Oh God, the e-books. Patrons will come in asking about it, and I will take them through the process - they have to get a state library card, they have to browse through a very limited catalog, they have to put items on hold because we have very very few digital copies of what we do have, they can only keep them a few weeks - the hoops are ridiculous. Most people end up just waiting to check-out the physical copy. I know I gave up on it, because the publishers have made it so difficult to try and use.
Miss an episode and you waited until the summer. Ick.
Horrifying memories of my childhood and missing episodes of The X-Files! Nothing was worse. NOTHING.
The guys in Monty Python decided to forego DMCA'ing their stuff on YouTube, instead insisting that a link to a place to buy their cd's, books, and dvd's be shown next to each clip. Sales went up. Huh.
That seems to happen anytime an artist tries this out. Joss Whedon put all of Dr. Horrible up for free to start with, and it's certainly still sold very well. Because people knew what they were going to get, and like the Louis C.K. comedy special that came out recently, people are definitely willing to shell out the money when it's an easy transaction, when it's not exorbitant, and when they know it's going to the actual people who made it. (And Louis C.K. said everyone told him his sales would be hurt by piracy, but he did it anyway, and sold like gangbusters. I'm sure some of the people who pirated it ended up buying it, too.)
I just hope the dinosaurs don't break the internet with their flailing about trying to fight it.
I just think it's a losing argument. They're never going to convince a populace that has trouble making ends meet that we're horrible people for not shelling out tons of money when we can see executives making millions and millions of dollars off the work of people who are also quite wealthy.
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branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2012-01-25 07:05 pm (UTC)Miss an episode and you waited until the summer. Ick.
Horrifying memories of my childhood and missing episodes of The X-Files! Nothing was worse. NOTHING.
The guys in Monty Python decided to forego DMCA'ing their stuff on YouTube, instead insisting that a link to a place to buy their cd's, books, and dvd's be shown next to each clip. Sales went up. Huh.
That seems to happen anytime an artist tries this out. Joss Whedon put all of Dr. Horrible up for free to start with, and it's certainly still sold very well. Because people knew what they were going to get, and like the Louis C.K. comedy special that came out recently, people are definitely willing to shell out the money when it's an easy transaction, when it's not exorbitant, and when they know it's going to the actual people who made it. (And Louis C.K. said everyone told him his sales would be hurt by piracy, but he did it anyway, and sold like gangbusters. I'm sure some of the people who pirated it ended up buying it, too.)
I just hope the dinosaurs don't break the internet with their flailing about trying to fight it.
I just think it's a losing argument. They're never going to convince a populace that has trouble making ends meet that we're horrible people for not shelling out tons of money when we can see executives making millions and millions of dollars off the work of people who are also quite wealthy.