From: Josef 'Jupp' Schugt Date: 2007-03-24T09:22:47+09:00 Subject: Re: free pdf ebook --------------enigD5DAC5B7790A548D5DF73639 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable * Jerry Blanco, 23.03.2007 21:48: > Dave put a lot of hours writting that book and he deserves to be paid > for it. (BTW, great job, Dave!) Pragmatic Bookshelf guys put a lot of > hours publishing it and they deserve to be paid for it too. I bought "Free as in Freedom" :-) > You go to a cab stop, and say 'I want you to take me to the airport, > but don't feel it's fair for you to charge me'. See what happens. Nothing sound I suppose. > You go to a cafe and say 'I'll have a coffee but since coffee grows >> from the Earth, and we ALL humans are entitled to a part of it, I > won't pay you.' See what happens. Coffee is a good example to show that even people wo are nothing but egoistic can have interest in paying a fair price. Of the money you pay for the coffee little reaches the people that grow it and the farmers can hardly survive with what they are paid. If you were one of them what would you consider to do? Perhaps grow something that pays a much better price? Especially if it is a plant that has always been grown in the Region so that you already know how to grow it? Good idea, isn't it? Well, the plant I have in mind is Coca, the product that is sold Cocain. Perhaps it is a good idea to pay the coffee farmers a fair price than to pay even more than this amount of money for fighting Coca plantations. See? Paying a fair price can make sense even if only highly egoistic interests are considered. > You go to Barnes and Noble and say 'I'll take this book, but since the > ideas contained thereof are not truly ownable by anybody, I won't pay > for it.' See what happens. Hmm, the only case of a holder of IP where I consider it an ethical duty not to buy products of is - believe it or not - Disney. Why this? Disney has much of its production done in Korea. This were not a problem if it weren't NORTH Korea. To my knowledge Disney is the largest source of Dollars of the Juche regime. The the payment the artists obtain is a mere joke. Since the day I know of this I have not bought one single Disney item. Not even paper towel with Disney motives on it (although it would have costed less than the paper towel I bought instead). If I watch Disney movies (I like a number of them) it is television broadcasts that are broadcast no matter if I watch them or not. But even this does not necessarily imply to obtain illegal copies of Disney movies. In short my personal problem is usally that too little of the money paid actually reaches the artists. One side-remark: At least in Germany writing books is rather a hobby than a job. It is very hard (almost impossible) to make one's living only of writing books. The subject is also a question of mentality. A german discounter has invented the slogan "Geiz ist geil!" which may be translated as Avarice is cool! but also as "Avarice is lecherous!" ("geil" comes in both flavors the latter being the original one). Many Germans seem to love this statement. If you say that avarice is contemptible and one of the seven deadly sins people may even start laughing at you. Well, I also go to cheap discounters but usually not because of the price. The products I usually buy aren't cheaper there but they are usually fresher and often have a better quality. As it turned out they are also less contaminated with pesticides than products sold elsewhere and in the case of fresh products usually come from the vincinity (which often is not true for products sold elsewhere). The world is not at all black and white but full of different shades of grey. Seems as I am not the first one to observe this :-) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yin_and_yang Josef 'Jupp' Schugt --=20 Blog available at http://www.mynetcologne.de/~nc-schugtjo/blog/ PGP key with id 6CC6574F available at http://wwwkeys.de.pgp.net/ --------------enigD5DAC5B7790A548D5DF73639 Content-Type: application/pgp-signature; name="signature.asc" Content-Description: OpenPGP digital signature Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="signature.asc" -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.7 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFGBG9Trhv7B2zGV08RAh3eAKDg8sxULuKRnrVOBP9YJtLcrGd7mwCfVWTh CXlEIrzGvSsYEXLelMUDjNA= =uvWv -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --------------enigD5DAC5B7790A548D5DF73639--