3 ms·

> As soon as books become computer files, you don't buy them anymore, you lease usage rights... When will it stop? I don't want it to stop - I think it's a goo

by MarkMc 12y ago

> As soon as books become computer files, you don't buy them anymore, you lease usage rights... When will it stop? I don't want it to stop - I think it's a good thing. By making a book impossible to pass from one person to another, the publisher is able to extract an income that is closer to the total benefit people derive from reading the book. In short: authors make more money. And so more books will be written, and readers will have a wider choice of better quality books. And it's not just that digital books kill the secondary market for books - they also allow publishers to be highly discriminatory. If you are a woman in your 20s you pay full price for the new Taylor Swift biography, but a man in his 50s is offered a generous discount. For the latest Glenn Beck polemic the pricing structure is reversed. So not only do publishers get a larger slice of the book-value pie, they are also able to grow the size of the pie. Magic!

barrkel 12y ago
publisher is able to extract an income that is closer to the total benefit people derive from reading the book. In short: authors make more money These two statements are not logically connected. Price is controlled by supply and demand. If publishers are able to make more money from scarcity of books, it does not follow that authors are able to get more money unless there is also a scarcity of authors and a surplus of publishers.
- VLM 12y ago
  It also assumes there's anything like a marketplace. Not, for example, one corporation pretty much owning the entire ebook market segment.
  - MarkMc 12y ago
    Yes, I agree that one company having a complete monopoly in the publishing business would be problematic. But in that case perhaps the better solution is to use existing regulatory powers to break it up (like AT&T was broken up) instead of restricting the types of licences it can offer.
- MarkMc 12y ago
  Yes, price is controlled by supply and demand - and I'm describing an increase in demand. And just like any other competitive marketplace the price will rise when demand rises. When Glenn Beck writes his next book he will shop it to the publisher who pays him the most money - competition between publishers means the amount he receives will be proportional to the revenue the publisher can generate.

by MarkMc 12y ago

barrkel 12y ago

publisher is able to extract an income that is closer to the total benefit people derive from reading the book. In short: authors make more money These two statements are not logically connected. Price is controlled by supply and demand. If publishers are able to make more money from scarcity of books, it does not follow that authors are able to get more money unless there is also a scarcity of authors and a surplus of publishers.

VLM 12y ago
It also assumes there's anything like a marketplace. Not, for example, one corporation pretty much owning the entire ebook market segment.
- MarkMc 12y ago
  Yes, I agree that one company having a complete monopoly in the publishing business would be problematic. But in that case perhaps the better solution is to use existing regulatory powers to break it up (like AT&T was broken up) instead of restricting the types of licences it can offer.
MarkMc 12y ago
Yes, price is controlled by supply and demand - and I'm describing an increase in demand. And just like any other competitive marketplace the price will rise when demand rises. When Glenn Beck writes his next book he will shop it to the publisher who pays him the most money - competition between publishers means the amount he receives will be proportional to the revenue the publisher can generate.