[QuantumIguana]

Originally Posted by petrucci

I am certainly not recommending burning old books so that there is less competition. I am pointing out my opinion that the presence of copyright plays an important role in increasing the value of new books.

Before e-books came along, if you wanted to read Dickens, you still had to pay. The book might cost a little less because no royalties needed to be paid, but someone still had to print the book. Yet the presence of Dickens on the shelf didn't interfere with new books selling. The intent of copyright isn't to suppress older books to reduce competition to current authors. Not only that, it can't possibly function that way. The books that fall into limbo because of the length of copyright aren't books that would be in high demand. Books that remain in high demand won't fall into limbo, no matter how long the period of copyright is. Take The Great Gatsby, for example. If it had been published a couple years earlier, it would have become public domain. Instead, it is still under copyright. Yet it didn't fall into limbo, copyright didn't take that book out of competition with any new book. It still sells because there is demand for it. It is the books in lesser demand that concern me, those that may sit in limbo forever.

In terms of producing better books, one of the difficulties is that if the value of a work is driven so low, it is not economical to produce a better work.

If that were true, there wouldn't be so many books for sale! Few people think that Twilight is great literature, but people want it. Books aren't fungible goods. They aren't like a bushel of wheat, one book isn't interchangable for another. A book that sells for $10 can still beat out a 99 cent book if the $10 book is the book the reader wants.

On the topic of musicians, although there are many musicians making a living today, there are many fewer than there were one hundred years ago, and back then the population was much smaller.

I'd like to second the request for a source on this. If I want to go out to hear live music, I have no shortage of venues. Even in small towns, bands will play at bars. Even with the availability of recorded music, people still go out to see live music. Sure, there were hotels where they had live musicians instead of piped in music, but that was never an experience most people visiting a hotel would have. Only elite hotels would have had live musicians for their background music.

However, increasingly people are finding old content that is relevant to their lives. This is evident in the popularity of jazz, classic movies, etc. Such content is readily available thanks to the electronic age. The new culture embraces content regardless of age. Books and movies increasingly make reference to old works. Family Guy is a case in point.

Old content is a niche. Classic movies are dwarfed by new movies. Books and movies have ALWAYS made references to older content. When I was growing up in the 70's, the entertainment media of the time made references to material that was decades old. You might have heard a Laurel and Hardy reference, for example. It wasn't meaningful to me then, but older people got the reference. People have always embraced the older content to an extent, but newer content dominates.