DRM poll: How do you deal with it.

[EdwardM]

If I had actually been able to find what I wanted through official means, I wouldn't have had to resort to the means that I acquired by "library" through. While I know I'll never read it all, since my reader (Sony 505) will display .rtf and .pdf like a champ, it's not hard for me to take anything and convert it.

I'd actually buy books if the publishers were pricing them they way e-books were promised several years ago - cover cost minus production cost. If a $6.99 book cost $5.00 to print and ship, I should expect to pay $1.99, not $6.99.

[pdurrant]

A $7.00 mass-market paperback probably costs the publisher between $0.50 and $1.00 per copy to get printed and bound.

$3.50 (at least) will go to the distributor/retailer
$0.50 will go to the author

The remaining $2.00-$2.50 goes to the publisher. Out of which they have to pay the editor, cover artists, advertising, and the cost of books that don't sell.

Originally Posted by EdwardM

If I had actually been able to find what I wanted through official means, I wouldn't have had to resort to the means that I acquired by "library" through. While I know I'll never read it all, since my reader (Sony 505) will display .rtf and .pdf like a champ, it's not hard for me to take anything and convert it.

I'd actually buy books if the publishers were pricing them they way e-books were promised several years ago - cover cost minus production cost. If a $6.99 book cost $5.00 to print and ship, I should expect to pay $1.99, not $6.99.

[astra]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

A $7.00 mass-market paperback probably costs the publisher between $0.50 and $1.00 per copy to get printed and bound.

$3.50 (at least) will go to the distributor/retailer
$0.50 will go to the author

The remaining $2.00-$2.50 goes to the publisher. Out of which they have to pay the editor, cover artists, advertising, and the cost of books that don't sell.

Should not it be the other way around?
3.50 to author, 2.00 to publisher and 1 to retailer?

However, if the scheme mentioned above is true, then ebooks should cost US peanuts because $3.50 (at least) will go to the distributor/retailer costs are eliminated?

[astra]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

and the cost of books that don't sell.

and this one is obsolete with ebooks as well.

Someone down the line is VERY greedy and doesn't want ebooks to succeed at all.

[bill_mchale]

Originally Posted by astra

and this one is obsolete with ebooks as well.

Someone down the line is VERY greedy and doesn't want ebooks to succeed at all.

Actually, I think I would say that someone is just very greedy . The publishers are probably looking at increased margins and figuring it will pad their bottom lines rather nicely.

On the flip side, I am convinced that most publishers are still worried about undermining their traditional outlets (i.e. book stores). While they believe that the future is probably ebooks, they are worried that they won't survive if the old fashioned book store goes under.

--
Bill

[Xenophon]

Originally Posted by EdwardM

<<SNIP>>

I'd actually buy books if the publishers were pricing them they way e-books were promised several years ago - cover cost minus production cost. If a $6.99 book cost $5.00 to print and ship, I should expect to pay $1.99, not $6.99.

That'd get you eBooks from a distributor at a price of around $5.99-$6.49 (after subtracting the print-and-ship cost). Purchasing direct (or semi-direct) from the publisher -- as at Baen* -- could potentially remove some or all of the distributor's cut, bringing the cost down to about $3.00. It would be quite unrealistic to expect the prices to go much below that point. Most publishers are not, in fact, tremendously profitable. And they have real expenses both for production of books that you see (marketing, artwork, etc.) and also editorial costs for books that never get published. It takes time and energy to winnow the slush-pile. And to look at non-slush submissions. And to run the business in general. And...

Certainly ebooks can be profitably sold for lower prices than most publishers are currently aiming at -- Baen's doing quite nicely on it, thank you very much! But the numbers pdurrant gave show pretty clearly why you won't see prices much below what Baen is charging any time soon.

The BIG feature of eBooks, IMHO, is that they need never go out of print!

Xenophon


*Note that Webscriptions is a separate business, albeit one with a very close relationship with Baen. The "Evil Henchman" who runs webscriptions has to make a living too, so you can't expect to completely get rid of the distributor's cut. Further, if you are buying from Fictionwise (or any of the other eBook distributors), they have to make a living and keep the lights on and servers humming. Their cut may be (should be?) a smaller percentage than a bricks-and-mortar distributor/retailer, but it's not going to go away either.

[Xenophon]

Originally Posted by astra

Should not it be the other way around?
3.50 to author, 2.00 to publisher and 1 to retailer?

However, if the scheme mentioned above is true, then ebooks should cost US peanuts because $3.50 (at least) will go to the distributor/retailer costs are eliminated?

The current price structure is what's required for profitability in the bricks-and-mortar world. Not ideal, but reality.

Note that the distributor/retailer costs are not eliminated for eBooks, although they may be reduced significantly. There's still a distributor for most eBooks. We have, however, managed to cut out one level of the distribution tree, and reduce the costs of another quite significantly. At the most successful ebook vendors, much of that savings has been passed on to the customers.

And then there's the pricing insisted on by certain large publishers who shall remain nameless...

