The Anti-Ownership eBook Economy
The HN crowd largely consists of people who make a living creating or working for businesses that create material which is protected as intellectual property rights.<p>Source code to computer programs is protected under copyright law (and in America often also patent law). Databases such as the core of social networks are protected under a version of copyright law. Algorithms and procedures are often protected through confidentiality agreements and laws requiring confidentiality from employees and business partners. Names of companies, websites, URLs, games, characters, URLs (google.com) etc. are protected under trademark law. I can&#x27;t just register &quot;google.con&quot; and make a search engine and  sell ads from that domain. Google will come after me. And those on HN that don&#x27;t work yet, often study at expensive universities that awarding fancy degrees. Not everyone is free to say they graduated as a Ph.D. in engineering from Harvard.<p>Yes, many developers on HN open source part of or all of their work. But then the get paid creating some other intellectual property right. Very, very few people just give away all their work.<p>Yet, that&#x27;s literally what most commenters here seem to ask that publishing houses and authors do. Publishing houses make little money compared to many other businesses and especially compared to big tech. Authors typically make next to nothing.<p>If publishing houses don&#x27;t try to protect their digital works, they will not be paid enough to cover costs, yet alone turn a profit. Simple as that. An e-book can be copied and spread much easier than a print book. Without publishing houses, there will be less screening of published works, and less marketing of authors and new books.