I don't think I should have to pay for my e-Books

[Dulin's Books]

Originally Posted by CazMar

I am just looking at my Logic textbook now and wondering how soon I can get to a decent scanner and get some of it on my laptop! I have no moral outrage at doing this - .

nor should you. you purchased the book you can format shift it for your own use.

[speakingtohe]

Originally Posted by NVash
Terrible example. IIRC fountain sodas are more expensive because most places are trying to recoup losses with that. Think I learned that when I worked in a restaurant, they said they break even with the food or barely make it by, the soda is where the profit is.

Excellent example
Every business has losses and most businesses charge what the market will bear. Rich people want to get richer and poor people want to eat.

Capitalism has many faults but seems be the system we live under and is often better than the alternatives.

Helen

[Joonbug1]

Even if ebooks would cost publishers nothing, the notion that someone is automatically entitled to a free digital copy for owning the printed version of a book doesn't come across completely right to me.
I can understand and empathize, as I also had to "double dip" and purchase the ebook versions of books I already owned the printed versions of. I didn't like doing it, but in the end, my love for the books overcame any resentment toward the publishers and the bottom line is I shelled out the money again.
As many readers have done and continue to do.

Someone already brought up how if a customer who bought a hardcover then requested a paperback version for free, it wouldn't fly, either. But the bigger issue rather than cost is the sense of entitlement to access to all versions of a book in all available formats for purchasing one format, and then to keep (permanently own vs. rent/lease) the work.

The publishing industry isn't at the point yet where they'll feel compelled to take the example of movie companies that package a digital copy of a movie along with the DVD or Blu-Ray - and even in those cases, they still figure in the cost of the extra disc containing the digital copies into the price of the sale anyway, so the customer is still paying for the e-version in the end.

Looking at this from the publishers' view, they might also feel that ebooks are more prone to mass-piracy on a grander scale than what they have previously faced with individual hard copies. You can't really compare a situation of one guy burning a CD and giving his uncle a copy versus someone ripping the same album into MP3s and then posting it to a file-sharing server where thousands if not millions of people can have access to it. Something like that can justifiably give concern to retailers and the artists responsible for the work, and is a factor in why certain big-name authors have resisted their catalog being made available in ebook formats.
Does that stop digital piracy of their work? No, someone could always manually create an unofficial scan of their tomes and then decide to have it not be for their own personal use, but upload it to share with pirates.
Heck, he may even do it because he feels entitled to do it just to "stick it to the man" or whatever excuse they may come up with to justify it. It still doesn't make it right, though.
I guess my point in this long post is that it boils down to customers (and I hope they're customers, and not just free-loaders) who automatically feel entitled to something that they use it as an excuse to justify pirating.
I have a friend who worked in fast-food and he would always complain about how much food they waste. If a customer complained about wanting no pickles and someone put pickles in it, the workers would throw the whole burger away and make a new one. He used that resentment to steal food from Burger King every night he worked there (and no, the establishment did not let their employees take home free food, either. It was even against their policy at the time he was employed there).
This same dude also casually talked about how big record companies deserved to get ripped off because they're so rich and they can take it. That kind of mentality to justify (eventual) stealing or condoning eventual piracy is what worries me.

[snarkophilus]

Originally Posted by NVash

Would you mind if I PMed either of you for help or advice once I get a scanner together?

Could I ask that unless you have some very specific questions that you don't PM questions? I'm curious, and I'm sure others will be too, about how you go about your scanning process.

Cheers,
Simon.

[Rainmaker]

@NzVash:
As an Engineer student, I've usually been in the situation were I always need to rely on a Book to study for my finals.
Many books aren't available here, or there are less than 5 copies available to borrow from the library, even most editions date back to 1990 (20 bloody years!). You would think that SOMETHING has changed, specially in chemistry for example.
But actually I find hard copies much easier to study from.

1. A photocopy of a page is cheaper than the printage of a page (at least "here")
Photocopy: u$s0,035 ($0,15 Pesos argentinos)
Printage: u$s0,12 ($0,50 Pesos argentinos)
2. It's really complicated to skim through a book, when you have cross references.
ie: graphics, see chapter VII, or when doing the exercises at the end of the chapter.

