How to work for 50c per hour

Interestingly, America did not recognise foreign (e.g. British) copyright and refused to pay foreign authors for works reprinted in America. This is very conveniently forgotten now, when America tries to chase every country (however disadvantaged) for its dues.

It would be nice if you could provide relevant references to support your statement.

Oh yeah. People in the devoloped countries are law abiding,loving,innocent,God fearing,well mannered, hard working intellectuals...and the rest are all scums...mere mortals. May be he stole your book because he must've thought your books ain't worth the money anyway!!;-)....Well, I would like to find out. Is your book - 'The Java tutorial for the real world and RIA Adobe Flex and Java' available in India? I wont steal. I will buy it. Promise.

Ivan Dembicki, Russia

The matter is rather complicated and correlated with several factors. To buy something I need to sell something. Whether this is my labour, my product etc. And I'm ready to compete with the whole world. But are we in the equal conditions? I can't sell anything, as Russia is out of WTO and most popular internet payment systems don't work for Russia at all (and for many other countries). Please find Russia in this list, for example: https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_display-approved-signup-countrie s-outside

Ok, I can't sell my products. May be I should go to your country and find a job? - LOL.

All this resembles to colonialism: you have the rights and opportunities, and the only right left for us is... All I can do is pay. Ok. Technically even that's not easy, but possible. What do I pay for? 99% of programm products I would like to purchase are not localized and offer no support for the same price! Conclulding: I'm in the worst conditions as a customer, a seller and a worker. "Before you come to any conclusion, try walking in my shoes."

Ok, you are talking about books. When will you have a russian edition of your book? Most likely when it will become awfully outdated. The majority of books we have in our stores consist of books published in USA some 2 or 3 years ago. Would you agree to read outdated books only? Could you write your own book under such circumstances?

Please understand that piracy is often the only source for the vast majority of people in this world.

Piracy is all bad. But there is a strong difference between an american pirate and russian, indian or kenyan ones.

I'm concluding that the factor that leads to mass piracy is that producers are not concerned about large part of foreign consumers and this leads to pirates replacing the legal distributors.

Thank you.

Yakov,

Sorry about the missing (copyright violation) references. I have read and heard about this from several sources, so did not look it up straight away. Here is one of the references on the issue: http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/d ickens/pva/pva74.html

In addition, America is quite happy to violate intellectual-property rights even now. Just see the battle about the machine gun Kalashnikov: http://en.rian.ru /russia/20060627/50550996.html and http://www. nytimes.com/2004/07/26/international/europe/26russ.html?ex=1248494400&en=c4 371cb4cc936a9a&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland

To Ivan,

Having hard times finding logic in your post. You complain that you do not have anything to sell. Wrong. Russian programmers are one of the best in the world, as long as they will leave their attitude at home (I blogged on the subj. at http://yakovfain.javadevelopersjournal.com/russian_programmers.htm ). You do not have to come to my country. Work from home. Our company cherry picks and works with excellent programmers from Russia, Belorussia and Ukraine. They are not easy to find, because a good programmer is not a geek that can write cool programs, but the one who can deliver on time and what's expected. What the fact that books are not translated to Russian has to do with piracy? Nothing at all. Learn English (you already did) and buy books online (many of them come as PDFs). Credit cards exist in Russia, you can order even printed books online and they will be delivered to you. Are they expensive? Yes they are. But any decent Russian programmer can earn at least $1500 a month, and spending $100 a year on books is not too much.

The fact that American book publishers are not concerned about translating books to other languages is strictly business decision - they literally do not make any profit on this. Anyway, I wish Russia all the best and hope that people there will get used to the fact that buying software and books is OK.

thanks for answer. tommorow in morning i will ask my translator about writing answer to your comment. a little bit: i don't like piracy. i'm not a piracy advocate. conversely i have 6 years of antipiracy business... i told about reasons of piracy. and of course it isn't your personal problem. thank you!

In thinking about it, I am not really upset that Russian's don't pay for books but am upset that folks from India don't as they are getting pretty good bill rates and have enough pay to afford to buy them...

Is your book - 'The Java tutorial for the real world and RIA Adobe Flex and Java'- available in India?

Can't wait for my translator I will try answer to your post by myself.

You complain that you do not have anything to sell. - where? show me a line. I told "I can't sell anything". I have but I can't. Very different sence.

