E-book store price comparison / BooksOnBoard a good deal

[rlauzon]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I'm a big fan of the RIAA; it's high time someone made it quite clear to people that it is not "acceptable" to use other people's copyrighted material without paying for it.

Most people laws not because they are worried about the punishment. They obey laws because they think that the law is right. When people break the law en masse, that's an indication that the law is wrong.

Copyright is no longer "right." It's far too long (there is no justification whatsoever for copyright to extend past the author's death). When you add bad laws like the DMCA into the mix, the gov't has effectively given the right to change copyright law over to the Content Cartel - who, of course, make the system benefit only them.

You want people to respect copyright? Then make copyright respectable.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by HarryT

The legal system does not insist that a person be guilty before taking legal action against them; just that a prima facie case exist against them. Clearly, the fact that files have been illegally downloaded by a person's computer constitutes such a case, irrespective of whether or not the computer's owner turns out to have been responsible.

I'm a big fan of the RIAA; it's high time someone made it quite clear to people that it is not "acceptable" to use other people's copyrighted material without paying for it.

The problem with the RIAA is that they cannot see how much damage they are causing. Take napster for example. When Napster first came out, CD sales were up 6% because people were able to sample CDs or find music they didn't know existed and then went out and purchased what it is they liked. The RIAA managed to get Napster shutdown and thus sales dropped. They raise prices so most people cannot afford to purchase all the CDs they want. It would be better to make more profit by selling more Cds with less profit per CD. I remember when $10 was the rough price for a CD and less on sale. Now we get on sale at $12.95 and $14.95-$16.95 not on sale. It's just terrible. Then the RIAA stong arm people without being 100% sure they did anything wrong. They take you to court without due process of the law. The RIAA work (and yes I have to say this) using Nazi tactics.

[Liviu_5]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I think that's a gross exageration. Tobacco companies kill people. The RIAA (which I very much doubt that 1 person in 1000 has ever heard of if you consider the typical "man in the street") does nothing more than to prosecute criminals. You have nothing to fear from the RIAA if you are a law-abiding person.

You're not suggesting that criminals who download tens of thousands of songs illegally should not be prosecuted, are you?

After all the headlines about RIAA I am not so sure that the average person that buys an Ipod or a CD does not know about it, and about their opinion, well...
Personally I could not care less about RIAA except for the bad example it gives to publishers, since I am not that much into music, but it's sad when an organization supposedly dedicated to promote a business, is one of the leading factors in said business alarming decline; strong arm tactics are not going to work when millions of people download music.

Some people are going to download tens of thousand of songs; so what, why do you think those people would buy most of those songs anyway; take it as a loss leader and move on...

The publishers are in a much better bargaining position so to speak with the public, since books are time consuming to digitize by the average reader from their "usual" print state; it's sad to see them squandering this with all these multiple drm'ed formats, posturing and all the crap thrown at us that I am not bothering to repeat...

Ebooks are happening and making them an affordable and easy to use experience, while similarly the authors reach to their fan base educating them on the economics of publishing ("I do not sell enough books I do not get a contract, so guys and girls better buy my books if you like them...") would do wonders for the business.

Some are starting to do that (it's instructive to see the growing list of authors who blog) and they will do fine however the business will shake up since people will still pay for their work...

[Liviu_5]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I think that's a gross exageration. Tobacco companies kill people.

And incidentally though off topic, there are studies (not that well publicized since they are not popular) that show that the tobacco companies are not actually causing financially harm to society overall, since the lack of productivity and the medical care required due to tobacco, if tobacco would not exist would be balanced by the high medical costs of those people growing in old age; from a moral point of view this argument is perverse, but from an economical point of view (and remember that a lot of court cases against tobacco companies rest on economic not moral arguments) people did the math and it seems that tobacco by killing many people younger than normal save society more than it's lost in care and productivity loss.


Of course the tobacco companies (which again personally I detest insofar as it makes sense to detest an entity that has no will of its own but has a legal obligation to do the best for its owners first as long as it stays within the law) are not suicidal to make that argument however true in court and anger the people ("we kill some of you for the greater good"), they take their lumps, go sell their products to poorer and more desperate people in sadder parts of the world and so on... A survival trait which sadly RIAA seems to lack.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Liviu_5

And incidentally though off topic, there are studies (not that well publicized since they are not popular) that show that the tobacco companies are not actually causing financially harm to society overall, since the lack of productivity and the medical care required due to tobacco, if tobacco would not exist would be balanced by the high medical costs of those people growing in old age; from a moral point of view this argument is perverse, but from an economical point of view (and remember that a lot of court cases against tobacco companies rest on economic not moral arguments) people did the math and it seems that tobacco by killing many people younger than normal save society more than it's lost in care and productivity loss.

Oh I agree entirely - tobacco companies are good for the economy; the British government, for example, earns far more in tax on cigarettes than it costs our state-funded health system to treat tobacco-related illnesses. Nonetheless I regard the entire business as unethical and certainly would not wish to invest my own money in such a business.

