Thank you for clarification, everyone - I didn't know much about the nature of the BookFace affair and now understand it well enough to draw some theoretic conclusions for myself. But before that, please allow me to answer the following question:
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>Do you really think it's okay for someone to take code you've worked on and use it for their own purposes with no recompense to you as a creator?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Sometimes.
Most programs I write at work go to a single company who can be trusted - so our company usually delivers them together with source code, allowing the client to modify them if necessary.
The purpose of this is to ensure that the client can continue developing/modifying one's software if our company should go out of business - which we of course don't intend to.
There are certain projects which contain new or especially precious code - these are distributed with the precious parts made application-specific and already compiled into machine code (difficult if not impossible to fully reverse-engineer).
And there are some programs which I write as a hobby - and distribute for free, together with source and the permissions to both use and modify.
So consequently I'd be very happy to see some of my programs copied and modified... while I'd be highly annoyed to see it done in case of some others. That is why I choose how to publish them. But I understand that as a programmer I have choices that writers don't have.
----- to the point ----
One should remember that a work of literature can't be protected as effectively as a computer program. Even the best forms of protection have *the* weakness - manual retyping. What can be read, can be retyped.
As sad as it is, digital media is never going to become the preferred media for copyrighted literature (unless people change to an extent I can't currently anticipate). But it may become a viable channel for *some* types of copyrighted texts.
You see, with digital media one can be almost sure of one thing - if a material generates interest but isn't available in legal ways, some people will inevitably copy it. Therefore digitally publishing a work of literature can only succeed if the following conditions are (and stay) fulfilled:
A) it is continuously available via legal means at a reasonable price
B) no attempt is made to limit the number of people accessing it
C) convenient ways of paying for it are available
D) copying is as difficult as possible - either manual retyping or OCR
The means to ensure that point D is fulfilled exist - one can build a dedicated program to decrypt and display the text. This would make scanning, screen captures or manual retyping as the easiest ways of reproduction. Points A to C are however not dependent on technology - only people.
Unfortunately, JMS's publication of his short stories fell victim to the first (and indirectly also the second) point. If they would be available by legal means, many people (including me) would be interested in reading them.
OK, enough of incoherent ramblings on my part...
------------------
Canned flarn is a sacrilege.
[This message has been edited by Lennier (edited August 10, 2001).]
)
