|
[QUOTE=Gladtobemom;539276]Why couldn't Amazon have stopped selling the book, then turned the money received for it over to the publisher. This would have adequately covered the publisher's profits off of the sales. Publishers don't make more than a buck for a paperback of a non upgrade type paperback. QUOTE]
Maybe the owner wouldn't accept that. Their strategy might involve keeping the book from being etext at all. Unfortunately, the copyright laws kind of assume that the owners will be interested in exploiting their ownership rights by making "sales," but that assumption ignores basic human orneriness, and did not anticipate an entire new mode of publication that owners might not want to engage in.
Personally, I think that copyright ownership should be contingent on publication, and if some owner decides not to publish in a particular mode, then he should lose his copyright in that mode much sooner than otherwise.
So if the owners of 1984 don't see any profit in publishing in etext, fine. They shouldn't be able to prevent someone else from taking the chance. Likewise, if Disney decides to withdraw Mickey Mouse's Excellent Adventure from DVD distribution, then someone else should be able to distribute it.
Use it or lose it.
|