December 12, 2002
Brilliant Tim O'Reilly essay
Piracy is progressive taxation.
- For most authors, their enemy is obscurity, not piracy. Piracy benefits the little guy and is an irritant to the big guys
- For publishers, piracy is a manageable cost of doing business, like shoplifting. It doesn't kill the business -- Microsoft is profitable despite warez newsgroups
- Customers will pay for good digital distribution; O'Reilly's Safari is an example
- In the world of digital distribution there will still be a role for publishers and distributors. For reasons of math and marketing, intermediaries will emerge to bridge the gap between millions of buyers and millions of sellers
And more great stuff.
Posted by alevin at December 12, 2002 08:45 PM