This is something I've been thinking on for a while, but the discussion here spurred me to finally post it: Give authors the ability to allow (certain) individuals to duplicate their books. I fully understand why the current system is in place, where only the original author can clone a book. But with discussion of books and "Public Libraries" increasing, I think a flag or setting of this kind, allowing trustworthy players to copy others' books for distribution, would be very helpful.
Fees are something each person would have to discuss. I'm merely proposing that writers can set permission on EMC to enable copying of their books for someone other than themselves. Right now it's set so that only the original author can clone a book - which is good, for things like staff-signed books, or "certificate"-type items. For libraries, bookstores, or other means of mass distribution, it does present something of an issue though.
Adding a flag like this would be kind of tricky though. The only real solution I could see is "Unlocking" a books copy protection and allow anyone to copy. Then Original Author can unlock a copy of the original, then distribute that to be further copied?
Now I think about it, the way I could 'unlock' would at least allow ONE person to have ability to copy it. sound like a decent idea? Copy Original > /unlockbook PlayerA, then repeat for another player.
That is more or less the kind of thing I was hoping for, yes. No need to give everyone permissions. Would the cloned book still retained the "by Author" signing, or would it reflect the person who cloned it, though?
Yes, so when you would try to copy a book it would look who the author is and see if the author has given you permission to copy the books. With what xothis_dwarf said, when it would be done just like this there would not really be a possibility of letting someone pay per copy, then the flag would need to turn itself to false once the book is copied, but then that would need two kinds of flags or some way to specify if it is for the rights or per copy. But I think it is better to let people pay for the rights than it is to pay for copying each individual copy, so for me what you said is enough.
I believe Vanilla Book Cloning does retain author yes. And I guess we could actually even add things like fees to copy/limit # of copies by storing metadata on that too. /unlockbook Name 5 500 could give 5 copies at 500 rupees per copy only doable by name
This can be used somehow in 1.8. Give your friends a Copy, then when they copy it, it becomes a copy of a copy which is no longer duplicatable.
This is talking about other peoples books. For Example: Bob wants to start a library, he really wants Kephras's books in it, but Keph never has the time to duplicate enough books for him. Using this possible new feature Keph could give him one book, and he could dupicate himself, but there could also be a limit of say 50 books or so.
