Quote:
Originally Posted by HorridRedDog
If there is no demand for a book why not just turn it over to the public domain?
And yet you know that they will not do so.
Is there anyone here that can't make a list of books (that they would like to read) that have not been published in decades?
Is there a great cost to the publisher? Give me a break. They own title to the rights already, so there is no cost there. What is the cost to Google to convert a paper book? Even at $2 to $4 retail, I'm sure that they can make more money than just letting it sit in the dark.
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I'm not arguing against any of that. There would be very little cost to produce the majority of ebooks. Probably the only reason publishers do not is laziness and there is nothing forcing them to do so. If an expiry date type arrangement on copyright were to come into effect it would force publishers to produce an ebook or pbook or risk losing their copyright. And I'm sure the could make money from the endeavour.
I just find it amusing that you would think an expiry date type arrangement whereby a work would go into the PD if it is out of print/not for sale for 10 years might not work because publishers would then produce an ebook, sell it for one day each 9 years and then stop selling it all in order to ensure they don't lose the copyright.
If they go to the trouble of producing an ebook, as minimal as that would be, I really don't see them then selling it for a single day and then discontinuing the sale of the book as some sort of plot to ensure the book remains generally unavailable but also still under copyright.
Sometimes I think we can see cloaks and daggers and hidden conspiracies where there aren't any.
Cheers,
PKFFW