You just kind of handwave the whole problem away. Why aren't authors paid for the work they do? You can that like it isn't true and that it cannot be true.
>You - and every other author - need a new framework to attract income. I have no idea what that would look like, or even if such a thing could exist.
So basically you're deciding the entire industry of book writing is broken and needs to be entirely re-created BUT you also don't know how or what it should even look like. But until then we should all just be okay with pirating the work of others and thereby robbing them of their means of living, because it has been decided that the old system is beyond functioning.
> You just kind of handwave the whole problem away.
No, that's what copyright does. It demands we all play the game, then it's totally unprepared for that not working out. Someone used a computer and an internet connection to share data without paying me money? shocked Pikachu face
I'm at least admitting there's a problem. Just because I don't have a solution does not mean I don't understand the problem. Not all problems are that easily solved.
If I did have a solution, I would be implementing it. After all, a solution to that problem would be one of the most valuable contributions to society I can think of. At least one of the most highly valued.
> So basically you're deciding the entire industry of book writing is broken
I didn't decide. I was speaking descriptively, not prescriptively; something the copyright industry seems rather unfamiliar with.
> But until then we should all just be okay with pirating the work of others and thereby robbing them of their means of living, because it has been decided that the old system is beyond functioning.
It's not a matter of being OK with it or not. We can't compel every person to follow the rules. We've been trying that method for 30 years, and it's been blowing up in our faces the entire time.
The reality is that copyright is a false promise. We can't force people to add a monetary transaction to the distribution of information, when information can be distributed anonymously at next to zero cost.
You're so worried about the ethical implications of piracy, but what about the ethical implications of the false promise that is copyright?
We are telling authors every day that they can make money selling books, but that is only true occasionally, by chance. We have no way to guarantee that will happen. We can't attribute every successful book sale to copyright enforcement, because we know copyright enforcement is broadly failing.
It's time to stop treating this like a game of good vs evil, and recognize the failure of the game itself. Even if that means recognizing that we already lost.
You talk about wanting to find a solution, so I'd like to share where I think one might be found. Not that I've found it, I just think I know where to look.
The problem with books is that we live in a partially post-scarcity society. Star Trek envisioned post-scarcity everything, but we live in a partially post-scarcity society: Food, pure metals, clean water etc. are all still scarce, but anything that can be digitized is not. Books can be digitized, so they are subject to post-scarcity economics, but most of the author's needs are subject to scarcity economics.
What bridges the these two economies, and where I believe the answer can be found, is in attention. Attention is scarce, but it is also necessary to consume anything in the post-scarcity economy. It exists in both worlds somehow, and I therefore believe it's closely related to the problem of how an author can get paid.
>You - and every other author - need a new framework to attract income. I have no idea what that would look like, or even if such a thing could exist.
So basically you're deciding the entire industry of book writing is broken and needs to be entirely re-created BUT you also don't know how or what it should even look like. But until then we should all just be okay with pirating the work of others and thereby robbing them of their means of living, because it has been decided that the old system is beyond functioning.