[HN Gopher] Copy This Book. An artist's guide to copyright
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Copy This Book. An artist's guide to copyright
Author : schrijver
Score : 64 points
Date : 2021-11-11 17:32 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (copy-this-book.eu)
(TXT) w3m dump (copy-this-book.eu)
| smoldesu wrote:
| $11 is a bit out of my price range, I'll just wait for someone to
| copy it. Look forward to reading it though!
| schrijver wrote:
| I'm the author of this book. Throughout the years Hacker News has
| been really useful source in learning about the latest
| developments of copyright intersecting with the information
| society--it often seems like hackers are more tuned in on the
| latest developments in intellectual property than most creatives.
| Note that in art I also include programming--there's a chapter
| dedicated to code.
|
| Making good on the title, the book was created with open source
| tools (html2print, similar to page.js) and is licensed CC-BY-NC.
| The size also fits snugly under a photocopier.
| Osmium wrote:
| Looks like a beautiful book.
|
| Maybe worth putting a prominent NSFW label on the link to the
| excerpt however? Was not what I was expecting to see when
| reading this!
| breakfastduck wrote:
| Title inspired by Steal This Album by System of a Down?
| schrijver wrote:
| "When this book's designer came up with the title, Copy This
| Book, she was playing off Abbie Hoffman's guide to counter-
| cultural living Steal This Book (1971), just like Oakland-
| based hip-hop band The Coup did with Steal This Album (1998),
| later joined by Detroit punk rock band The Suicide Machines
| with Steal This Record (2001) and Armenian-American heavy
| metal band System of a Down with Steal This Album! (2002).
| Robert Greenwald made Steal This Movie! (2000) and Paraguay
| Press published an artist's book by Dora Garcia entitled
| Steal This Book (2009)."
|
| (Chapter 5.2 on writing)
|
| So she thought of Abbie Hoffman... but when she suggested it
| my first association was System of a Down as well :)
| enriquto wrote:
| I would like to buy the print edition, but shipping costs more
| than the book itself... Strangely, it wouldn't feel as
| ridiculous if you proposed a pricier hardcover version.
|
| One question: what would be your opinion if somebody were to
| post here a public link to a pdf copy of the book?
| schrijver wrote:
| If you live in a medium sized city, there'll probably be a
| book store focused on art books that stocks it or can order
| it for you. Many museum book stores have it as well. Might
| sound old school, but there are apparently quite some people
| who shop this way because for a niche topic it has done well.
|
| There's fairly little marketing, it all hangs on the
| publisher having good connections with distributors, that
| have good relations with book stores, and then have a pitch
| and cover design that are convincing enough for these book
| stores to stock.
|
| As someone often creating digital content, I was impressed by
| how well these networks function. The book does not have a
| lot of online presence, yet it still found its way around the
| world.
|
| When it comes to the digital version, I made it myself,
| because I figured that it also needed to circulate this way
| and that it talks to another audience. However, not doing
| much marketing for it other than posting on social media,
| there are very little sales. Visits to the website don't
| really convert to eBook sales, so I think the audience I have
| at the moment prefers the physical medium. In posting on
| Hacker News I was curious if this was going to be different.
|
| When it comes to the license, it permits people sharing the
| PDF. Ideally for me this means people mailing it to their
| friends, but I think it includes hosting on a public platform
| too. Because of the NC clause, to be sure the platform that
| hosts it should also be non-commercial, so I imagine someone
| could share it on their personal blog for example. This will
| probably happen at some point. It's a bit of an ambiguous
| feeling, I realise it's a consequence of the choice I made
| and that it will help the material reach more people, at the
| same time it doesn't feel great to loose control. At least I
| hope I'll be good enough at SEO so that people continue to
| realise it exists for sale :) After all that's how paying for
| digital media often works, as a decision to want to support
| the author rather than a necessity to access the content.
| beckman466 wrote:
| > I'm the author of this book
|
| "I'm the _schrijver_ of this book. "
|
| nice lastname!
