of the Rings. It is a personal issue. Yes, in practice, if you cannot get the
artistic work that you want, you may find some “substitute,” but this
would be as upsetting as substituting a good friend with someone else.
This means that a publishing monopoly of a book is, in fact, as effective
as if this book were the only book on the market. Thus, copyright
causes prices to be raised to the maximum level possible—the eighth
difference. Like with a casual monopoly, this feature hinders public
access to distributed works and thus negatively affects the market.
A quite unexpected development within the copyright-driven
environment is the promotion of effective plagiarism—the ninth
difference. How is this possible? Normal plagiarism cannot survive
within the Self-tuning model because the public is acutely sensitive to
it, and no publisher would risk his brand while any original work
is at his disposal. On the contrary, selling a book similar to a best
seller is particularly tempting within the copyright-driven
environment. In order to do so, one only need provide measured
formal differences from the best seller. What is it if not plagiarism?
Some publishers prefer to buy plagiarized work instead of buying
something genuinely new with an uncertain sales projection. Hence, we
have one more blow to creativity caused by the publishing
monopoly a.k.a. copyright.
Yet another consequence of copyright is that, having a portfolio to
profit from for years to come, publishers are compelled to prolong
current public predilection for the arts. Publishers must therefore try to
influence audiences in order to achieve this—the tenth difference. They
need to discourage the promotion of new ideas, new aesthetic
approaches to arts, new kinds of arts, new genres, and so forth.
Moreover, by investing money in this impediment, publishers are
driven to promote “new” works to fit the same old picture, thus
contributing again for the third time in the suppression of creativity.
Now let us get back to the author. Suppose the first work does not earn any money, which means the author has not become well-liked. The entire story starts over with the next work. However, it is harder for the author to start over in an environment poisoned by publishing monopolies; publishers with established portfolios would not risk working with an unsuccessful author. It would not matter whether he were a misunderstood genius or someone who just failed
