Allow the selling of eBooks

[XD]

I have no idea why books are forbidden to be sold on here. I am writing a book on staff management and I'd love you distribute it on MCM.


I propose a change to the TOS that forbids the sale of BLACKHAT and illegal methods on MCM, but allow verified, mine craft related ebooks or guides.


Please leave a reason for disagreeing if you do. I'm sure Mick will do the right thing and only take disagrees seriously if there is a legit reason.

 

[Justis]

You can distribute it all you want. You just can't sell it for money.

Nearly every attempt at selling ebooks has simply been an attempt to sell a method, aka knowledge. Which you cannot claim ownership of. Methods are not allowed to be sold here for that reason. You can't claim ownership of them.
I'll be continuing with my explanation of why they're not allowed to be sold assuming you are aware of that.

The issue with ebooks(a unique structure of knowledge prepared and presented a specific way) is you don't know the content until you've read it. There's no way to go into the purchase of an ebook and know exactly what you're going to read; otherwise would you be reading it?

A perfect example of why they're banned is in the last ebook sale to have occurred on MC-Market.
Aschorren made a guide on how to advertise your Minecraft server, and of course, like any person selling their product, he advertised it as very well made, expressed how long it took him to make it, and all the various resources it provides, which, if used, is guaranteed to give your server improved exposure.

It was basically just common knowledge about how to add your server to PMC, and use banners in signatures and stuff.
For $50.
Someone paid that $50, felt scammed, and leaked the book to prevent other people from being abused by the mystery of ebook content in that same way. He was banned for leaking unowned content. Everyone raged because they felt he did the right thing. It was a huge mess.

We don't have a system in place right now which would effectively allow people to upload their ebooks for sale, while protecting buyers from authors taking advantage of the fact that buyers won't know what they're purchasing until they've purchased it; and the fact is, our marketplace doesn't revolve around books.
Most of the people who would create and sell ebooks would do so because they feel it's an easy way to make a quick buck off some poor chaps, without any sort of professional experience in whatever they're writing about. It'll be a few pages at most, and it's just not at the top of our priorities to come up with a system to encourage that sort of activity.
Feel free to come up with a system that protects the buyers if you will. Perhaps it'll be considered.
However, for now. All ebooks being distributed are to be distributed freely and openly.

 

[HM04]

I think ebooks are great; however, as the person above said, you were not here for the Aschorren massacre. I doubt the staff will allow them for the sole reason of avoiding situations like that.

 

[XD]

Interesting, I see your point. Could we give a short preview or detailed description of the book?

 

[Justis]

Interesting, I see your point. Could we give a short preview or detailed description of the book?

Easily abused by putting all of the bulk and valuable content in the preview, and then just filling the rest of the ebook with content which simply drags on already known or expressed content, milking every sentence, and then advertising it's size.
Again, the issue of not knowing what the unknown content is before purchasing it.

 

[buildblox]

Interesting, I see your point. Could we give a short preview or detailed description of the book?

A preview doesn't always state the truth. While I'm sure the ebook you are trying to sell may contain useful knowledge, it would be difficult to manage such sales on a larger scale. No one will really know if a seller's "claims" are true unless a review has been made, people get angry during the review, bad things are said, etc., etc.

But, there is an interesting alternative we could approach, something along the lines of "ebook requirements" (a user must publish one free ebook of decent quality prior to selling a paid one), sort of like Spigot does. I'm sure it would bring better standards to the community.

Worth thinking about

 

[Marth]

It would be a nice addition to the resource section, but Justis has made some valid points that we must take into account.

Regarding the ebooks getting leaked however, that can easily happen to plugins/graphics/setups as well. I'm assuming the approach staff have taken here is to be safe than sorry. It's the way it is right now, I'd be surprised if there was a way to improve the system.

 

[Ivain]

Apart from it being very difficult to ensure that the transfer is done properly, it's also nearly impossible to ensure that the content is legit.
We had a short period of it being allowed on here, and lots of people were writing total BS books titled after tempting subjects. It was mostly a scam, but one that was difficult to fight normally since it was impossible to tell whose book was legit and whose was bullshit without showing most of the content. Showing just one page meant that if you made that page seem legit, people might fall for it.

Etc etc.

 

[Yeti]

It's 2017. Who reads?

I used to read but my dog is blind now.

 

[buildblox]

To visualize the extent of Aschorren's drama:

 

[Mick]

You can distribute it all you want. You just can't sell it for money.

Nearly every attempt at selling ebooks has simply been an attempt to sell a method, aka knowledge. Which you cannot claim ownership of. Methods are not allowed to be sold here for that reason. You can't claim ownership of them.
I'll be continuing with my explanation of why they're not allowed to be sold assuming you are aware of that.

The issue with ebooks(a unique structure of knowledge prepared and presented a specific way) is you don't know the content until you've read it. There's no way to go into the purchase of an ebook and know exactly what you're going to read; otherwise would you be reading it?

A perfect example of why they're banned is in the last ebook sale to have occurred on MC-Market.
Aschorren made a guide on how to advertise your Minecraft server, and of course, like any person selling their product, he advertised it as very well made, expressed how long it took him to make it, and all the various resources it provides, which, if used, is guaranteed to give your server improved exposure.

It was basically just common knowledge about how to add your server to PMC, and use banners in signatures and stuff.
For $50.
Someone paid that $50, felt scammed, and leaked the book to prevent other people from being abused by the mystery of ebook content in that same way. He was banned for leaking unowned content. Everyone raged because they felt he did the right thing. It was a huge mess.

We don't have a system in place right now which would effectively allow people to upload their ebooks for sale, while protecting buyers from authors taking advantage of the fact that buyers won't know what they're purchasing until they've purchased it; and the fact is, our marketplace doesn't revolve around books.
Most of the people who would create and sell ebooks would do so because they feel it's an easy way to make a quick buck off some poor chaps, without any sort of professional experience in whatever they're writing about. It'll be a few pages at most, and it's just not at the top of our priorities to come up with a system to encourage that sort of activity.
Feel free to come up with a system that protects the buyers if you will. Perhaps it'll be considered.
However, for now. All ebooks being distributed are to be distributed freely and openly.

Thanks Justis.

Denied.