The pro's for Digital copies is that they are more accessible. Or at least, its easier for me to find a book on the internet, that at either of the library's of my University. (University of Buenos Aires).


I'm not criticizing the possibility of having both formats available to students; I'm just giving you my personal opinion of why I wouldn't even consider picking a digital copy over a hard one.

(Doing some quick math: I'm doing between 6 to 8 subjects a year, if i wanted to buy a book for each subject: that is 1 book per course, at $150 pesos argentinos each book, that gives me a total of $1200, something along the lines of u$s300 per year only in the necessary books, most courses recommend as basic bibliography between 2 to 4 books).

[pholy]

Originally Posted by NVash

pholy and Elfwreck, I appreciate it. Would you mind if I PMed either of you for help or advice once I get a scanner together? No cash to do it right now but Im sure Ill have more questions later on down the road.

Originally Posted by snarkophilus

Could I ask that unless you have some very specific questions that you don't PM questions? I'm curious, and I'm sure others will be too, about how you go about your scanning process.

Cheers,
Simon.

We do have a workshop forum where lots of people discuss problems and solutions. It's a better place because the people who frequent there are usually way more knowledgeable than I am. So not only do more people see the problem, more people see the solution.

relying on me is just...
pholy

or at least silly

[Randeep]

DiapDealer:

People can talk about what ebooks should cost until they're blue in the face, but the fact of the matter is... they will always cost exactly what the majority of people are willing to pay for them. They may get a little cheaper, but they're never going to get anywhere near their production costs.

Just because this has been brought up a few times already I'd like to point out that the intent of this thread is not to argue over how much e-Books should cost.

HellMark:

There are costs associated with ebooks that paperbooks do not have. Paper doesn't have server fees, DRM licensing fees, bandwidth expense, etc. Explain how your argument makes sense. Also, while you claim that ebooks production cost approaches zero, it will never reach zero, even if you factor out the staffing and utility costs. There are still continual expenses with ebooks, that apply for each copy sold (such as the DRM licensing).

Kolenka

EDIT: Fun fact... printing accounts for ~10% of list price. So on a book that lists for about 10$, the eBook savings are ~1$ on printing (- cost of a formatter/etc to put manuscript into ePub/etc). Distribution is another 10% (and bandwidth/etc offsets those savings).

You two are either being disingenuous, or you have no idea what you are talking about. You're going to try to tell me your bandwidth factors into the cost? I mean a gigabyte of data is only going to cost a server company around 15 cents (and that's generous for a lot of cases). The average eBook is 1-5 megabytes, which means the bandwidth cost is a fraction of a cent. And a small fraction at that.

You're telling me that DRM licensing is a per-book cost. That is something I was not aware of, and you didn't mention how much this would cost, but a lot of publishers use their own proprietary DRM so for them again, it is $0.00 to attach DRM to a book.

BTW: server fees, IT fees and others are costs that Publishers and Distributors of ANY book, electronic and paper, have.

[Hellmark]

Originally Posted by Randeep

DiapDealer:
Just because this has been brought up a few times already I'd like to point out that the intent of this thread is not to argue over how much e-Books should cost.

HellMark:

Kolenka

You two are either being disingenuous, or you have no idea what you are talking about. You're going to try to tell me your bandwidth factors into the cost? I mean a gigabyte of data is only going to cost a server company around 15 cents (and that's generous for a lot of cases). The average eBook is 1-5 megabytes, which means the bandwidth cost is a fraction of a cent. And a small fraction at that.

You're telling me that DRM licensing is a per-book cost. That is something I was not aware of, and you didn't mention how much this would cost, but a lot of publishers use their own proprietary DRM so for them again, it is $0.00 to attach DRM to a book.

BTW: server fees, IT fees and others are costs that Publishers and Distributors of ANY book, electronic and paper, have.

