"The book industry is gonna get Napstered..."

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by Jaime_Astorga

Err... no. When I studied economics, I assure you "people should be compensated for their work" was not an economical principle. If anything, that is a moral question.

So there's no room for "incentive" in modern economics? Nowhere is it written that a producer is supposed to profit from their work? Or are we just staying conveniently mum about the chapters that describe whip-cracking slave workers and indentured servitude?

Originally Posted by Jaime_Astorga

Will thousands of years of written works suddenly banish from the shelves?

Yes: With no way for a publisher to be fairly paid for them (since they're "free" now), they too will disappear from bookstores and other outlets, leaving the bookstores with nothing to sell but the few books written by those who "love to write"... no matter what the quality. ("Oh, joy: Another teenage vampire romance short story by 'Francey.' My day is made.")

So bookstores will go out of business with publishers. Amazon will be left selling everything except books, because there will be no profit market from them.

Trust me: You don't want to see a world where authors don't get paid.

[Greg Anos]

Value....The only meaningful economic definition of value is the following - How much will somebody pay for something, i.e., the price. Not fair, not just. People pay because they want something. Once again, why is not important in an economic sense, how much is all that counts.

Now having said that, every purchase falls first into the concept - make or buy. If I can make it, then which either costs less, or is better quality? I pick accordingly. If I can't make it, then I'm limited to what I can buy, and hopefully am able to choose between competing providers, using the same criteria.

When the cost of producing an item is less that what the market (people) will pay, items are produced. When the cost of producing an item exceeds the price the market will pay, the item won't get produced. (There are special, short-term cases to the contrary, but I'm deliberately leaving those to the side.)

Now recently, (last 40 years), certain parts of the economy have been disrupted by true automation, creating a near-infinite supply of certain products. Therefore, the market price of those items have collapsed. The corollary to that is that no product will be produced. The producers will quit producing and/or go bankrupt. This will occur to any portion of the economy facing true automation.

Let me give you an hypothetical example. What would happen agribusiness if somebody invented a matter replicator, a la Star Trek (Next Generation)? Who would breed new plants? Who would make new vintages of wine? Answer, nobody, at least for profit. (Amateurs will still play around...) Would that be a reason to smash all the matter transmitters? Would the makers of a recent vintage of wine have the right to prevent replication of the vintage in order to protect the economic value of making a new vintage? These are the same discussion we're having here. It's just that this is the cutting edge of the problem....

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by Format C:

1. Copyright: I agree with you. Life is enough.

No, no, no, NO, NO!

Lifetime of the creator is a terrible way to determine copyright length.

Much, much better is to have a fixed time from first publication. If we must, add in a "or the lifetime of the author, whichever is longer".

But lifetime of the author is not a good idea on its own. I think it's reasonable for an author to expect that his work (probably his best work) done in the last years of his life should provide some ongoing income for his heirs. It's certainly a valid possible source of encouragement to authors while alive.

It's the lifetime + X years that are the worst. Longest protection to poorest work. It's rare for writers to write (consistently) poorer stuff as they get older!

[ahi]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

Yes: With no way for a publisher to be fairly paid for them (since they're "free" now), they too will disappear from bookstores and other outlets, leaving the bookstores with nothing to sell but the few books written by those who "love to write"... no matter what the quality.

This is the most deranged and delusional thing I have read on Mobileread to date.

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

("Oh, joy: Another teenage vampire romance short story by 'Francey.' My day is made.")

Right... your example being just worlds apart from the sort of books you appear to publish.

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

Trust me: You don't want to see a world where authors don't get paid.

No, we sure don't.

It will look frighteningly like the vast majority of known human history wherefrom we have only preserved the best quality works... but which regrettably failed to produce the sort of literary treasures that are written about adventurous freighter captains threatened by dormant viruses and spiders.

---

As a publisher, I find it amusing that there are so many people--other than Steve whose has a legitimate, if self-serving stake in the matter--rabidly defending the most morally bankrupt and spineless aspects of my industry's business model. Well... more sad than amusing, really.

- Ahi

[Jaime_Astorga]

And it isn't barbaric at all to say "I really don't give a toss how much time and effort you put in, I want it for free and so I'm going to get it for free no matter what I have to do"?(discounting fair use policy, libraries etc which are concepts already agreed to by the author)

"Agreed?" More like things they can't do anything about because they are allowed by law!

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

So there's no room for "incentive" in modern economics? Nowhere is it written that a producer is supposed to profit from their work? Or are we just staying conveniently mum about the chapters that describe whip-cracking slave workers and indentured servitude?

"Incentives" is certainly a valid concern, though that's about practicality and not what is "right." It is most certainly written nowhere that a producer is "supposed" to profit from their work, the fact that they often do not withstanding. Slavery and indentured servitude fit perfectly with economic models, where allowed by law; I do not see how this enters into the discussion.