Our company cherry picks and works with excellent programmers from Russia, Belorussia and Ukraine. - and this programmers have the same salary like same level US programmers? NO! Russians, indians etc can to be excellent programmers for your company. But in the same time this programmers is second sort peoples for your company.

What the fact that books are not translated to Russian has to do with piracy? Nothing at all. - Of cource. But if some book translated and published in any country does it mean this book will AVAILABLE for many peoples. And availability not in language only. Price for this book will based on local market realities. Otherwise pirates have very good possibilities. Just don't give this possibilities to pirates.

Are they expensive? Yes they are. - Problem isn't in absolute price and/or your book. Problem in global information availability for peoples. Anybody from India (etc) can buy your book. But he can't buy the same number of books like you. In result he have bad choice: piracy production or lack of information and bad competitive ability.

I have spend on books about $50-100 per month and it's not too much for me. My company can buy professional books for me if needed. I have never bought a books in english. Piracy books in english needn't for me too. But in situation (piracy book in russian) vs (legal book in english only) I will make predictable choice. Whithout any doubts: it is not my guilt. It's publisher guilt. If publisher don't worry about my interests why I must worry about his interests?

To Ivan: "and this programmers have the same salary like same level US programmers? NO! Russians, indians etc can to be excellent programmers for your company. But in the same time this programmers is second sort peoples for your company."

We can't pay the same salaries to people from Russia/India/Ukraine. Working with offshore teams requires a lot of management from our side wich cost money. Even if you are a goof programmer, I need to spend at least an hour of my time each day because you live in a different world as opposed to a programmer who's sitting next to me and works for the same company. Do you think it's fair to have low living expenses as in Russia or India and the same salary as in USA? I do not think so. Each day I pay $15 just for my transportation to work. How much do you pay? I paid $90000 for my son's college education, and this is after taxes, which means that I had to earn $130000. How much did you pay for your education? I pay thousands of dollars for medical insurance. Do you? How much do you pay for your housing? I do not complain, and I like living in the USA. We earn more, we spend more, and it's a great country to live in. By the way, lots a nd lots of programmers from around the world come and work here. It's not your way? I can respect this, but do not request the same salary then. One more thing...No one ever treat programmers from Russia or India as a second class people, and this is one of the major differences between the USA and any other country in the world.

It's too bad that you do not buy books in English. This means that in many cases you will be behind by default, because technical books in English are printed more often and many of them are printed by people who are criating the software they write about.

"Whithout any doubts: it is not my guilt. It's publisher guilt. If publisher don't worry about my interests why I must worry about his interests?". I call this a "Soviet mentality". Why someone has to worry about your interests? Why the publishers have to feed you with a spoon if this is not a profitable business for them? Just because you do not want to study English? What a lame excuse. Publishing of technical books is a business with a very small profit, and I can not blame publishers. If you can afford to spend $100 a month on books, you are richer than me. It's a mentality problem.

> The fact that American book publishers are not concerned about translating books to other languages is strictly business decision - they literally do not make any profit on this.

- this part isn't understandable for me. Book publishers just sell copyrights. No more. How possible to do it without profit?

We had an extensive discussion on you article at http://flash-mx.ru/forum/topic_show.pl?tid=1180 (in russian). This helped me to shape my oppinion more precisely.

I blame piracy. I'm far from being sympathetic to the ones that steal products of other's hard work.

However I'm not willing to decline all responsibility of authors and publisher for maintaining high piracy level. Publishers don't pay enough attention to issuing books simultaneously in different languages. And that's not that difficut to accomplish, and would lead to profit. Low piracy level of books that got issued in different languages at the same time prove that.

The statements of losses that are inflicted by pirates on markets that are out of publisher's attention fill me with anger. If a publisher doesn't mind issuing a book in Russia, India China etc., how can he even talk of losses there? When a market is not targeted by publisher, the pirates fill the gap. If a publisher doesn't understand that, he is a fool.

Most likely you have never earned your living by 50 cents per hour job, and you have no idea of how this feels like. You may be even amazed to know that the sense of your article's title sounds totally opposite for the majority of inhabitants of our planet. It sounds as if you were saying: "How to work for $500 per hour".

