Practically Marzipan

Piracy and privilege and property and publishing and other things that begin with P

5 Comments to “Piracy and privilege and property and publishing and other things that begin with P”

1. 
   Celine
   January 20, 2011 at 9:34 am

   I'd actually quite like to hear your opinions on the issue, Aishwarya. Are you planning on posting about them? ( or have you already? In which case can you link?)

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2. 
   Subashini
   January 20, 2011 at 12:24 pm

   Wow. Thanks for linking to what seems to be an amazing conversation. I can relate to every word Qian wrote. Been thinking about this lately, especially since I've recently acquired a Kindle. Most excellent; looking forward to reading the rest.

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3. 
   Aishwarya
   January 24, 2011 at 6:58 pm

   Celine – Pretty sure it would be a terrible idea for me to post about them. I do work in the industry and that makes it a bit awkward. But (in brief) what I do think is that this stuff needs to be acknowledged; and in my attempts to have this conversation with people it is generally shut down as something irrelevant to the discussion. I think where I am is here and also here. As an editor and a basically decent person I want writers and publishers to be able to make a decent living off the work they do. As a reader outside the UK and USA (and a person who spends most of her money on books because of this)and a basically decent person I want these currently ridiculous global inequalities sorted out, and I want people in the "Western" world to acknowledge the immense privilege they have in this matter. I think it's clear that something in the system is broken, and compartmentalising the issues isn't going to contribute to fixing it.
   Is that enough? :)

   Subashini – Has the Kindle made it substantially easier for you to access books, or does country of origin still prove a problem? And I link to amazing people because I cannot hope to match their ability to articulate this stuff.

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4. 
   Celine
   January 25, 2011 at 10:02 am

   Thanks for that, Aishwarya! I'm so sorry that I don't have time to read the links (yet) I'm pretty sure we're of the same mind in most aspects of this though.

   In relation to territories with book distribution problems, it's such a delicate subject and so very difficult to propose a solution to. So many factors are involved: social, economic, religious, political etc etc and peoples feelings seem to come into it far too quickly and far too often for there to be much real clear headed discussion. It's very hard to even comment sometimes without leaving some vital aspect of the picture out.

   To me the most saddening thing is that, for as long as piracy is used as a bandaid for this distribution/pricing problem, the longer it will remain the only available solution. Radical change is needed and that can only come about with a large vocal public objection to the problem and then a concerted effort by political and business interests to change the current situation. If the 'solution' continues to be the continual use of pirate copies coupled with bussines/political apathy then nothing will ever change.

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5. 
   Effbie
   February 6, 2011 at 3:14 am

   That's an issue that I was not aware of…
   very interesting thanks

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