Originally Posted by
kingston
While I don't have all the answers for how thought capital monetization would work in a world with no legal IP protection, I'm confident that people would still write books. My understanding is that most authors don’t make very much if any money on their books today, and people still write books. In a world with no legal IP protections, publishers would still sell physical books, same as they do today.
Only stupid publishers. Why would I invest in a book with no legal protection against someone else selling it for less? Why would I invest in finding and grooming authors if there was no legal framework for profiting from their work?
If you want evidence of this, look at what happens to books and movies when they enter the public domain.
Originally Posted by
kingston
Some readers are willing to pay a premium for a first edition hardcover book. Those book sales are totally unaffected by IP laws so publishers would still make money on those sales and some of it would go to the author. For the easily reproducible e-books, publishers could easily create technologies to authenticate the source that would restrict the unauthorized distribution of e-books which would allow authors to be compensated for books sold through that channel too.
No, technology can't stop people from copying ebooks. If a human can read it, it can be duplicated.
Originally Posted by
kingston
OverDrive is an example of such a technology.
How to remove Overdrive DRM.
Originally Posted by
kingston
I can also imagine that some people would be willing to pay for content in advance like a kickstarter for a novel so they could be among the first to read it. There are also companies and not-for-profits that could fund books, this happens with a lot of books today like business books and books with some kind a message that someone wants to promote. These are just a few ideas that came to mind after thinking about it for 5 minutes. I’m sure people actually in the business could come up with even more creative ideas. People are willing to pay for content, and publishers should be clever enough to figure out how to monetize that content.
People are willing to steal content if they can get away with it. Laws are how we stop them, just like they stop people from stealing physical things.