Possibly you didn't mind social impact of your book. If an Iraqi, Nepalese, Chinese etc developer doesn't read your book, he will get a bit less competitive comparing to American or European developer that will read your book. Thus a nepalese will become another bit poor and an englishman will become another bit rich. Eventually your very book will not severely affect the balance. I'm talking about the spread of knowledge in our civilisation in the whole. And, oddly enough, piracy sometimes become the only thing that somehow balances the social disparity concerning information access.

PS: Try placing an advertisement on your site, that states that a person wishful of reading your book and having good reasons for not buying it may apply to you for it, and recieve a copy for free or in exchange for some service.

I'm making such an advice basing on my experience. Trust me, you will profit from that.

> Working with offshore teams requires a lot of management from our side wich cost money.

- of course. It's understandable reasons. Now we can come back to book prices: in this case why Belorussian must pay the same price?

> It's too bad that you do not buy books in English

- yes. I know.

> Why someone has to worry about your interests?

- if someone want receive my money he MUST! If not - I have no one reason for pay.

If someone want receive а money he must worry about customers. To illustrate situation answer yourself:

- How frequently do you buy newspapers outdated/in chinese?

Me too.

"why Belorussian must pay the same price?"

You should adress this question to Mr. Lukashenko or their publishing companies. Belorussian have to solve their problems themselves. At least it's not the American publishers who need to make sure that Bellorussian have inexpensive books that are translated in a timely fashion. Do not blame other countries for if something is not right in yours. If there would be a business reason and a good chance to make money on translation to Belorussian, I'm sure American publishers would do this. I guess, they do not see the market there, so help yourself.

Ok. I will ask Mr. Lukashenko.

I don't blame countries or publishers companies or anybody else.

I talk about simple things: - don't talk about piracy loses in local markets if you don't want worry about this markets customer.

Ivan, I understand your frustration, and I can see that you don't advocate piracy. I think what you are trying to say, if I may be succint with it, is that sometimes the only option available to people who are based in countries like your own, is having to obtain information through those channels.

Yakov, the unfortunate fact that people have to resolve to piracy isn't entirely a commercial decision. Intellectual property in most parts of the world, including Russia however complex it may be, are still owned by the respected author. The commercial decision doesn't always fall into this equation. Producing the book in russia, translating it and distributing it would not be as expensive as doing the same then exporting to russia.

Management of employees whether home or abroad is a matter of management and communication skills, the attitudes are entirely dependant on whether or not you seem to understand the local intricacies of the culture you are dealing with. Once you overcome this hurdle, it's no harder to outsource, manage and work with someone who will deliver. Your management style is a key factor in this. If banks and can operate like this and make a profit, then so should you, because they certainly are not in the money loosing game.

The fact of the matter is that if you can make information and products readily available in those countries, you can stand to make a profit - take unilever hindustan for example - you can widen your audience, increase your penetration and have a more informed and eager workforce at your disposal.

In regards to your comment about living expenses, I think you'll find that Moscow is one of the most expensive cities in the world to live in,salaries are much lower then USA/EU and in comparison, school fees, medical fees and the sort, when put into context, are just as difficult as you have made out. Place this into context.

To finish I will say that trading from countries such as russia outwards is difficult, but that is maybe because their is genuine fear of its potential from countries such as US, do a google search on - BRIC Goldman Sachs - and ou will see that there is an war of information on right now as we move from into the knowledge economy.

Honestly, I'm getting tired of this discussion. Most likely this is my last answer.

1. Mr. Lukashenko, you should know that you live in Minsk, and not Moscow. So do not tell me that Moscow is an expensive city.

2. Outsoursing profits in most cases is BS. I blogged on the subj several times.

3. Ivan does not have much to say, he just keep dragging this discussion. He does not want to learn English... No big deal. His arguments that if someone will worry about Russia, he'll be better are not even funny. It's a mentality problem.

4. Writing books was never a business for me, so I won't fill a difference in my income even if Russia will start buying books. I was pleasantly surprised though when I saw a couple of people from Russia preordered my upcoming book on Flex and Java, which is pretty expensive

That's all folks.

1. I live in Moscow, but I know New-York is an expensive city. What problems? Why Mr. Lukashenko can't tell you abot Moscow???

3. Forget about my person. My problems I can solve by myself. I told you about milliards peoples not in Russia only.