
    next upcoming book: "Festival of Fools", Big Engine, 2002 (UK edition)

cory; that was a reasonable analysis of the topic. i guess your association with both the creation and delivery sides of the equation helps, since opinions from people with knowledge of only one side or the other tend to be unrealistic...
<br>
in any case, the long and short of the situation is that there doesn't seem to be a way to continue the current model of 'pay for access'. this model has created great amounts of wealth in the area of popular art, and has afforded a number of talented people the opportunity to focus on creativity while living the lifestyle of the rich and famous. however, the financial success of this model has also had its downside; money corrupts (or at least threatens to), and the phrase/concept 'they've sold out' has become commonplace (personally, i only like their old stuff).
<br>
so if in fact it turns out as hard to charge for access as it currently seems to, we may see artists turning to supporting themselves in the methods cory laid out; i think it is also worth mentioning that there could be an increase in the numbers of 'sponsered' artists. this is definitely a historical model (consider joyce, raphael, et al), but it will give rise to the standard financial questions of motivation (don't run afoul of the donor...).
<br>
the biggest changes lie in store for film however (caveats being 'in my opinion', and 'assuming pay for access becomes really tough to do'). movies are expensive to make, and time consuming to shoot (a college project took ~ 400 hrs to create...); not the sort of thing that is easily done without a large team working full time on. small movies can be done by individuals; but don't expect much by way of special effects, diverse settings, and large casts.
 <br>
film serves as an example of the way art will/could change in response to a different (smaller) economic model. as distribution becomes more and more efficient, two things happen: those counting on distribution to provide revenue are forced to change, and those previously limited by distribution (the small/home artist) find new audiences. so, expect the artistic landscape to shift away from blockbuster/large/ambitious, and towards a more diverse landscape that includes a larger overall body of smaller works. which seems perfectly acceptable.
<br>
 
<br>
sorry about the bad spelling and disjointed writing. its tough to write off the cuff in a tiny box...
<br>
taylor wagen
taylorATbreadandcircuses.org

Regarding Michael's question:

Note that of his books*, Sterling has ONLY posted _Hacker Crackdown,_ not his fiction. Non-fiction has a short half-life. Especially techno-journalism. So it really doesn't hurt sales that much to make a difficult-to-download text-copy available.

I would suspect bruces would be as ticked as anyone to find his fiction on-line. That's his bread and butter.

Stefan

* Bruce gleefully posts lots of old articles, speeches, and the like.

I've read more of sterling's nonfiction than his fiction, and largely because it is so available. And not to diss his fiction, but I kind of prefer reading his NF stuff, although I'm liking his last collection of short stories a lot and his last few fiction books. This is due in part to the fact that I'm in school and my tastes are warped by academia, and also by the fact that Sterling is writing more "mature" stuff, imo.

Charlie, that's a great post -- I agree with you 100%. You should declare yourself a member of the Enthusiastics with ideas like that!