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Old 05-29-2008, 05:26 PM   #46
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Originally Posted by tirsales View Post
Yes. But they WILL continue to earn money from MP3 royalties - no matter the drm, it is still forbidden to copy mp3 and it will continue to be so.
I guess we just disagree on this. IMO, using laws to force a broken business model on consumers will only work so far. I think it's already obvious that there are a LOT of people out there who (intentionally or not) ignore copyright laws with regards to mp3s.

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Will most people break it? No. Not if the deal is fair - e.g. reading the book on multiple readers in your family, etc
It only takes one person to break it. After that, everyone can easily get copies via digital distribution. The whole idea of DRM is that it's artificially trying to limit the supply (not to mention all of the other restrictions they try to use it for). That's already starting to fall apart in the music world, and to some extent ebooks as well. I think you'd be pretty surprised what you can find available if you looked around for illegal ebooks. Personally I still buy them because I want to support the authors (although I don't have much desire to support the publishers, especially when prices are rediculous), but if I wanted to I could find just about anything I wanted illegally as well.

The horse is already out of the barn, putting a bigger lock on the door won't do any good, especially if there's no such thing as a lock that can't be broken. The main issue isn't how to get the horse back in the barn, the main issue is that consumers don't need barns anymore, and the barn companies are very worried.
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Old 05-29-2008, 05:30 PM   #47
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I tried to take the pledge...(Honest, I did, Steve!)

I'd like to give the generic problem a high falutin' name, so I dub it "The Poverty of Abundance", because of the terms "The Economics of Scarcity" vs "The Economics Of Abundance". (Remember, you heard it here first )

It's an economic paradox. When things are so abundant that nobody charges for it, it stops being produced, due to no economic incentive to produce it. Historically, this would lead to eventual shortages, which would raise the price and restore production. These, at least, were the economic reality under "The Economics Of Scarcity". (See the "Problems of the Commons" in an economics textbook.)

"The Economics Of Abundance" has kicked this into a cocked hat. When the cost of producing things hits zero, and the ability to produce is widely distributed (and also approached zero), there's nothing to cause a shortage of product to raise the price. This may sound like Nirvana to some but.....

What do you produce??? Creating a new item to produce is [B]not[B] free. And there is nothing in "The Economics Of Abundance" world that pays for the new designs. In "The Economics Of Scarcity", design and production were rolled into one, and used the overall scarcity to create a price for both.
Under the "Economics Of Abundance" the cost are completely separate, with no way to charge back the design, thus impoverishing the product designers. (Hence my term, "The Poverty Of Abundance".)

Currently, this is limited to the world of 1's and 0's. The rest of the world still follows the "Economics Of Scarcity" (price of gas, anybody?). But 3-D printers exist (poor quality, expensive, small). Who knows how it will go over the next 50 yrs? This problem is a BIG problem, and we're just looking at the tip of the iceberg in e-books, music and video.

Please note, I don't claim to have the answer. But it's impossible to solve a problem without fully defining it.
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Old 05-29-2008, 05:33 PM   #48
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Yes, they can download each eBook, MP3, etc - and they already can today. But e.g. the selling numbers for MP3s are raising, not falling. You can download nearly every MP3 for free on the well known P2P-nets. Nevertheless - people are buying MP3s, WMA, CDs, etc.
Yes, the market will change - but IMO not as much as you think/hope. Lets see what evolves

DRM is a bad idea - we agree on this one.

(Oh and btw: Laws are used to enforce EVERY SINGLE business model, there simply is no business model (and that includes manual labor) that works without the law protecting it and people agreeing to (or being forced to) keep to the law ... But that only as a side remark).

-- second thoughts:
One possible market-advantage for authors/publishers: Service. Have a good and nice page where you can buy (and use) your books/music very easy (easier and faster as downloading the product from grey/black market) and give away very high quality.
I personally do very much prefer simply clicking "buy this-and-that-book" on a fast server (prefarably from my reader and wherever I am) then searching, downloading, waaaaiiiitiiing on a p2p-net. Let's say I am waiting at the station and missed my train - if I can just start my reader, download the newest novell of my favourite author and begin to read it, I would prefer doing so, then waiting to come home and download it there )
But we can possibly agree that the market will change - and the statement above WOULD be a change to the business model ..

