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Originally Posted by Kali Yuga
I have to say, I think mis-pricing could harm the book industry as a whole, and in some cases delaying the e-book version will very likely turn some people to piracy. But I don't think e-books will get pirated to death. Let's face it, it takes all of 2 brainless minutes to make a high-fidelity copy of an entire CD; it takes hours to scan, format and edit a paper book into a digital format. A book will have to be fairly popular for someone to put that effort into it.
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Ok, let's look at this scenario:
Book A arrives in hardcover. You don't want to buy pbooks anymore, and the publisher refuses to make an ebook. So, you go to the darknet and download a (not so good) copy of that book. You put some time in it to fix it up a bit, this takes (let's say) 3 weeks.
After 6 months, the publisher decides that the hardcover isn't making enough money anymore so, he publishes the ebook together with the paperback version. Would you now buy that ebook?
I've scanned books myself and I usually fix mistakes while reading it. I doubt I'd buy the ebook of those books.
Quote:
Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel
i agree. it might be more about the service than the content but people are definitely willing to pay for convenience, otherwise all those frozen dinner companies would be out of a job too.
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Absolutely! If those books I've scanned myself were available in ebook format when I wanted them, I'd not have scanned them and just bought them (again, as I already have the pbook versions).
Quote:
Originally Posted by doreenjoy
The water analogy isn't quite apt IMO. The water that comes out of spigots and drinking fountains has been castigated as tainted. people are buying "purity" in those plastic bottles, not water.
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Hmm, I think that would depend on the country you're living in. Over here, you can drink the water perfectly (actually, some places sell the water that also comes from the tap in bottles...) and still people buy bottled water...
(I generally buy one bottle and keep filling it with tap water until I want to replace the bottle again...)