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mj
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January 10th, 2012, 6:27 am

The BBC has an article saying that newspapers are now reviewing self-published books.http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-16469000Quantitative Finance have comissioned a review of More Mathematical Finance.
 
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Alan
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January 19th, 2012, 12:58 am

So, anybody who has written a book has had it pirated and anybody who is thinkingof writing a book will have it pirated. What do you think of SOPA?
 
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January 19th, 2012, 11:41 am

Piracy is vulgar. But a higher form of praise is when the Borg take over..BTW, for the record, here's my bookTranslation of "From Chaos to Classes: Object-Oriented Software Development in C++? by Daniel J. Duffy 1995, McGraw-Hill Book Company, ISBN: 0-07-709118-3.A wee bit of mixing gives..C++. Object-oriented technology. Applications. (C++. Tehnologia orientata spre obiecte. Aplicatii), D.M. Popovici, I.M.Popovici, Teora Publishing House, Bucharest, 2000, 486pg, ISBN 973-20-0320-0.I did track him down
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Traden4Alpha
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January 19th, 2012, 12:24 pm

SOPA seems well intended but the unintended consequences seem to be scaring the crap out of people. The ugly problem is that legislators, regulators, and lawyers are abjectly clueless about technology and how it works so the likelihood of sensible regulation is virtually zero.
 
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January 19th, 2012, 2:11 pm

QuoteOriginally posted by: Traden4AlphaSOPA seems well intended but the unintended consequences seem to be scaring the crap out of people. The ugly problem is that legislators, regulators, and lawyers are abjectly clueless about technology and how it works so the likelihood of sensible regulation is virtually zero.Write a book "SOPA for dummies". QED. Actually, it's pretty clear. Theft is theft.
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January 19th, 2012, 2:18 pm

QuoteOriginally posted by: CuchulainnQuoteOriginally posted by: Traden4AlphaSOPA seems well intended but the unintended consequences seem to be scaring the crap out of people. The ugly problem is that legislators, regulators, and lawyers are abjectly clueless about technology and how it works so the likelihood of sensible regulation is virtually zero.Write a book "SOPA for dummies". QED.If SOPA passes, that book, website, etc. might be illegal.(Actually, it's probably not legally possible now because any attempt to write an "* for dummies" would bring a big nasty trademark lawsuit)
 
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January 19th, 2012, 5:29 pm

QuoteOriginally posted by: Traden4AlphaQuoteOriginally posted by: CuchulainnQuoteOriginally posted by: Traden4AlphaSOPA seems well intended but the unintended consequences seem to be scaring the crap out of people. The ugly problem is that legislators, regulators, and lawyers are abjectly clueless about technology and how it works so the likelihood of sensible regulation is virtually zero.Write a book "SOPA for dummies". QED.If SOPA passes, that book, website, etc. might be illegal.(Actually, it's probably not legally possible now because any attempt to write an "* for dummies" would bring a big nasty trademark lawsuit)Why? It's like a rock group name, it cannot be duplicated (except for Skid Row)
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January 19th, 2012, 6:21 pm

QuoteOriginally posted by: AlanSo, anybody who has written a book has had it pirated and anybody who is thinkingof writing a book will have it pirated. What do you think of SOPA?Josuttis' opinion: http://www.cppstdlib.com/sopa.html
 
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January 19th, 2012, 8:14 pm

I have mixed feelings. First, I appreciate the fact that congress is trying to do something.On the other hand, I like to watch music videos on youtube and am sure I have been the beneficiaryof watching pirated content. In the end, I think it comes down to people's sense of fair play. If you look at a pirated book and getsome benefit from it, give the author a break -- buy a copy!
 
