Quote:
Originally Posted by radius
The thing is though, that publishers aren't doing this out of spite. It costs them money to make and market ebook editions and they need to recoup that somehow. With modern publishing workflows, where there is an existing electronic compy of a work, this is mitigated somewhat, but for older works they need to scan, proof, "typeset", possibly commission more modern cover and so on before they even market...
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I think that if they cared to look the publishers would find that most books of any worth have been scanned and edited already, for free. Furthermore it is much less complicated to access and use these copies than it is to buy an electronic book through the likes of Amazon or Kobo.
So that I do not draw any angst here by mentioning sources of such books, I'll mention the parallel example with respect to music instead. In its day it is reputed that Oink (and then its briefly lived successor what.cd) tracked copies of virtually every musical recording ever made, in multiple versions including redacted, very rare and officially lost copies, plus detailed discographies of virtually every artist that had existed; and all available free (although donations were substantial).
I won't get into any further discussion on book rights here, that because people are being accused of "stealing" books and their having misguided senses of entitlement, such claims just being emotive and of no worth countering. But it seems to me that the industry is living in a rights holder focussed delirium; it is well passed time for it to graduate to a customer focussed model else one should be forced upon them.
It must be one of the few industries around that has bamboozled its customers into believing that it is the rights holders that come first and the customers come last.