Personally, though, I regard anyone who smokes as a moron, but I suppose you have to give people the freedom to kill themselves that way if they choose to do so.

[rlauzon]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

When Napster first came out, CD sales were up 6% because people were able to sample CDs or find music they didn't know existed and then went out and purchased what it is they liked.

Ahhh... But, you see, that is the problem.

The RIAA couldn't put out junk anymore. People could try it first for free - and find out that the CD sucks.

What Napster did was polarize sales. CDs that were good saw big jumps in sales. CDs that were bad, however, saw big drops. The days of putting out 2 good CDs and coasting for a couple bad ones were gone.

And, of course, it costs more to put out a good CD than a bad one.

[NatCh]

I'd've thought that it would cost about the same for good or bad, but I guess bad ones must be cheaper somehow, or they wouldn't do it.

[Lemurion]

I buy ebooks from either Fictionwise or Baen. I particularly like Baen because of their webscriptions format, where you can get 6 books without DRM for U$15.00. They've figured out something that most e-publishers haven't: ebooks are worth less than paper copies (due to the more restrictive licensing and usage models) and so should be cheaper.

Baen's prices are the best I've seen for ebooks, but for some reason they always get ignored whenever price comparisons come up. It's profitable for them to sell them cheap. Why not for others?

[Blue Tyson]

Baen don't have to pay a cut of their price to other people presumably would certainly help, apart from for the people actually running the webscriptions technology.

The comparison here (and useful to point out some other places, thanks) was for more general bookshops?

[Azayzel]

Interesting OT thread built-in to this one, to bad it cannot be pruned to its own thread. hmmm.....

Anyway, I like the original idea of this thread to give us an indication of which stores are offering better-than-average prices on digital content. I for one feel that books shouldn't cost anywhere near the physical copy's price, let alone a HB version price (yikes!). Maybe an easily accessible thread can be stickied somewhere that references who has the latest top sellers at the best prices, that way new users (and old) can immediately see which place to go check first for whatever they are looking for? I guess it would have to be easily updated and navigable so everyone can provide input and not just one person is doing all the legwork. Perhaps, if it cannot be hosted on a thread basis, maybe there's some other format that makes for easy view-ability and updates?

Just some thoughts. Who knows, perhaps by doing so we can slowly influence industry by driving people to sites with more realistic/reasonable prices, and thereby indirectly force others to compete and adjust their prices as well. If anyone wants to argue against such a statement, I say nothing ventured nothing gained.

[JSWolf]

Why is it MobiPocket.com is so much more expensive then BooksOnBoard and PaperbackDigital?

[jasonkchapman]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Why is it MobiPocket.com is so much more expensive then BooksOnBoard and PaperbackDigital?

I'm guessing it's because MobiPocket is acting as both a distributor and a retailer. They can't underprice their own reseller network. In the paper world, it would be like Ingram having its own bookstore chain (or when B&N tried to buy them).

[Liviu_5]

Originally Posted by jasonkchapman

I'm guessing it's because MobiPocket is acting as both a distributor and a retailer. They can't underprice their own reseller network. In the paper world, it would be like Ingram having its own bookstore chain (or when B&N tried to buy them).

This post shows precisely one of the main reasons commercial ebooks have been such a failure until now; people just do not want to pay much for econtent so at current prices there is a huge spread (bid-ask) in the market; usually in such cases someone steps in the middle lowering the price, offering new "bells and whistles" to increase the bid and so on...
Unfortunately for ebooks this would need much lower markups on cover price by retailers and they have no incentive...Until publishers sell directly (like Baen does - very important reason for their success) or find retailers for their ebooks that take a more reasonable markup it will be very hard to increase the market for ebooks (for example in music CD baby sells mp'3 of independent artists and takes 9% of cover price for mp3's)

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Liviu_5

This post shows precisely one of the main reasons commercial ebooks have been such a failure until now; people just do not want to pay much for econtent so at current prices there is a huge spread (bid-ask) in the market; usually in such cases someone steps in the middle lowering the price, offering new "bells and whistles" to increase the bid and so on...
Unfortunately for ebooks this would need much lower markups on cover price by retailers and they have no incentive...Until publishers sell directly (like Baen does - very important reason for their success) or find retailers for their ebooks that take a more reasonable markup it will be very hard to increase the market for ebooks (for example in music CD baby sells mp'3 of independent artists and takes 9% of cover price for mp3's)

Most people see ebooks as something less then the paper edition even though the content is the same. So in that case, they are not willinto to pay as much or more for the same content. And in order to have a good reading experience for your ebooks, you do NEED to purchase a portable reading device that you'd find comfortable to use to read your ebooks. And that does take more work and money then just going into the shop and buying a book. Then couple that with DRM and the hassles that one can have and you get a less then satisfactory experience.

[Nate the great]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Why is it MobiPocket.com is so much more expensive then BooksOnBoard and PaperbackDigital?

They are based in France, and it costs more to operate there than the US. That could be it.