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January 19th, 2012, 9:05 pm

QuoteOriginally posted by: AlanIn the end, I think it comes down to people's sense of fair play. If you look at a pirated book and getsome benefit from it, give the author a break -- buy a copy!yes, agree, sense of fair play, so why pay for the whole copy? maybe only a chapter was useful, maybe the book was useful only for a day ... do you buy the whole cd if you like only one track or do you buy a car if you need it only for a day?
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January 20th, 2012, 9:05 am

QuoteOriginally posted by: QuantOptionQuoteOriginally posted by: AlanIn the end, I think it comes down to people's sense of fair play. If you look at a pirated book and getsome benefit from it, give the author a break -- buy a copy!yes, agree, sense of fair play, so why pay for the whole copy? maybe only a chapter was useful, maybe the book was useful only for a day ... do you buy the whole cd if you like only one track or do you buy a car if you need it only for a day?Never heard that interesting line of argumentation before. I doubt if it is a realistic scenario. The real issue is that may people think stealing IP is harmless and getting something for little or no effort. It's endemic in many cultures.On a reated issue, are not software patents the same problem. Don't they stifle competition??
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January 20th, 2012, 9:19 am

QuoteOriginally posted by: PolterQuoteOriginally posted by: AlanSo, anybody who has written a book has had it pirated and anybody who is thinkingof writing a book will have it pirated. What do you think of SOPA?Josuttis' opinion: http://www.cppstdlib.com/sopa.htmlHe seems to be saying that it will endanger democracy as we know it. Fair enough.It's one side of the full story.
 
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January 20th, 2012, 9:19 am

QuoteOriginally posted by: CuchulainnQuoteOriginally posted by: QuantOptionQuoteOriginally posted by: AlanIn the end, I think it comes down to people's sense of fair play. If you look at a pirated book and getsome benefit from it, give the author a break -- buy a copy!yes, agree, sense of fair play, so why pay for the whole copy? maybe only a chapter was useful, maybe the book was useful only for a day ... do you buy the whole cd if you like only one track or do you buy a car if you need it only for a day?Never heard that interesting line of argumentation before. I doubt if it is a realistic scenario.What's not realistic? if i need just one chapter, and it's available, i buy one chapter, see some books at ebooks.comborrowing articles online for a period of time exists as well (don't remember the source).
 
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January 20th, 2012, 9:25 am

QuoteOriginally posted by: QuantOptionQuoteOriginally posted by: CuchulainnQuoteOriginally posted by: QuantOptionQuoteOriginally posted by: AlanIn the end, I think it comes down to people's sense of fair play. If you look at a pirated book and getsome benefit from it, give the author a break -- buy a copy!yes, agree, sense of fair play, so why pay for the whole copy? maybe only a chapter was useful, maybe the book was useful only for a day ... do you buy the whole cd if you like only one track or do you buy a car if you need it only for a day?Never heard that interesting line of argumentation before. I doubt if it is a realistic scenario.What's not realistic? if i need just one chapter, and it's available, i buy one chapter, see some books at ebooks.comborrowing articles online for a period of time exists as well (don't remember the source).It's a side-issue here. The issue is anti-theft.
 
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January 20th, 2012, 10:21 am

Downloading a copy that you would have bought deprives the owner of money. From the owner & publishers point of view this lost income has an equivalent cost to theft, although no resources have been removed. The problem with the theft mindset is that you may be missing other bits of revenue. A downloaded copy that would (truly) never have been paid for deprives the owner of nothing, but builds a relationship between the owner and the downloader. There was a whole series of posts on techdirt about the economics of free which I recommend looking at. The philosophy can be summarized as, use the things that are infinite (anything downloadable) to promote things that are scarce (real world resources, access to people, time spent, space on a course, physical copies of books)Cuchulainn, in your case your books are infinite, but your time is scarce. Maybe by selling an electronic version of your book cheap/free, but charging for answering peoples questions (via write access to your website, keep read access open) you can make more money. The more electronic books you distribute, the more popular your courses are. You could even give electronic copies to anyone who pays to attend a course. In theory you should be charging for the responses you post here on Wilmott, although on here I think there is more value to be gained by enhancing reputation than by increasing the bank balance. For example, I don't want to be paid for this post, but I hope it makes others more willing to respond to my other queries. I'm not here to argue for or against piracy laws. These will or won't happen whatever my opinion. Maybe there is more value in picking up pennies than driving steamrollers (to twist an analogy).
Last edited by Edgey on January 19th, 2012, 11:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.