Quote:
Originally Posted by gmw
I know it wasn't directed at me, Ralph Sir Edward, but the point about businesses competing by making exactly the same physical product doesn't compare well with copyright. Manufacture of goods is always governed by many things: quality and availability of the parts, quality and availability of the labour, and so on. It's on these sorts of attributes that such businesses compete. To a certain extent this also applies to paper books as a physical product, but it doesn't apply well to something like the story itself - unless you are suggesting we see many different versions of the same book being produced: here's a copy of Harry Potter with more adverbs, here's a copy of Harry Potter with all the parts I thought were boring cut out of it, and here's a copy of Harry Potter with some sex scenes added.
|
Actually this is done with copyright-although I'm not sure how often. It requires that the creator retain the copyright while contracting with a company (e.g. publisher) to produce the product. One publisher might produce the paper book, another might produce the audio book and yet a third might produce the ebook. Or, more commonly, one publisher might produce the book in the US, another might produce the book in the UK, a third might produce the book in Europe, etc.
BTW, businesses also compete on customer service. It seems as if that competition is becoming rare, but it's still around if you look for it. Exact same product, different service. Sometimes different warranty (which I consider a branch of customer service).