[alex_d]

"That said, however, this is an industry that will only grow if we buy...So remember to put down the money and buy what is available."

I disagree. It'll grow if we buy hardware, not books. Buying too many ebooks just might convince media conglomerates like Sony that they don't need to even allow us to read our own unencrypted files. Imagine if the Librie's draconian world had been a success! Also, I strongly disagree with your definition of "reasonable prices."

"What happens in this country is that each year a "pot" of money is shared out to authors on the basis of the statistical percentage of library loans for their books."

That sounds like an excellent scheme! That is how the authors should make all of their money, and I think they would be very happy (provided we pay them better than a few grand a year, of course). Even if we guarantee that we end up giving authors twice as much money as publishers do now, the public will still get 100 times a better deal having limitless access to books.

"Personally I'm OK with compensating the authors but I'd rather not have 90% of the money going to publishers."

Exactly! Publishers of books and music collude and pricegouge owing to their position, power, and the nature of what they're selling. We owe nothing to them. I feel authors and musicians ought to be paid, but it's incredibly ironic how some feel that saying creators ought to be compensated is a defense of the current system. It is, in fact, the second-best argument against it.

Honestly, it's not even necessary to turn to communism for effective reform. (Compensating authors directly according to popularity is a form of communism.) Rather, we just have to break up the publisher monopolies. Well-functioning capitalism relies on ruthless competition among many competitors. Now, we have the benefits of neither of the two worlds. The situation is much better described as fudalism.


I'm collating the links at the top.