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Originally Posted by barryem
I think it's too soon to know if ebooks are the answer to books disappearing. That does seem to be the case at present but commercial ebooks haven't been around very long yet and at some point that may change. I would be surprised if, at some point, ebook sellers didn't decide to reduce their inventory. Storage isn't expensive but it's not nothing and there are the costs associated with tracking and indexing and maintenance. When Amazon or Kobo has 100 million books, most of who's pages haven't even been viewed for a decade or more, they might decide to cut back. In fact they probably will at some point.
We have a very badly flawed copyright system. I think we can all agree that authors should have a chance to be paid for their work but when that work becomes part of our culture we have some rights as well. I don't know the answer but what we have now isn't working very well.
I don't think we'll have an answer until we can have open discussions on this topic among lawmakers without being pressured by publishers.
Barry
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In general, I don't think it's the publishers pressuring lawmakers, but rather the copyright holders. Publishers have a contract with the copyright holder. Long copyrights simply aren't in their interest. For the most part, copyright is driven by movies and music, not by books. Top box office movies make a heck of a lot more than best selling books.
The book publishing business is quite different than the music industry or movie industry. The customer base for books is much lower than music or movies.