Why is Amazon trying to steal my new ebook?

Well, not precisely... the definition of "consumer" according to M-W is "one that consumes as... one that utilizes economic goods". That doesn't necessarily mean they purchase them. And that's the reality we all have to face.

I suspect that a lot of the people who want to see things handled properly just don't see how arguing with pirates and their apologists will help. You don't convince those people, after all. Not usually.

What the honest folk seem to forget is that there are lots of people reading these threads who haven't made up their minds yet, or who are simply unaware of the impact of their actions. Those are the folks we're talking to, not the thieves.

There are a lot of people here who will speak up on these issues. Certainly more than will defend piracy or other unethical behaviors. It may be that they don't see the need if someone else has already made the point, but leave one unaddressed for a little bit and someone will jump on it.


Paul

I believe I said "prestige," but yes, that was rather what I said in the rest of the paragraph that referenced altruism. The root of their impulse may be altruism, but the root of their action is self-interest.

Well, yes. When you call it "thanks," you're discouraging the idea that it's a score and you're playing a game. When you call it "points," you're outright admitting that whenever you start counting something, you have created a score that reflects one's performance in a game - something with agreed-upon rules and standards, whether they're overtly specified or not.

It might be argued that one of those things is more honest than the other, but it might also be argued that honesty isn't necessarily the goal. When you look at the language as a deliberate choice designed to inspire a certain perception, calling it "points" seems offensive; they're actively encouraging people to treat this like a game.

But when you look at the language as a symbol representing reality, calling it "thanks" seems like just a big steaming load of BS; they're actually trying to pretend 'click the button to increment the counter' has some sort of objective meaning.

This is a culture clash. I love culture clashes. They're fascinating. Nobody's really right, but everybody has a valid point of view, and at the same time they're stunningly wrong about what the other person's point of view is. So from both sides of the fence, the people on the other side always look like complete retards who just don't get it.

"Give me the money or you can't have this thing that by all rights ought to belong to you" is extortion. The difference of opinion at issue here is whether what you sell rightfully belongs to the pirate. And the pirate's argument hinges around ownership of information. The pirate says you can't own information, because information wants to be free!

But you didn't have to put the information into a product. The information itself, which cannot be owned or sold or bought, is not the product. Think of the term "information product" like "water pistol" - just because water is free doesn't mean the pistol should be.

And that's a lot of the problem. You're arguing about a product, and they're arguing about information. Neither of you is thinking enough about the other half of the term. You can concede that information should be free without conceding that all information products ought to be free, too.

But we do get everything for nothing. We sit down and bang out a report, and then we say "gimme some money!" - but when they give us some money, all we give them is a COPY of the report. We still have the report. We didn't give up anything. We got the money for nothing. In fact, we're whores: we've got something, we sell it, and we've still got it.

As product creators, we sit there open-mouthed at this accusation and go "WTF, I worked on that product for weeks, and it took me several years to develop the knowledge in it."

And the pirate says "yeah, but you already did that."

That's the alien part. Because over the years, I have heard this logic repeated in fifty thousand different ways, and my response has always been something like...

Okay, you're kidding, right?

It's like they've got absolutely no concept of cost recovery; once you've done the work, its done. You don't have any right to recoup your costs, or be compensated for your time, or any of that. The only thing that matters is you're sitting here right now with this thing, and other people want it, so you should share. All that time you spent, all that work you did, well... that's in the past, dude. Why d'you wanna live in the past? It's the future that matters, man. Just let the past be the past, and let the now be the now. And right now, you should share.

And to be perfectly honest, the only place I have ever seen this kind of logic is among habitual marijuana smokers. So I'm not kidding when I say it's like they're on drugs.