[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by petrucci

In many countries the education of the poor is subsidised. The poor will not go without books. It is my belief that eliminating writing as a profession will reduce the level of literacy.

Writing as a profession shows no signs of being in danger. More people are making a living writing today than have ever done so in the past.

I have never been arguing for censorship. You are proposing a capitalist approach in which readers choose the books they want to read. I simply want to ensure that such an approach is not biased by differences in cost that are subsidised by various interests.

You are proposing that readers are forced to subsidize the costs of books they don't want to read--and authors may not want to charge for. How would you propose to make it mandatory to charge for writing? How much would authors be required to charge for what kinds of works?

You're also being exceedingly unclear about where that money would go, if there's no author available. A hundred years from now, who'd have the right to set the minimum price and collect royalties for the last of the Sherlock Holmes stories? Two hundred years from now, who'd own the rights to the Beatles' music?

I think that society will benefit from great new works being written. I do not think as many such works will be produced if it is not economical to write a book.

I see no shortage of written material, of all levels of quality. I see a lot of people in legacy publishing businesses very worried that their business model is no longer working; I don't see authors outside that model complaining that it's harder to get paid today than it was 15 years ago.

Where's this shortage of new materials you're worried about so much that you'd like to create drastic changes to world economics? (Mandatory fees--for anything--is a drastic change. Who decides how much is enough? Who regulates that the fees are being charged?)

Only someone who is very poor cannot afford a 6 dollar paperback. Those who cannot afford such a work, can access books from public libraries.

"Someone who is very poor" includes children. Wouldn't want them having access to free reading materials, of course. It also includes parents with several children; wouldn't want them getting free ebooks or news either.

Obviously, anyone who's got time to read can afford "a" $6 paperback. The issue with affordable books for the poor is whether they can afford reading as a leisure and educational activity on a regular basis... or should they just be getting their new ideas from television?

We finally have a way to broadcast text as cheaply as sound has been sent to people's homes for decades, and you want to remove it? You want to require us to pay for materials that are currently being offered for free, in order to support the careers of authors who can't compete in an open marketplace?

Down to basics: How much do you think should be the minimum price for an ebook? (If you think different lengths or genres or something else should have different minimum prices, what would those be?) And who'll be managing that payment (and taking a cut)--Amazon? Paypal? Dwolla? Something else?