Quote:
Originally Posted by nashira
Libraries, used book stores, borrowing from friends and family, finding a book on the side of the road, at a yard sale, etc... None of these things generates profit for the publishers so far as I am aware. They all exist, in abundance. I sincerely doubt there has ever been a case where one sale = one reader across the entire publication of the book. Digital files are a bit different in that they can be copied infinitely with little issue, but it still doesn't mean the person who downloads it would have ever bought it new if it weren't available online. If they really wanted to read it maybe but they'd probably try the library or ask their friends or look up second hand copies on Ebay first. Or something like BetterWorldBooks. People share books. One way or the other.
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Digital files are a
lot different, because they can be copied indefinitely and distributed much more widely. This differs from libraries in that a) libraries only lend out one book to one person at a time, and b) you make a deal to bring the book back after your designated time. You're absolutely right that with a paper book, you have the right of resale, and I think an e-book should be no different. But that still involves DRM to make sure that you don't retain a copy after you sell it.
E-books are also different in that, as I said, they're not sold piecemeal. If someone downloads an e-book, they're downloading the
whole e-book, unless the supplier offers free samples. Thus, there's no such thing as a person downloading an e-book that wouldn't have had to either buy it outright in digital form or borrow it from a library as paper (and libraries, in case you're wondering, already pay premiums specifically designed to compensate publishers for the lost income).
E-books are in a rather precarious position right now. They don't want what happened to the music industry because of piracy to happen to them. Luckily, e-readers today are better designed than the MP3 players were in the Napster age. The distribution is more sophisticated. But the industry needs to settle on a format so that one format can be read across devices. If I had to guess today, I'd say that format would probably be AZW/Topaz, because Amazon seems to be dominating the market (at least, here in the U.S.).