| schrijver wrote:
| Thanks! I tend to think my last name was a bit of a self-
| fulfilling prophecy--whenever I wrote something half-decent,
| people would point at my last name and tell me I was supposed
| to be a writer. Never happened for anything else I knew how
| to do. However irrational that is, I'm sure it influenced my
| self-image to some extent.
|
| Then again, back when the name was first introduced, it
| probably didn't refer to author in the modern sense, but to a
| person in the community who, unlike most, was literate (knew
| how to read and write).
| beckman466 wrote:
| > back when the name was first introduced, it probably
| didn't refer to author in the modern sense, but to a person
| in the community who, unlike most, was literate (knew how
| to read and write).
|
| interesting!
| lliamander wrote:
| Nominative determinism strikes again!
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Wanted to order the eBook, using PayPal, but I was presented with
| a local-domain form, asking for the same information that PayPal
| has.
|
| Sorry. Looks like a decent read. $11 is not a big deal, but being
| slapped into yet another spambase is.
| schrijver wrote:
| It uses Fastspring, a platform for selling digital products and
| services. I wasn't looking forward to dealing with sales tax,
| VAT or coding some kind of digital fulfilment workflow so I
| went with them.
|
| I deliberately did not go the route of the walled garden stores
| (iBooks Kindle etc.) since I liked the idea of providing DRM
| free files.
|
| Thanks for your feedback though. What would you suggest as a
| way for indie authors to sell eBooks?
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I've used FastSpring before, and never had that form show up.
|
| I'm used to just being sent directly to PayPal, clicking "Go
| For It" (or whatever), and then being redirected to your
| site.
| schrijver wrote:
| OK I ran through the checkout process and see what form you
| mean. It's true that entering details makes sense for the
| CC payment but not for Paypal. I use a readymade FastSpring
| storefront and not the more sophisticated JavaScript
| library, this is how it worked out of the box... I'll get
| in touch with FastSpring support to see what to do about
| this.
| notjulianjaynes wrote:
| This book looks interesting, but I feel a certain (juvenile?)
| aversion to the advice offered in the linked excerpt. I think
| copyright law is a plague on cultural production, and everything
| has been getting progressively worse since the death of the
| rapidshare mp3 blog, siloing of content, technological
| advancement of DRM, automated DMCAA take-downs, etc. Playing by
| the rules seems like admitting defeat to me. Might as well get a
| real job.
|
| I love those Richard Prince Instagram screenshots too, no shame.
| schrijver wrote:
| Artist's don't like to play by the rules in general, but if
| they ignore copyright they also need to find a way to fly under
| the radar. Which in turn can diminish the visibility of what
| they do.
|
| So there's a practical impetus for getting to know these rules.
| The book is indeed full of practical advice on how to work
| within them. But in doing so, it also explains the paradoxes of
| copyright, and I hope, sows the seeds for a more critical
| attitude towards it.
|
| You obviously already have a critical attitude, but for most
| artists it's not so pronounced, and also more ambiguous: many
| artists are quite happy to support copyright, as long as it
| protects their work, however, they're not quite so happy with
| copyright protecting the work of others when they want to use
| it as part of their own. I hope the readers challenge their
| intuitions a bit.
| kmeisthax wrote:
| You're half-right. There _are_ a lot of noncommercial or
| personal infringements that are being overprosecuted by either
| zealous litigants or outright fraudsters. However, at the same
| time, there are also a lot of artists who misrepresent or
| misunderstand what they actually do and don 't own. The kind of
| people who will scream about how "the Internet is public
| domain" on one end, but also that someone with money "stole
| their idea". Likewise, there are also artists that are
| genuinely getting ripped off, but don't really have the means
| to fight back[0]. This is more common than you think, and I
| feel like this book is aimed at that group of people.
|
| [0] This is why you have lots of bots that steal Twitter art
| and resell it as T-shirts or NFTs.
| i_am_proteus wrote:
| Looks interesting. Curious choice to license CC-BY-NC but still
| charge for the ebook.
|
| I've bought many print works after reading all or part of a free
| digital version or borrowed copy. Perhaps I'll do the same for
| this.
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(page generated 2021-11-11 23:01 UTC)