Perhaps the Ebook will do what Emusic has done to the Music Industry. I, for one, was tired of paying for overpriced CDs and watching Record companies put holes in my wallet.
Now and If, The ebook rises to a fair amount of fame; we will see book prices at a normal level.
NB: I can let my friend borrow a p-book and I do not hear any screams form authors or the publishing industry, yet an Ebook causes riots. Perhaps the afore mentioned are afraid of ending up in the dustbin with the rest of us.
As for Microsoft...Give me a break. They find out that they have pirated editions of their software. I do not Think Mr. Gates is crying over whether his firm has 50 billion vs 15 billion in his pockets. That is a weak point.
I have lived in Russia for years. You can buy most software for 5 dollars on the street once it hits the markets in the USA and Europe within 48 hours. Most people buy it and many companies use black market software. Now, Microsoft and many companies are starting to Release Russian versions of their software and "Normal" Prices ...and Surprise....People are buying it.
I just hope the Same comes of Ebooks. Way overpriced and the selection is poor on many sites. Not everyone reads best sellers.......
Quote:
Originally Posted by JohnClif
Fairness can never become obsolete. What's fair is fair, regardless. It's not about power, it's about rights. If you can strip DRM and resell multiple copies of my work that are now unprotected, you have the power, but you do not have the right. The ebook model will not work unless authors/publishers can rest assured that they will not be ripped off.
Yes, that is the choice. If there is no financial incentive to publish ebooks, if ebooks aren't at least as protected from piracy as pbooks, then the ebook world will die, at least for copyright-protected books. That hurts both consumer and producer.
It's not about throttling the new medium, it's about ensuring that authors get paid at least as much under the new system as they did the old system. What the new medium does is remove the barriers to entry for smaller or less-well-known authors and publishers. What it also may do is remove the incentive for those people. What makes capitalism work over pure socialism/communism is the ability for people to be compensated in proportion to the quality and quantity of work they produce as judged by the market. If that won't hold true for ebooks then no one will write ebooks.
Many people are indeed honest. But, not everyone. When Microsoft put the ability to have their software (Windows, Office, etc.) actually talk to Microsoft Internet servers when running on a connected computer, they discovered that two-thirds of the Microsoft software that was running was pirated. Can you imagine that? Microsoft was losing tens of billions of dollars a year due to piracy. It's easy to understand why they implemented a very robust DRM strategy for their products.
|