Quote:
Originally Posted by Steve Jordan
"Making money is easy... if all you want to do is to make money."
-Citizen Kane
"If I just wanted to make money, I'd have a day job. Oh, yeah... I do."
-Steve Jordan
We're discussing one of the only tools available to protect people's intellectual property, their source of income. If we're not talking about money, there's little point talking about copyright. Copyright and making money, therefore, go hand-in-hand.
How many non-copywritten works are earning someone money?
How many alternatives to making money is e-publishing creating?
|
I think the BIGGEST attitude issue is that the publishing industry - and we see the same in the music industry - gets so focused on getting that 'last 5%' of projected readers that they fail to see they're really pissing off the other 95% who would have paid anyway. Books are not a thin-margin product, they generate a solid 10-15% at minimum to the publisher - and between 4-12% for the author. There's room to acknowledge that 'preventing the 5% who're likely to steal a work' is going to eat up more money than just leaving off the various DRM protection schemes.
Further, all this emphasis ignores the real problem. It's not that some people will steal the books, it's obscurity which costs more money. First one has to become "aware" there's a new title or new author out there. Then one has to decide whether it's worth the risk (of boredom or disgust) to try said item/author. Adding in "copyright protection" to electronic books just adds further negatives in the "I don't want to take the risk" column because a user then has to face attempting to get "this" title - with it's specific DRM scheme - onto "that" ebook reader - which, of course, only supports *the other* copyprotectiion schemes. Why bother?
So, by word of mouth, the customer finds that there are 'darknet' versions which don't have this hassle. Guess what? The publisher, after sticking it to the customers often enough, has just created another proponent of the dark side.
I've *SEEN* this conversion process occur, more than once. And every time the industry chooses to focus on 'protecting their rights' over 'widening the market' by changing formats to build in tighter encryption methods, a new generation - quite often more technologically savvy - gains incentive to seek 'free' versions.
I know it's the industry's right to seek for a 100% sold-not stolen solution. But at some point, they've got to come to the realization that they're spending more money and getting less of a return.
I remember reading about two cameras, the trusty Yashicamat-124 versus the Hassleblad 500CM. They'd done a study of what *MOST* users of each camera imaged. And they found something out. For the most common shooting situations, the Yashicamat with it's fixed 80mm lens provided about 95% of the quality of the Hassleblad, this despite the fact that the Hassleblad had this stunning array of lenses and optional accessories. At the time you could pick up a Yashicamat, new, for about $250. The latest Hassleblad ran about $2,500. Thus, for most photographers, that extra 5% of 'quality' cost 900% more. This is, in terms of gaining that last 5% of sales, what the industry is failing to consider. I note that Hassleblad is still a 'niche' camera, supported solely by big-name pros - and that the Canon digital SLRs are cutting into that margin every year.
Derek