Quote:
Originally Posted by gmw
I do not see their contractual obligations having anything to do with the premiums they are charging.
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Not trying to be snide, but do you know what your local publishers pay for book rights compared to their US counterparts?
I don't but I doubt it is only 6% of what the US publishers pay. Yet they have to recover their overhead and fixed costs and make a profit off a market that is one sixteenth of the American market.
I agree that the system of regional rights must go but turning US rights into defacto global ebook rights *for free* simply puts money into the pockets of the Manhattan gang at the expense of authors everywhere and local publishers. Now, the local publishers really should be looking to serve local authors by marketing *them* globally and they should be encouraged to go that way. But until they do, their survival is tied to those licenses. Undercut them and you undercut them.
Now, I don't particularly care what happens to individual publishers but I do know that when you blow things up blindly the outcome is rarely what the bomber intended. And politicians are the very definition of blind bombers.
It'll be interesting to see what happens if the politicians do carry through this agenda.
I'm thinking bulls and china shops.