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Old 05-29-2008, 06:12 PM   #49
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Originally Posted by pilotbob View Post
Much software is not sold [licensed] for $X as a download or $X + $Y for a shipped CD with packaging. The extra cost covers the package, shiping and handling.

Why should books be any different just because the delivery method changed... only the cost of that deliver method should be adjusted, the royalties the author makes should be the same.
How many ebooks have you seen that were cheaper than the paperback? In most cases the publisher is charging the same, or even more for the ebook. They're still trying to charge for the physical delivery method, which is a significant part of the price. That's basically my point.

Yeah, you don't have to give away ebooks for free (that's just one model people have suggested), but you'll need to find a price point that consumers will be willing to pay versus just copying/downloading it themselves. I don't know how high that will be though. The idea is that a significant part of the price for physical books today are for things that no longer exist with ebooks, but the music companies and book publishers are not wanting to change.

It wouldn't surprise me if we start seeing more and more artists (both authors and musicians) selling directly to consumers without going through a RIAA or publishing company (some already are). With the internet, it's also conceivable that they could effectively promote themselves as well. The sale price of their mp3/ebook would be a lot lower than it is today (no middle men anymore), and the artist would probably take a much bigger cut than their current royalties. This idea is pretty scary to the RIAA/publishers though, and you can bet they're going to fight it very hard.
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Old 05-29-2008, 06:18 PM   #50
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Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward View Post
I'd like to give the generic problem a high falutin' name, so I dub it "The Poverty of Abundance", because of the terms "The Economics of Scarcity" vs "The Economics Of Abundance". (Remember, you heard it here first )
Excellent post. You've stated very clearly what I've (very poorly) been trying to say. Where were you about 50 posts ago?
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Old 05-29-2008, 06:21 PM   #51
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How many ebooks have you seen that were cheaper than the paperback? In most cases the publisher is charging the same, or even more for the ebook. They're still trying to charge for the physical delivery method, which is a significant part of the price. That's basically my point.
Yes, and this is ridiculous - I agree. The problem is that they are simply afraid of totally loosing the "hard" market (real books, cds, etc) 'cause of the lower price of the new technology - and thus loose its controllability.

Quote:
Yeah, you don't have to give away ebooks for free (that's just one model people have suggested), but you'll need to find a price point that consumers will be willing to pay versus just copying/downloading it themselves. I don't know how high that will be though. The idea is that a significant part of the price for physical books today are for things that no longer exist with ebooks, but the music companies and book publishers are not wanting to change.
Whoah! I agree again! It will need some try and error - but (greatly) reducing the price (adopting to lower production costs) and selling more service is a different thing from "giving away for free". Guess we were just misunderstanding each other


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With the internet, it's also conceivable that they could effectively promote themselves as well.
Publishers would need to rethink their business model - they give some service (e.g. lectoring, ads (dont underestimate the power of ads e.g. in stations etc - even better if you can just download the book there), etc) and get paid for it. Only the production-step gets lots, and that (I guess we agree) means lower prices and a higher profit-margin for authors / musician. Publishers ARE providing some service that is crucial for authors/musicians. But I agree, the internet gives creatives the possibility to decide for themselves...


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The sale price of their mp3/ebook would be a lot lower than it is today (no middle men anymore), and the artist would probably take a much bigger cut than their current royalties. This idea is pretty scary to the RIAA/publishers though, and you can bet they're going to fight it very hard.
Yes - we can see this in germanys new copyright laws.

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Old 05-29-2008, 06:32 PM   #52
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Yes, and this is ridiculous - I agree. The problem is that they are simply afraid of totally loosing the "hard" market (real books, cds, etc) 'cause of the lower price of the new technology - and thus loose its controllability.
I think the biggest thing they're afraid of is losing the cash cow that they have now with total control. In the digital world total control is gone, whether they will admit it or not. They're fighting a losing battle trying to keep it, rather than adapt.

