Life In 19x19

Sad to see you go like that John Always loved your contributions and love your books!

Helel wrote:

hyperpape wrote:we have, in my opinion, one borderline troll who consistently posts

We do?

Scary to think these boards could have someone like that isn't it? But I consider this individual rather endearing. A warm and fuzzy borderline troll, if you will.

I really like John, and he's certainly the wise old man of go, but why does everyone have to Publicly Announce that They Are Leaving a Forum when they decide to leave? If you want to go, John, I and others will miss you, but an announcement sounds like you just want people to say how much they'll miss you...

kirkmc wrote:I really like John, and he's certainly the wise old man of go, but why does everyone have to Publicly Announce that They Are Leaving a Forum when they decide to leave? If you want to go, John, I and others will miss you, but an announcement sounds like you just want people to say how much they'll miss you...

Last time he left we suffered through many posts wondering whether he had left or not. So there are issues either way.

The important thing is to keep kicking him.

kirkmc wrote:I really like John, and he's certainly the wise old man of go, but why does everyone have to Publicly Announce that They Are Leaving a Forum when they decide to leave? If you want to go, John, I and others will miss you, but an announcement sounds like you just want people to say how much they'll miss you...

Well, suppose you left because you thought a bunch of people were behaving badly, but that the average member of the boards still behaved fine. Wouldn't you want the average member to know that so they could respond?

I think that it is interesting if we compare piracy to libraries. Without libraries, would people buy more books? Almost certainly. But libraries have also positive effect, they kind of nurture their readers. People discover their favourite authors / genres thanks to libraries... and then they buy the books they love. Many readers go both to a library and bookshops (but not all.) The same we can say about film piracy, people download many films but buy their favourites on DVD (only favourites because DVDs aren't really cheap) and go often to cinema. But when distributors can see how many copies have been downloaded illegally, they are close to heart attack. But the thing is people wouldn't buy all of them, not even half of them. And many of them download so many films just because they can.

hyperpape wrote:

kirkmc wrote:I really like John, and he's certainly the wise old man of go, but why does everyone have to Publicly Announce that They Are Leaving a Forum when they decide to leave? If you want to go, John, I and others will miss you, but an announcement sounds like you just want people to say how much they'll miss you...

Well, suppose you left because you thought a bunch of people were behaving badly, but that the average member of the boards still behaved fine. Wouldn't you want the average member to know that so they could respond?

"Sing, o Muse, the wrath of John, Fairbairn's son..." This is an epic moment, but the discussion is strictly off-topic and needs to be taken to a separate thread. This thread is losing its original focus: pirates, and what to do with them.

jts wrote:pirates, and what to do with them.

Remind them of the existing international and national laws. Ask them to respect other human beings (in this case: the authors and their decision not to distribute freely) as much as they would like to be respected as human beings. Suggest them that there are various legal means to evaluate a book before buying incl. reading samples and asking the authors questions. The world has countless free activities (incl. playing on many go servers, downloading and studying countless free professional games or problems), so copyright violation is not a (commercial) necessity of the financially under-endowed but an illegal act after having recognised that refined, specialised contents does have an extra value worth getting hold of. As much as you pay for food you don't have to collect yourself in nature, it is just to pay for contents you don't work out yourself by effort. One of mankind's greatest inventions has been division of labour. It works only if both sides respect each other by acknowledging the value of work. If, e.g., you produce consumer food, then I respect your labour by paying for it. If an author produces books, then you respect his labour by paying for it.

RobertJasiek wrote:

jts wrote:pirates, and what to do with them.

Remind them of the existing international and national laws. Ask them to respect other human beings (in this case: the authors...

That's a great idea if men were angels. But the sad fact is that there are some who have no respect for authors.

So if there are varying levels of people, let us match that with varying levels of product. The kickstart model allows writers to promise gifts to people who contribute. It could be structured something like this:

I'll write a book on joseki if people donate 20,000 dollars. Anyone who contributes $50 or more gets a hardback. Anyone who contributes $20 to $49 gets a paperback. The rest of the world gets digital.

Since the invention of the printing press, we have been treating books as information carriers first and collectible commodities second. Let's reverse that and treat books primarily as collectible commodities. Printing a book would be a way of rewarding your patrons. Releasing the digital product would be the method of actually diseminating the information.

Joaz Banbeck wrote:Let's reverse that

Not somebody decides about an author's business model but the author decides. If you are an author, you can try such a reverse model.

Helel wrote:Intellectual property/Immaterialgüterrecht is one of the most complicated and complex political issues of our times

Yes, but the basics (the spirit of the Berne Convention) are simple enough to understand so that reference to complexity is easily recognised as a fake excuse for intellectual property theft.

Helel, have fun to have a different opinion. My missing replies to your recent and possibly later messages can simply mean that I prefer writing books instead of having endless meta-discussions about conditions of writing or not writing them.

Helel wrote:

RobertJasiek wrote:
Not somebody decides about an author's business model but the author decides. If you are an author, you can try such a reverse model.

I will not play soggy biscuit with you since you have infinitely more practice, but this is based on flawed logic. People do not have any unalienable rights whatsoever. Might makes right.

Joaz' plan, in which we combat piracy by appealing to go aficionado's love of paper books could hardly be realized without the author's consent. As someone who has supported several projects on Kickstarter, including a book, I'd suggest that we should encourage authors to consider whatever business model allows them to continue to keep us abreast of their latest thoughts, as opposed to edging them into tiresome and unfortunate conversations.

RobertJasiek wrote:Helel, have fun to have a different opinion. My missing replies to your recent and possibly later messages can simply mean that I prefer writing books instead of having endless meta-discussions about conditions of writing or not writing them.

I'm sorry, but who are you that is masquerading as Robert Jasiek?

kirkmc wrote:who are you that is masquerading as Robert Jasiek?

Do you achieve anything by starting such a meta-discussion?