Yes, but it is still a cost that has to be considered. Not to mention, that bandwidth costs can vary based not just on how much is used but also how much is used at a time. Things are much more expensive if you have a bunch of people using your bandwidth at once, than if you have a few people using a lot of bandwidth steadily, even if the total bandwidth used ends up being the same. eBook retailers are more likely to have many people vying for connections at the same time. Not only do you have to have fat pipes to not have a bottleneck, but you have to have plenty of computing power to handle the connections.

As far as the DRM goes, what publisher uses their own DRM? I know of no publisher with an inhouse DRM. And still, it isn't the publishers themselves that have to deal with the DRM expenses, but rather the retailer, and the only one with their own proprietary DRM is Amazon.

And as far as server costs go, yes all have that, but the costs vary quite a bit depending on what they use it for. If all they do is have a webpage up, they require far less than if they're having to use server side DRM solutions, secure file serving, etc.

Also, my name is Hellmark. No capital "m". Capitalizing the "m" makes it seem as if it should be two words, or implying that my name is Mark (which it is not).

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by Randeep

Just because this has been brought up a few times already I'd like to point out that the intent of this thread is not to argue over how much e-Books should cost.

Then "I don't think I should have to pay for my e-Books" was an awfully strange choice for thread title.

[VydorScope]

Well by the thinking used in this thread, I should not have to pay for ice cream if I already bought milk, they should just give me that free!

[OneandonlyDoc]

Originally Posted by VydorScope

Well by the thinking used in this thread, I should not have to pay for ice cream if I already bought milk, they should just give me that free!

I don't think that's quite it. Reading the first few pages, I get the impression that at least some folks would like the whole "value added" option that we're seeing in the Blu-Ray, DVD, Digital Copy boxes that we're seeing movies released as--they want the option of having a paperback/hardcover novel have a downloadable digital copy attached as something included in the price of the book.

If I'm wrong, someone can go ahead and smack me for it.

[pidgeon92]

Originally Posted by VydorScope

Well by the thinking used in this thread, I should not have to pay for ice cream if I already bought milk, they should just give me that free!

I think it goes: Don't buy the cow if you can get the milk for free.....

[xg4bx]

Originally Posted by OneandonlyDoc

I don't think that's quite it. Reading the first few pages, I get the impression that at least some folks would like the whole "value added" option that we're seeing in the Blu-Ray, DVD, Digital Copy boxes that we're seeing movies released as--they want the option of having a paperback/hardcover novel have a downloadable digital copy attached as something included in the price of the book.

If I'm wrong, someone can go ahead and smack me for it.

that's my thinking. i'm not "entitled" to anything but if i have the choice between 2 equally priced books (both of which i'd like to read) i'd pick the one that gives me that 'lil bit extra for my money.

[Paul Levine]

Fascinating discussion. I've never seen the issue raised in quite this way. My gut says they're two different products. Two different prices.

PaulLevine

[DarkScribe]

It depends a lot on where you are, but in most cases once you purchase any version of something that is copyrighted you own it regardless of the medium it might subsequently be transferred to. This is how idollarscan works. They have copies of all material they scan, which they cannot sell, but if someone provides them with proof of entitlement - in the form of a book, they can provide that scan legally. They don't scan each book sent to them, they have built up a library. If I have a vinyl LP that I purchased in the seventies, I own that music. If I download a digitised copy rather than rip it myself - I am still legal. (As long as the copy is not a different version of the same material - i.e., remastered etc.) If I own a physical book, then I can download a digital version legally. I don't have to scan it or use an organisation like 1dollarscan. Many of the torrents that provide music or eBooks have warning on them to the effect that if you don't already have the rights to the material then you will breach copyright.

I have an extensive library and for a while I was using 1dollarscan to transcribe many of my (as yet unread) books to digital format. Then my son-in-law pointed out that you could locate a free eBook version of almost any book online, and that as I owned the original I would not breach copyright if I saved time and expense by downloading such books. I ran this past our legal department and they agreed, as long as I already owned the book, how I obtained a digital copy wasn't relevant.

This might not apply in all jurisdictions, but I fail to why it wouldn't. You buy a licence for the copyrighted material when you purchase something, not the medium used to provide it.