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Whoah! I agree again! It will need some try and error - but (greatly) reducing the price (adopting to lower production costs) and selling more service is a different thing from "giving away for free". Guess we were just misunderstanding each other
There are several different ideas for models. "Free" is one that some people are talking about, and has worked surprisingly well in other markets, but it's not the only option. What publishers are trying desperately to do though, is keep the old model from the physical world (that pretty much made them the king of the mountain) and force it on the digital world. I don't think that's going to work though. Something is going to have to change.



Quote:
Publishers ARE providing some service that is crucial for authors/musicians.
True, but it's getting a lot less and less, and they're fighting really hard to prevent it from happening. It wouldn't surprise me if eventually, they're no longer needed by either the consumer or the artist.
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Old 05-29-2008, 06:37 PM   #53
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Excellent post. You've stated very clearly what I've (very poorly) been trying to say. Where were you about 50 posts ago?
I had taken the pledge to avoid these sort of threads. Some posters seem to get occasionally grumpy.....
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Old 05-29-2008, 06:42 PM   #54
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"Free" is one that some people are talking about, and has worked surprisingly well in other markets, but it's not the only option.
That is true - are there are a number of possible "give away for free"-models for authors and musicians. As long as we agree that it is not the best model for everyone around - we agree

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I don't think that's going to work though. Something is going to have to change.
Correct.

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It wouldn't surprise me if eventually, they're no longer needed by either the consumer or the artist.
Well - they are e.g. filtering (and though their would be some really good additional books out there - there would be a hell of a lot of crap), they can provide service (and a much better discussion base then a single author) to biggies like Amazon, etc - also I could think of e.g. Unions insted of .. say .. Sony.
I don't think they will disappear - but they are going to change, and they know it. This need not be bad for them - even a changed market can have very high (possibly even higher) profit margins.

I guess, that they are just trying to get as much money from it as they can, before it changes - and thus they can ignore disgrunteled customers (in their opionion) - at least this is the impression "they" cast on me.
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Old 05-29-2008, 06:57 PM   #55
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I had taken the pledge to avoid these sort of threads. Some posters seem to get occasionally grumpy.....
Yeah, I generally try and avoid them too. This is the first one I've really shot my mouth off on. Hopefully I'll be able to shutup better in the future.
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Old 05-29-2008, 07:02 PM   #56
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Yeah, I generally try and avoid them too. This is the first one I've really shot my mouth off on. Hopefully I'll be able to shutup better in the future.
Why? I thought your posts very worthy of reading and the discussion interesing - and I hope you didn't take my posts as offensive (they were NOT meant to be).
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Old 05-29-2008, 07:12 PM   #57
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Yeah, I generally try and avoid them too. This is the first one I've really shot my mouth off on. Hopefully I'll be able to shutup better in the future.
I was thrilled that new people jumped in and discussed this issue. Don't stop.
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Old 05-29-2008, 07:28 PM   #58
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I had taken the pledge to avoid these sort of threads. Some posters seem to get occasionally grumpy.....
Well, y'know it didn't start out to be one of those threads...

I was ready to jump for the nearest airlock, too, but as we've managed to keep our matter and antimatter streams well-balanced, I was prepared to stick around for the ride.

The promotion thing is key. If you don't figure out promo, you'll never be noticed in the vast web.

Maybe publishers would essentially become promotion houses for artists (like me, who don't need them for anything else)... but they'd have a hard time convincing artists that they offered more than, say, Google, or some other web populating service. For an industry to change so drastically from their original focus would doubtless be an ugly process, but stranger things have happened.
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Old 05-29-2008, 08:27 PM   #59
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The idea is that a significant part of the price for physical books today are for things that no longer exist with ebooks, but the music companies and book publishers are not wanting to change.
But you do have more costs than most people think. The only cost you really don't have is the actual printing (which isn't as much as some people think, about 10-15% of the cover price). You still have all the traditional production costs, plus the distribution costs just like pbooks. What they need to do is get rid of the old style distribution model where wholesalers & retailers get 70% of the books cover price divided between them (yes, they even use this for ebooks), every hand things pass through means someone needs to get paid. This of course applies mainly to the big traditional publishing houses. There are lots of e-publishers who are trying different things to figure out the best way to do things.

