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Old 10-08-2010, 07:41 PM   #77
DMcCunney
New York Editor
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Elfwreck View Post
Quote:
Originally Posted by DMcCunney
Sharing with friends and reselling is exactly what DRM is supposed to prevent.

With a printed book, it's different. There is one physical copy. If you loan it to a friend, you don't have it. The same holds for resale. Once again, once sold, you no longer have it.
But the result to the publisher is the same: the content is read by another person, and the publisher received no payment for that.
Correct. But in the case of a pbook, it already sold once, and the publisher collected the revenue.

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With pbooks, there's a *chance* that if the reader liked it, she'll go buy a copy of her own... but there's also a chance that the buyer will just give it to her, or that she'll buy that copy from eBay or a used book store or a yard sale. Especially given how fast books go out of print.

The used book market--and more, the used book friendly-exchange communities--are every bit as much "threat" to publishers as the torrent networks.
Nope. By the time a pbook hits the used bookstore market, the likelihood is that it is off the shelves in retailers. It is not competing against new copies currently on sale. Competition for shelf space is rampant, books must be cleared to make room for new releases, and books that don't fly off the shelves don't get reordered. (In an airport newsstand, the average life of a PB was about two weeks the last I knew. It's better in a bookstore, but not a whole lot.)

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Publishers (or more likely, innovative indie authors) *need* to find a way to allow used ebook exchanges--or they'll continue the way they're happening now, growing to the level that they occur in the music industry.
Do you know a way to do it? It requires that if I sell you a pre-owned ebook, I no longer have it. The value is in scarcity. If I still have it and can simply give you a copy, what incentive is there for you to pay me? It's hard for me to successfully charge you in those circumstances.

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Music's less affected by them, because music artists make money from performances, which can't be digitized. Book authors don't have that option. (At least not as a steady revenue stream.) We desperately need a legit way to share ebooks with friends, one that's not contingent on "if this sounds interesting to you, buy a new copy from <website> at full price."
Yes, the model in music is changing. It used to be that the album was the product, and a tour was something the band did to promote the album. these days, it's topsy-turvy, and bands are seeing the gig as the product, and the CD as a souvenir of the gig. An old friend leads a popular indie band. They make their living touring. He'd like you to buy the CDs, but if you rip them and share them with friends, fine by him: they more people who hear the music, the more who come to see them when they play.

And while authors can't exactly go on tour, a similar dynamic is in place. The Baen Free Library was originally intended to promote authors. You downloaded one of more full novels from the Free Library, decided you liked what the author did, and bought the new one from that author when it came out.

What the author hopes for is that people getting a free copy of one of their books, legit or otherwise, will like their stuff enough to seek out and buy future works. The challenge for the author is to provide value worth paying for and make it as easy as possible for readers to give her money.
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