Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
It occurs to me that those two terms could also be used for people who think that they have a right to buy any book they wish for unreasonably low prices.
Books are a product like any other, and the producer is entirely within their rights to restrict availability and set whatever price they wish. The market will decide whether or not their decisions are economically sound, but there is no inherent "right" to be able to buy books for peanuts.
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@Harry. I haven't seen anything in this thread that suggests that anyone has a right to buy any book for "unreasonably low prices" or "peanuts". The present issue under discussion is the wisdom of not making an ebook available in a particular region given the nature of the market including particularly the ready availability of pirated ebooks and the relative ease of avoiding geo-blocking. The market will of course be the ultimate arbiter, though I'm not sure we will ever know the result on this particular issue. On the issue of pricing I think we are seeing the results already. It must be a great comfort to the Big 5 and their authors that rather than resorting to piracy many are apparently turning to Amazon, Indies and smaller innovative publishers.