Comments for Robert Swartwood

Comment on Worse Than Pirating by Subhakar Das

Subhakar Das — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 17:36:00 +0000

Disgusting…why should people stoop so low

Comment on Worse Than Pirating by John Ridley

John Ridley — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 17:02:00 +0000

DRM or lack of it isn’t really the problem here. There is no DRM that isn’t broken. DRM will not slow down someone who wants to do this at all, it takes less than a minute to remove the DRM from any title.

This is not a solvable problem. It’s not possible to make unbreakable DRM, it’s just a waste of money to try.

Really the only way to stop this is vigilance. It’s simply a fact of life that digital media is easily copied. Detection of copying is the answer, not trying to stop it in the first place. In most cases that I’m aware of, loyal fans have told authors/artists about cases like this and it’s been dealt with.

Comment on Worse Than Pirating by Gelly

Gelly — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 10:50:00 +0000

That is infuriating an I feel sorry for the author. I hope Amazon gives him the money the other person has made with it. However DRM has nothing to do with it. DRM is easily cracked by those who want to plagiarize, so having it wouldn’t make it stop. Don’t bark at the wrong tree here.

Comment on Worse Than Pirating by Robert Swartwood

Robert Swartwood — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 05:01:00 +0000

That is actually a great idea. Why they haven’t implemented something like that yet, I don’t know. Seems like it would make sense, but when it comes to major corporations, who knows what goes through their heads.

Comment on Worse Than Pirating by C.J.

C.J. — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 04:55:00 +0000

The solution is pretty simple. In the academic world, there is a site called turnitin.com. It is owned by iParadigms, a company focused on stopping plagerisms. The site basically stores documents submitted by students and uses some sort of algorithm to search against all documents in the database. If phrases are too similar or too alike, the student’s piece will get flagged for possible plagiarism.

If Amazon were to partner with this company for services, it could essentially end any person posting anything essentially not original. I’m sure Amazon has some sort of algorithm, but it obviously doesn’t work well if identical rip offs are being posted online.

I’d think that if you fine tweaked the turnitin algorithm to meet Amazon’s specific needs, you’d be able to really quickly flag any piece of plagiarized work. You’d have to assume that an identical plagiarized stories would shoot warning signs all over the place the moment it is uploaded.

If Amazon isn’t already doing this, I have no idea why not.

Comment on On Time Travel Nostalgia by Robert Swartwood

Robert Swartwood — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 18:04:00 +0000

I liked Con-Air, too, but it’s not a Michael Bay film, so I didn’t include it.

Comment on On Time Travel Nostalgia by Robert Swartwood

Robert Swartwood — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 18:04:00 +0000

Wasn’t much of a fan, to be honest. I watched a couple of episodes but just couldn’t really get into it. Not sure why.

Comment on On Time Travel Nostalgia by Barry Napier

Barry Napier — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 17:47:00 +0000

Hey man, no worries. I liked The Rock, too. (Con-Air also, while we’re at it). Any script that allows someone to reference Elton John before plunging a rocket into a bad guy’s sternum is just awesome.

Comment on On Time Travel Nostalgia by Jonathan David Morris

Jonathan David Morris — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 17:26:00 +0000

What, no Quantum Leap?

Comment on Living Inside The Bubble by Robert Swartwood

Robert Swartwood — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 23:07:00 +0000

Oh, definitely. If the article is aimed at anyone, it’s those … shall we say … unrealistic writers who see someone make a lot of money, and immediately think, Hey, I can do that too! These are the writers who really have no idea how publishing works, so yeah, pretty much 99% of them will fail. That other 1%. They will just get lucky.