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Originally Posted by QuantumIguana
If you were correct, then book sales would be collapsing as e-reader owners obtained nothing but public domain works. But that isn't the case. E-reader owners do read some public domain books, but also read a whole lot of new books.
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This is your interpretation, not mine. I believe that new book sales are diminished somewhat by the abundance of free downloads. I am not saying that everyone will choose a free book over one that costs money. I believe that some people will choose those books and not buy new ones. I am also aware that free downloads can be used as marketing tools and boost sales. However, there is a limited amount of time that people have to read, and for every free book that they read, there is that much less time to read a new book. All of this being said it is difficult to predict what books sales would be in other circumstances, such as without free downloads. The e-book market is still very new. Many people are still getting their first readers or apps. They are adjusting to pushing a button and getting a book. They are also adjusting to the enormous variety that is available. And of course digital money is not thought of the same way to consumers as real money. When the dust settles the numbers will become clear.
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Originally Posted by Elfwreck
Artists have *always* been in competition with all the art that's gone before them. Sculptors a hundred years ago were competing with Michaelangelo; portrait artists are competing with Rembrandt; authors are competing with Shakespeare and the Iliad; musicians have only recently been in direct competition with previous musicians, but were always in competition with enthusiastic amateurs. Now there's less enthusiastic amateurs and more previous experts to compete with.
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I do not believe that this is really the case. When a church wanted a fresco in the 19th century, they could not get Michaelangelo to paint one. Amateurs were no real competition for professional musicians back in the day. When the emperor wanted to hear music, he made sure that there were professionals on staff.
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Originally Posted by Elfwreck
The same tools that allow artists to distribute their own works widely and easily allow historical works to be distributed; the playing field has not become uneven. Artists still have to find a reason people should pay them instead of enjoying the fruits of hundreds of years of a single-language civilization.
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Being able to more widely distribute ones works does not suddenly make the playing field level. It is uneven because the previous works are free, they do not need to support a living person. All musicians can now widely distribute their works through recordings. This has had the effect of devaluing live performance.
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Originally Posted by Elfwreck
Every publisher for the last couple-hundred years has had to ask, "will I make more money printing J.Q. Author's new book, or reprinting Shakespeare's plays?"
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This is true. Many of them chose to print new works, as they could obtain exclusive rights to publish them, and hence potentially charge more money.
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Originally Posted by Elfwreck
Mary Wollstonecraft can't set up a blog and twitter account and start interacting with her fans. Jane Austen can't warn people away from that zombie book and toward her original works.
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They do not need to as they have historians to do that for them.
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Originally Posted by Kumabjorn
Does Gutenberg publish numers on downloads?
I'm aware that a downloaded book doesn't translate into a read book, but is there anything else to go on?
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Project Gutenberg states that in the last 30 days there have been 4133016 downloads.