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Originally Posted by FF2
Under your scenario, the published and author lost 5+ sales. I wrongfully deprived an author of sales he might have made??
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Surely you lessened the probablility that the author could sell books to those you lent your book too. Was that wrong? Not at all.
Could you read the book while your friends had it? You could had it been an ebook. Could you and all of your friends have read it at the same time? You could had it been an ebook.
There are simply different realities for paper books and ebooks that impact an author's ability to make a living selling books. In the ebook world, you could have "lent" the book to 500,000 simultaneiously -- not just your personal 5 friends.
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Originally Posted by FF2
Maybe two of those folks would have purchased. Maybe all would have waited for the paperback. Or they would use the library. No way to telling although there are probably methods to estimate.
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So true. Every borrowed book does not represent an actual lost sale. However, the ability of an ebook to be copied and distributed widely to the whole world for free certainly threatens the ability of authors to make money selling books.
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Originally Posted by FF2
So, now I purchase an ebook. But I cannot lend it to those same 5+ people? Would the lost sales be any different then the pbook example?
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The ability to lend a book to a reasonable amount of people is certainly an issue that is in need of being solved. As I said in the original post, I'm going to be in agreement with folks on lots of these issues.
I also think that authors have a right to be paid for their work and to secure their work from theft. Digital files cannot be treated exactly the same as physical posessions.
Lee