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

Yes: With no way for a publisher to be fairly paid for them (since they're "free" now), they too will disappear from bookstores and other outlets, leaving the bookstores with nothing to sell but the few books written by those who "love to write"... no matter what the quality. ("Oh, joy: Another teenage vampire romance short story by 'Francey.' My day is made.")

So bookstores will go out of business with publishers. Amazon will be left selling everything except books, because there will be no profit market from them.

Trust me: You don't want to see a world where authors don't get paid.

The vast majority of works written in the thousands of years of human history are free now, having been into what is now termed the "public domain" for centuries. Yet publishers of older works have still been able to make a profit from selling physical copies of the information which they have edited and typesetted. The fact that I can look up the entirety Hamlet online has not made it vanish from bookstores, and neither will it, at least until e-Readers become as commonplace as cellphones. And even then, physical copies of books will probably always remain a niche market.

[anappo]

> No DRM, fair use policy, etc etc. I think it will
> come one day. One thing that is hampering its' introduction
> though, is the idea that anyone should be allowed to
> upload any file they want for the entire internet
> connected world to access for free.

If there is evidence that DRM, geo-restrictions, device lock-ins, delayed releases and hardcover-level pricing has caused less people to upload, can you point me to your sources? Common sense suggests the opposite is true.

> Until people get that idea out of their heads and replace
> it with the idea that paying a reasonable fee for digital
> media is ok and fair, authors and publishers will continue
> to drag the chain.

So, until "authors and publishers" somehow measure that the people on internet now "have ideas out of their heads", "people on the internet" should excercise their right to not consume content - as both downloading from darknet and paying for DRM-infested content are systemically harmful and therefore - immoral.

Downloading from darknet is illegal - however, unless it is actually possible for me to somehow pay for a product that is in usable format, it is impossible for me to cause economic harm to the author that way.

Paying for DRM-ed content and then removing ot for it to be useful, is also illegal -and- is a signal to the industry that hey - the idiots are actually paying for this - this DRM-thingy must be good!

Paying for DRM-ed content and then failing to remove the DRM is stupid as it restricts me to some arbitrary subset of available hardware. Which in turn restricts me to some arbitrary subset of content. AND is for all I know, also illegal, as the industry standard contracts restrict sales to redhead residents of Alaska, or some such.

If the only legal way for a customer to please your industry is not to buy from you at all, then people getting your stuff for free is hardly your most damaging problem.

> It's a two way street and requires both parties to change

Realistically, the change is going towards more darknet, with every passing year. Baen has been doing more or less the right thing for 10 years now - noone in the anglo-american publishing industry has followed. Because of content-hardware lock-ins, the hardware business is not competitive enough and develops slowly. Because of expensive readers, horror stories about DRM and confusion about formats, shifting from paper-based tech is slow as hell. This is exactly how the content industry likes it - to preserve status quo. Blaming the non-change on pirates is justification, nothing more.

Paradoxically, from consumer point of view, a period of truly rampant piracy might actually be a good thing. Eventually the publishing establishment will get hit in their pockets hard enough to force them to out-compete the pirates. As far as I can tell, this is what happened in russia. From consumer perspective - with stellar success, not sure how happy the authors are with it, but unlike before - they are getting paid.

I suppose, the key point of this whole rant is: "free" is -not- the only significant reason for customers to turn to darknet.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by anappo

I suppose, the key point of this whole rant is: "free" is -not- the only significant reason for customers to turn to darknet.

True. The other significant reason is that customers are too greedy and selfish to honestly compensate creators for their work, and will come up with any excuse to avoid doing so.

Well-p... if this is the direction the publishing world is heading in, then so be it. I suppose all of us creators had better round up some charitable patrons, or just put our works away and go get real jobs (toting barges and lifting bales, to be paid in whip-scars, I guess). But if stepping a few centuries backward thanks to the advances of modern technology is good enough for the public, who am I to argue?

Personally, I doubt we'll be better off in that world, insofar as creative works goes. But the "common man" has run rampant over other industries through selfish, immoral and unthinking demands before, and there's no reason to expect that literature is necessarily immune to that.

(That'll show those pesky Founding Fathers: This is the twenty-first century... we can screw up anything.)

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

True. The other significant reason is that customers are too greedy and selfish to honestly compensate creators for their work, and will come up with any excuse to avoid doing so.

Well-p... if this is the direction the publishing world is heading in, then so be it. I suppose all of us creators had better round up some charitable patrons, or just put our works away and go get real jobs (toting barges and lifting bales, to be paid in whip-scars, I guess). But if stepping a few centuries backward thanks to the advances of modern technology is good enough for the public, who am I to argue?

