3 ms·

In the US alone, there are ~40,000 full time authors, who are creating a minimum of a $2.4 billion in retail and commercial business transactions every year (ba

In the US alone, there are ~40,000 full time authors, who are creating a minimum of a $2.4 billion in retail and commercial business transactions every year (based on the $60k median income for authors). Those authors provide the raw material that supports dozens of supporting businesses - publishers, printers, editors, book stores, libraries, critics, and so forth. This is something that, without copyright, wouldn't exist. Even should patrons step up and provide that $2.4 billion every year for authors (very unlikely, in my opinion), the support industries would disappear.

einpoklum 5y ago
> This is something that, without copyright, wouldn't exist. That's a baseless, and false, claim. You're repeating the kind of arguments RIAA was making against music file sharing.
- falcolas 5y ago
  Without copyright, the value of a book's contents is $0, because the mean cost† for (re)producing it is $0. If a product has no value, you can not create a market for that product. Relatively basic economics. The ability to create value around a product that has no value of its own requires quite a bit of additional effort. Authors can't hold concerts, after all. The RIAA's argument in the Napster days is definitely similar, but they were arguing from the point of their production costs not being $0, and copyright is in place, making copying legitimately illegal. † The cost for the first copy is $30,000 (given a Brandon Sanderson pace), and every subsequent copy costs $0 (give or take a few tiny fractions of a penny).
  - einpoklum 5y ago
    > Without copyright, the value of a book's contents is $0 People don't buy books because of the "$$$ value of a book's contents". > because the mean cost† for (re)producing it is $0. That's not the mean cost of reproducing a book, not to mention making it available to you.

einpoklum 5y ago

> This is something that, without copyright, wouldn't exist. That's a baseless, and false, claim. You're repeating the kind of arguments RIAA was making against music file sharing.

falcolas 5y ago
Without copyright, the value of a book's contents is $0, because the mean cost† for (re)producing it is $0. If a product has no value, you can not create a market for that product. Relatively basic economics. The ability to create value around a product that has no value of its own requires quite a bit of additional effort. Authors can't hold concerts, after all. The RIAA's argument in the Napster days is definitely similar, but they were arguing from the point of their production costs not being $0, and copyright is in place, making copying legitimately illegal. † The cost for the first copy is $30,000 (given a Brandon Sanderson pace), and every subsequent copy costs $0 (give or take a few tiny fractions of a penny).
- einpoklum 5y ago
  > Without copyright, the value of a book's contents is $0 People don't buy books because of the "$$$ value of a book's contents". > because the mean cost† for (re)producing it is $0. That's not the mean cost of reproducing a book, not to mention making it available to you.