Amazon says 'will have to capitulate and accept Macmillan's terms'

[rixte]

Originally Posted by Lemurion

Ask Amazon, they are the ones who set the price.

Macmillan said that they were going to the new model with dynamic pricing as of the end of March. It's still the beginning of February.

Let's wait until the policy is supposed to go into effect before complaining that they are not following it.

Actually, that's not completely correct.

Amazon sets the price at 9.99, yes. But they do so based on the publisher's suggested retail price - Macmillan's price - of 14.99. And the 14.99 is the price that Macmillan receives their revenue percent. And THAT is why we don't trust or believe in them...because they're not acting in good faith NOW with either Amazon or with consumers, so why should we believe they will when they have contracts that are even more favorable to them?

[MerLock]

Originally Posted by Lemurion

The pricing part that always drives me nuts is when the dead tree version is in mass market for about $8 and the ebook is still hovering near $15-20. I can't stand it and won't pay those prices.

That's why I brought it up in another post. Was the price lowered and someone forgot to tell Amazon, someone at Amazon forgot to lower the price, or the ebook price was never intended to be lower and that's why it's higher?

As I mentioned before, that's the problem with ebooks. With physical media, no one would forgot to put the correct price on because it has be to be stocked. For ebooks, I can see a price change easily forgotten because it doesn't have to be stocked with something physical. Price it and forget it.

I would hate it if it was up to the customer to remind the retailer that a lower paper version is available.

[Blue Tyson]

Originally Posted by guyanonymous

Can we at least agree that the consumer would benefit from a more transparent and clear pricing structure/rational for most things we consume?

No, that is useful, but not necessarily beneficial.

e.g. could still be robbed blind, regardless.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by zerospinboson

Are you purposely being obtuse?
Again, my problem isn't with the monopolies, my problem is with the fact that the market is too concentrated around a few large publishers, who can set prices for their entire product line, who can strong-arm authors, etc. And sure, it's strictly speaking legal to do so for them, but the more concentration, the harder it is to avoid, and the easier it is for them to do so without being punished for it because people will move to other publishers.

No, I'm not being "obtuse" - I'm struggling to understand the point you're making. You said in a previous post that you support free market economics. Those six (or however many it is) publishers have achieved market dominance by the very process of free market economics that you say that you support - by taking over or driving out of business their smaller rivals. So on the one hand you're saying that you're in favour of a free market, but on the other hand you're saying that you don't like the outcome that that free market has created. I'm afraid that sounds like a contradiction to me.

[Blue Tyson]

Harry,

It is not an actual free market, as they have a lot of protectionism working for them.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by Blue Tyson

Harry,

It is not an actual free market, as they have a lot of protectionism working for them.

What kind of protectionism are you referring to? And can you give an example of a real free market?

[Blue Tyson]

Copyright regions are glaringly obvious protectionism.

A real free market? An international one?

[zerospinboson]

Originally Posted by HarryT

No, I'm not being "obtuse" - I'm struggling to understand the point you're making. You said in a previous post that you support free market economics. Those six (or however many it is) publishers have achieved market dominance by the very process of free market economics that you say that you support - by taking over or driving out of business their smaller rivals. So on the one hand you're saying that you're in favour of a free market, but on the other hand you're saying that you don't like the outcome that that free market has created. I'm afraid that sounds like a contradiction to me.

As I said directly after your first reply:

Originally Posted by zerospinboson

Publishers are (considering that 6 pubs have 80% market share) oligarchs who have monopolies on products. But yes, you're right. I should say that I want a regulated free market, which ensures that companies can't become too big for their britches. I wasn't talking about Amazon, in any case. (Because of the oligarchy it's very hard to boycot single publishers, as they control so many 'desirable' authors.)

In any case, I don't really understand why you are so interested in pointing out that I was being "contradictory". Infelicitous phrasing of my first post aside, it seems to me quite obvious what the main issue I was pointing to was.

Anyway, one way in which they benefit extraordinarily (that is, compared to just about any other industry) from their copyrights is that, because they have eternal copyright on the products they sell, they can keep collecting money forever from the few books which keep selling, and they have a guaranteed minimum income.
This ensures that, after collecting 'hits' for more than 80 years now, they will have amassed an enormous 'default' income that other publishers will never be able to compete with. And with this money they can buy up the more successful authors, creating even more concentration.
Eternal copyright is bad in more ways than one.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by Lemurion

The pricing part that always drives me nuts is when the dead tree version is in mass market for about $8 and the ebook is still hovering near $15-20. I can't stand it and won't pay those prices.

Exactly and don't expect it to get better if the big bully MacMillan gets their way. They don't even seem to want to sell ebooks. This move by them is flat out protectionism of their print business.

What floors me is that in the current model it is only Amazon that is losing money, not the publishers, not the authors.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by Blue Tyson

Copyright regions are glaringly obvious protectionism.

A real free market? An international one?

In what way is copyright regions protectionism? Why does it matter for the market now if the copyright ends in life+50 or life+70?

And why is not a mrket in one county a free market if an international would be one? And why restrict to an international one? Why not the whole universe?

[Blue Tyson]

Not sure why you don't get this. US rights. UK rights. Australian rights.

Copyright itself is protectionism, too, of course.

Why does it matter, the term? That's is 20 extra years of monopoly rents people pay in some cases, that is why. A lot of money, over several billion people that is.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by zerospinboson

Anyway, one way in which they benefit extraordinarily (that is, compared to just about any other industry) from their copyrights is that, because they have eternal copyright on the products they sell, they can keep collecting money forever from the few books which keep selling, and they have a guaranteed minimum income.

A long time - yes. Forever - no. Eg, from this year, anyone in a "life + 50" country, such as Canada, can freely produce their own edition of Raymond Chandler's books and sell them. In "life + 70" countries (ie pretty much everywhere in the world), anyone is free to sell "Sherlock Holmes" books. Both popular works, by any definition.

I know that copyright might seem to be "eternal" from the point of view of the individual, but it honestly isn't .

[zerospinboson]

Originally Posted by HarryT

A long time - yes. Forever - no.
I know that copyright might seem to be "eternal" from the point of view of the individual, but it honestly isn't .

...And once again you respond to an irrelevant detail in stead of the actual point.
From the point of corporations/the market/modern innovation cycles, 100+ years of guaranteed income is an immensely (You've frightened me out of using the word eternal, congratulations?) long time. No other industry has this sort of right to a guaranteed income, and it's all because they play, on the one hand, into the fear of "decreased" (though nobody really knows how to define it) creativity/innovation, and on the other into feeling sympathy for authors and musicians who either want their kids to have the right to not have to do an honest day's work for the first 70 years after they've died, or haven't done an honest day's work themselves in the past 50 years during which the performance copyright did apply, or else they'd have another source of income to which copyright still applied.
And then there is the fact that the more successful corporations can stifle the competition with that guaranteed income, making sure no new entrants start offering comparable goods & services at a reduced price.

[HarryT]

So, from a practical perspective, what do you think should be done about it? You've said that you're unhappy that a small number of publishers monopolise the publishing industry. Do you think that it's feasible, in the existing legal framework, to tear up all the publishing contracts and give anyone a right to publish any book that they choose?

[tompe]

Originally Posted by Blue Tyson

Not sure why you don't get this. US rights. UK rights. Australian rights.

This is not different copyright. This is different licenses in different regions.