Some publishers (Hatchette Book Groups Orbit line for example) are cutting a few bucks off of pbook list prices on their ebooks. For example Lilith Saintcrow's Dante Valentine series books are $6.99 list as MMPB's, but $4.99 list as ebooks. Jennifer Rardin's Jaz Parks books are $12.99 list as Trade PB's, but $8.99 list as ebooks. Some other publishers are starting to try lower list on ebooks too, it's a start if nothing else (it's the biggies like Penguin that are the most guilty on pricing issues).
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Old 05-29-2008, 10:30 PM   #60
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the correct dollar value of ebooks

MaggieScratch
.....! I maintain that a lot of the people who downloaded it on the darknet not only would not have bought the book, likely they will never read it. They are collectors.

........But they MUST HAVE EVERY PATTERN. ........... It's a form of OCD, I guess. I think a lot of darknet e-book collectors operate from the same place. I do it myself a bit with the free books here at MobileRead. I'll see a book that looks interesting and I download it and I have no idea when or if I'll get to it, but maybe I will someday, and there is plenty of room on my SD card, so why not?

So my point (and I do have one) is that there's no use stressing over illegal downloads too much, because the sales you lose are infinitesimal compared to the bad will you will engender with actual readers if you treat them like criminals by locking up your ebooks with restrictive DRM. I'd rather see authors turning their energies to finding a better solution. I'm not sure what it is, but complaining about a tiny minority snatching the bread from your mouth is not it.

I DEFINITELY agree. I myself have a partial OCD complex. I don't care if the book is bad, if it's so and so author and the DL is free, I MUST DL it. Sometimes, I'll also DL other authors' works since, yeah, i have the HD space. I never actually READ most of my free DL'ded ebooks - I hardly have the time in my busy life - who does? - but sometimes in the future when it's talked about positively on a website or when I'm searching for certain books, if that author and book pop up, I"ll look thru my HD and WHOAH, I ACTUALLY HAVE IT!! So i'll go to read it. If i like it, i'll add that author to my "buy" list, whether it's ebooks or pbooks.

pilotbob
Have sales gone down since the non-DRM files (iTunes Plus and Amazon MP3 store) opened? I'm thinking no, sales have increased at iTunes month over month, year over year, even with nonDRM files out there. Yes, people still pirate, but buyers still buy. DRM only hurts the legit customers.

Oh so true. If I see my favorite author's ebook DRM-infested, I'll head over to the darknet. I don't care how much it costs, I'm not here to rent. I'm here to own my books. I consider myself an e-booklover and have shifted away from pbooks and now read exclusively ebooks.

Shaggy
............What many people are saying is that the concept of creating something that is trivial for anybody to copy/distribute and trying to make a living off of artificially limiting the supply is doomed to failure. As with any other profession, you need to earn your living by either doing or producing something that people can't easily do themselves. That's what provides your product/service with value.

It's not that you're doing more work for the same profit, it's that the original item (the easily copied/distributed intellectual property) doesn't have much profit potential because there's little financial value in it. In order to make a profit, you need to do other things.

I really can't agree with that. The author is still needed in order to create the stories no matter what the medium. As long as their books are sold online as ebooks at a reasonable price in a non-infested e-format, pirates have better things to do - they're consumers, too - and EVERY ebook consumer will just buy the ebooks.

MaggieScratch
On the other side we have Cory Doctorow. I appreciate Cory's position on ebooks and DRM but at the same time, giving away free electronic versions of all your books as a loss-leader to get people to purchase the hard copy books essentially devalues the electronic edition. I don't think that's quite the right approach, either. Making electronic editions of books worthless certainly will put an end to piracy--technically--since you can't pirate what is yours to freely trade, but it's throwing the baby out with the bathwater IMO. Ebooks should be on a par with at least MMPBs, I think.

