Quote:
Originally Posted by petrucci
@pdurrant: read the next paragraph for the summary.
It is my contention that, in most cases, an abundance of free fiction will cause similar books that are not free to lose value. It has been argued that this cannot be the case as books are not fungible. Although we can certainly distinguish one book from another, this does not mean that books are incomparable from the perspective of a consumer. I believe that although the titles of fiction may be unique, they are valued by a consumer on the basis of their potential to entertain him. Several books can be equal in this regard, and thus the unique nature of the titles does not prevent the degredation of price.
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If a person's entertainment quota is met by free books, then there is one fewer paying consumer of books. If few enough people are paying for books then their value will decrease.
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Even if true, this is no reason to argue against the free availability of public domain ebooks. The public benefit of free books vastly outweighs any loss of income to contemporary authors.
And actually, I don't think it's true. Public domain classic books are great, but they are, because of the length of copyright, out of date. They don't deal with current events or recent technological or social change. People who are used to (say) feminism, mobile phones and the Internet, will not be forever satisfied with fiction that ignores all those items.
And then there are changes in English, and in writing styles.
I don't see any likelihood that many excellent (& lucky) authors will not be able to make a good living in the future as in the past. That the vast majority of published authors will not be able to make a living at writing fiction will also not change.