Shrodinger's Derivatives

[elf]

I spend a lot of time at the MobileRead forums. Too much, probably.

Today, someone posted a link to Cory Doctorow's newest rant about free ebooks (I love his rants, but I still recognize propaganda when I see it), and in the comments, another author--John Sundman--pointed out that he'd given away his novels as free ebooks. For the first two, that boosted sales nicely, but although he's done it for the third, it hasn't worked; "free promo ebook" is no longer a novelty. (He posits that it's possible his third book just isn't as good as the first two, but he's not buying that. Neither am I. A quick glance at all three e-versions says they should hook the same kind of readers.)

Check out his site, Wetmachine. It's nifty. (Obscurity, not piracy, is the problem, right?)

So. That was background info. ( The real content of this post is inside, and deals with weird bits of copyright law. )