I agree. I first read a publisher, Rob Preece, I think who stated that the ebook should be OVERvalued because it had more benefits than the pbook and after being shocked for a while, i thought it over and I agree.

The ebook is a DIFFERENT animal from the pbook. The ebook is portable, content can be accessed IMMEDIATELY rather than weeks shipped to you online or you paying for cargas to the large bookstore or library 5 miles away, no storage is needed thereby saving you storage dollars, font size can be changed without needing printing of a "Large Print" edition, many books can be stored without having to carry a luggage -full (again portability), access from anywhere in the world by just finding a coffee internet cafe, ability to buy a deeply backlisted work from an obscure author so consumer choices has increased, reading content from a 1980 or earlier book in ebook form is easier rather than going thru an old, mangled, yellow-papered, stained, binding falling apart, pbook which you have to be careful with.

Obviously, you can't charge more for an ebook than its pbook version since you want to stimulate more ebook sales, but neither can you put it under lock and key at a price equivalent or only slightly discounted from the hardcover format.

So my take is this, ebooks should be correctly valued. If the hardcover edition is $30, then the ebook edition should NOT be free but it should not be ridiculously priced either at $30 or above and it should not be in an infested format in a "lock and key" method such as DRM or a proprietary format. This just opens up the avenue for pirates to come at it at a cost of FREE in an OPEN format where consumers can do ANYTHING ANYWHERE with their FREED ebooks. Instead, the ecost should be perhaps $15 or less in, again, a non-infested format with perhaps a mixture of ads supporting it. I'm willing to go for ads and I'm sure many consumers are since it brings a reduction in cost. This already happens with television, radio, newspapers, magazines, reading articles online, etc.


Shaggy
There is no such thing as DRM that can't be broken, there is no solution that will work. As a programmer, you should know this. Going down that path is a losing battle that just acts to delay the inevitable.

I agree, but again, if the price for ebooks is reasonable in a non-infested format, there would be no need for pirates to step in to fill that market.

tirsales
Can it be broken? Yes. Even when using hard cryptografic approaches (each device with a given security-chip and a book-encryption specific to that chip, etc). Will most people break it? No. Not if the deal is fair - e.g. reading the book on multiple readers in your family, etc

Agreed.

shaggy
The idea is that a significant part of the price for physical books today are for things that no longer exist with ebooks, but the music companies and book publishers are not wanting to change.

I think the publishers ARE changing, at least for some genres. I was looking for a few romance books online and EVERYONE of the books I was looking for was in ebook form and at a reasonable price. Publishers may be scared and that's why the ebooks are available online, but I consider that a good thing. With more people doing more things online and on their computers and laptops and other devices, it has to follow that the publishers must also move their e-wares online.

AnemicOak
Some publishers (Hatchette Book Groups Orbit line for example) are cutting a few bucks off of pbook list prices on their ebooks. For example Lilith Saintcrow's Dante Valentine series books are $6.99 list as MMPB's, but $4.99 list as ebooks. Jennifer Rardin's Jaz Parks books are $12.99 list as Trade PB's, but $8.99 list as ebooks. Some other publishers are starting to try lower list on ebooks too, it's a start if nothing else (it's the biggies like Penguin that are the most guilty on pricing issues).

I agree. Price matters. If I can get a price discount online for a pbook that's not closed/infested, then I'll buy the ebook. Let's say the pbook is $20 but the ebook is $12, then I'll buy the ebook, but if the ebook is at $15 or more, then i'll head over to the darknet.

So yes, I can get that ebook for free at the darknet, but if the price is reasonable and the format is, again, not closed/infested, then consumers will buy them. After all, I'm looking for quality as well as content. I trust the publisher to give me quality content. This proves a positive experience for me such that I will come back AGAIN AND AGAIN to the publisher's website or designated e-tail stores to buy more ebooks. The publisher wins, the author wins, and the consumer wins.
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