cross-posted from: https://piefed.world/c/questions/p/1330162/why-do-american-authors-who-advocate-for-noble-causes-keep-their-books-behind-paywalls-i
That one thing that keeps puzzling me.
it feels weird when an American author keep giving media interviews talking about the cause they are advocating for and keep referencing their paywalled book.
Why do they not at least release the book for free after say a certain period(say 3 months) to advance their cause beyond their existence.
I had seen this phenomenon with American politicians, people important in technology and even feminists and social advocates.
Why?
The big vs small creator aspect has another angle to it as well though in the idea of exposure. A small creator downloaded by 10,000 may find themselves to be a less small creator due to word of mouth, which actually rather goes to OP’s question of helping their cause via awareness. So those that can or would buy the book do, and those who can’t/wouldn’t still potentially receive the author’s message.
An interesting idea for something like a video game, it gets first released on something like steam with locks for a time, and then when the initial hype passes it gets onto GOG with no locks but is still a nice central storefront. Lots of options out there to work with.
I fail to find much a difference between our conclusions in your post. I would imagine I probably came at it from the incorrect angle to think it was a contrary idea to mine, so instead I’ll further the thought about still potentially receiving the author’s message.
Something I didn’t realize until now is that when you publish a pay walled book, in most countries there is a form of copyright, a system that is very akin to the solution that you and I have concluded on. Its something that allows for the progress of general humanity while also providing profit for the author. The real question is this.
How long should a creative or descriptive paywalled work be allowed to be paywalled before it placed into the public domain? In my opinion I think something like 75 years is far too long. Even 20 Years may be too long since now society progresses so fast.
@ShellMonkey@piefed.socdojo.com (and others) What is your opinion on that time?