Personally, I doubt we'll be better off in that world, insofar as creative works goes. But the "common man" has run rampant over other industries through selfish, immoral and unthinking demands before, and there's no reason to expect that literature is necessarily immune to that.

(That'll show those pesky Founding Fathers: This is the twenty-first century... we can screw up anything.)

Not any excuse, just an economically viable one. Every computer (among other things) is a factory for reproducing digital files. This is a fact, and it isn't going away. You can't have a functioning computer without it. So either you scrap all the computers or you learn to live in the current reality. The world doesn't guarantee me a job, (and I haven't had one for over a year), and it doesn't guarantee you a fair royalty for your works.

It's not "the common man" that has run rampant over industries, it's technology that built up industries, and new technology is tearing them back down.

[anappo]

> The other significant reason is that customers are too greedy
> and selfish to honestly compensate creators for their work,

You missed one. Those customers are not only selfish and greedy. They are also lazy as hell. I know this because I am one.

Say, hunting for a darknet book and then re-formating it from scanned pdf takes me about 30 minutes. Buying a legal copy takes me 1 minute. Unless your customer is totally broke, he'll go for the legal option. Gives him this nice fuzzy feeling of doing the right thing as well.

This can work. I know this because I have seen it work.

The reason why this will -not- work, is that it spells eventual doom to significant portions of the publishing industry as we know it. Not because of piracy. But if your entire global distribution system gets replaced with a couple of servers and a pot-smoking sysadmin then lots honest hardworking folks are going to be out of luck.

> But the "common man" has run rampant over other industries
> through selfish, immoral and unthinking demands before

Yes, industries have become obsolete before. Well spotted.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by anappo

Yes, industries have become obsolete before. Well spotted.

Smart people, though, adapt to change. Just as many blacksmiths became car mechanics, I'm sure that, over time, those publishers who wish to remain successful will adapt to the realities of the digital world.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

The world doesn't guarantee me a job, (and I haven't had one for over a year), and it doesn't guarantee you a fair royalty for your works.

Of course not. But do you really want to see the world in which creators cannot be compensated for their work? I don't.

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

It's not "the common man" that has run rampant over industries, it's technology that built up industries, and new technology is tearing them back down.

Wrong. The common man decides, with his wallet. When he buys into something that is culturally, environmentally, or even technologically damaging, simply because it's cheap, he is deciding foolishly. When he refuses to buy until he sees what he wants, and pays for quality, he is acting smartly. Cheap doesn't make right, any more than might makes right. Any good consumer knows you get what you pay for.

U.S. consumers bought into a non-sustainable credit lifestyle, polluting vehicles, sweat-shop products and mindless pop media, all in the name of the god Cheap... and today, it's costing us. Now consumers are doing their level best to drive e-books over the same cliff by opposing copyright reform, security and compensation (in favor of, in order, none, none and none). And so far, no one has offered anything other than a few Age of Aquarius-style platitudes to suggest how an e-book market can actually work without any of those things, in what is still an economy-driven politically-motivated world.

The world may not "guarantee" me a fair royalty for my work. But I can dicker with that. If, however, the world tells me "we're just going to take whatever you create and pay you nothing, whether you like it or not," it's not worth my while to create anything for a world like that.

[carld]

Originally Posted by ahi

This is the most deranged and delusional thing I have read on Mobileread to date.

He's exactly correct and you are wrong.

[Jaime_Astorga]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

Any good consumer knows you get what you pay for.

This is the refrain of businessmen everywhere trying to justify what seems like an unreasonable price by other standards. No, you don't "get what you pay for." There are many factors which drive up demand or restrict supply (therefore increasing prices) other than quality, and there are many good quality things that are free. For example, is not google the best search engine?

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by Jaime_Astorga

This is the refrain of businessmen everywhere trying to justify what seems like an unreasonable price by other standards. No, you don't "get what you pay for." There are many factors which drive up demand or restrict supply (therefore increasing prices) other than quality, and there are many good quality things that are free. For example, is not google the best search engine?

Google isn't free. It is paid for by advertising.

Try again!

Consumers do know the idea of paying more for better quality, all other things being equal (and fair). Why do Sony TVs cost more than GE TVs? Better quality. Why do people pay more for a Sony TV? Because they appreciate quality. (Could a GE TV suit you? Sure. But you accept the fact that you did not buy the best quality product around... you don't fool yourself into thinking Sony's are overrated, and therefore no better than GE TVs.)

(Or maybe you do.)

[Jaime_Astorga]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

Google isn't free. It is paid for by advertising.

Try again!

I know. But if we go by prices, then can we agree that "advertisement" is much cheaper to someone using google than, say, a $12.99 subscription to use the service? Pirated books aren't free, either, then, since to get them one has to pay for bandwidth and probably visit a site with ads, yet the point stands.