Xenophon

[delphidb96]

Originally Posted by astra

Should not it be the other way around?
3.50 to author, 2.00 to publisher and 1 to retailer?

However, if the scheme mentioned above is true, then ebooks should cost US peanuts because $3.50 (at least) will go to the distributor/retailer costs are eliminated?

There's no way a publisher is going to kick 50% of the price of an ebook to the author. Why? Because for most titles, the sales don't match with the up-front 'advance' paid to the author. However, if the publisher would set up a reasonable online store which marketed the new titles more effectively and if the publishers removed the DRM from their titles, I think that the publishers would find they could give a larger amount of the ebook price to the authors, maybe $1.50 or $2.00.

Derek

[bill_mchale]

Originally Posted by delphidb96

There's no way a publisher is going to kick 50% of the price of an ebook to the author. Why? Because for most titles, the sales don't match with the up-front 'advance' paid to the author. However, if the publisher would set up a reasonable online store which marketed the new titles more effectively and if the publishers removed the DRM from their titles, I think that the publishers would find they could give a larger amount of the ebook price to the authors, maybe $1.50 or $2.00.

Derek

I thought that in general, that the advance on a book was against royalties?

In any case, I think one thing that every publisher needs to keep in mind now is that power might well swing back towards the author. Really, we already see the fact that almost any author can now self publish on the internet. In times past, authors needed publishers not just for editing and marketing a book, but also for production and distribution. Now editing will be the prime function a publisher can provide for a book as I anticipate marketing will be more and more by word of mouth.

--
Bill

[delphidb96]

Originally Posted by bill_mchale

I thought that in general, that the advance on a book was against royalties?

In any case, I think one thing that every publisher needs to keep in mind now is that power might well swing back towards the author. Really, we already see the fact that almost any author can now self publish on the internet. In times past, authors needed publishers not just for editing and marketing a book, but also for production and distribution. Now editing will be the prime function a publisher can provide for a book as I anticipate marketing will be more and more by word of mouth.

--
Bill

Yes, all royalties are paid out *after* 'paying back' the advance. (However, if the book doesn't sell enough for the royalties earned to exceed the advance, the publisher isn't coming after the author for the 'unearned' advance money.)

I think the big problem with your scenario is that most authors get conned into thinking they *must* DRM-protect their self-published works (along with the idea that PDF, formatted to the 8.5" x 11" page, is the 'standard' layout for an ebook. ) and that means we end up having either crappy DRM-laden PDF ebooks or we have a different DRM protection-scheme for every author's ebooks. PHOOOIEEE!

Derek

[Andurian]

Originally Posted by Shaggy

That's not really surprising. DRM only benefits the publishers. I can't think of any reason why a consumer would want DRM.

The only thing I can think of is for libraries to be able to loan out books (which they might be legally allowed to do) rather than give out books (which they almost certainly aren't).

[Andurian]

I'm far from convinced that "would have bought otherwise" is the moral equivalent of theft.

I regularly read magazines at Barnes & Noble for free. I have rarely (three times, I think) read novels at Barnes & Noble for free. Doing both is legal as I understand it (and presumably as B&N understands it, given they provide comfy chairs to do it in).

Some percentage of those magazines would have been purchased by me - probably a small one (I usually read magazines there to kill time to make my lunch hour a full hour). I probably would have bought all the books I read there eventually (I read them there because I was flat broke at the time and they were by an author/in a series that I really wanted to read).

Now if what I did is the moral equivalent of theft it would shock the heck out of me. And yet I did deny the authors money that would have gone to them had I purchased the books. My gut tells me the only real difference is that one is corporate sponsored with comfy chairs and the other one is the unrepresented masses in the underground.

Interestingly, the closest I come to pirating books in the "traditional" sense *doesn't* involve me pirating books I would have bought otherwise. I feel free to DL stuff off the net that I already own as a pbook. And though I do in fact prefer to read it on my Reader (hence the DL), were that impossible (no "Dark Tents" as someone here happily called them) I'd just read the pbook rather than paying for it twice.

The biggest moral quandry I'm placed in is whether it is acceptible to buy the pbook that is cheaper than the ebook and then pirate the ebook rather than buying the (stupidly) more expensive and (stupidly) DRMed ebook in the first place. I haven't had my Reader long enough to reach a personal decision on that one. Probably will pay the extra for the ebook just to encourage the market.

[bill_mchale]

Andurian, you analogy of reading a book in the book store only goes so far. It fails to parallel the situation in the e-book world for the following reasons.

1. Barnes and Nobles and Borders are built on a model that encourages people to spend considerable time there reading potential purchases. It is up to them to decide if they want to limit the amount of time you spend reading a particular book. Since most extended browsers will end up buying coffee and or food at the book store, they still profit from such activities.

2. While some small fraction of the population might read full books in a book store, it is safe to say that most people would prefer to bring the books home with them, and therefore will ultimately purchase the books they want to read all of. Further it is up to the book store, the current legal owner of the copy you are reading to limit your reading of said copy if they should choose (i.e. it falls under fair use).

3. You never have possession of the book in question. You are allowed to hold it, but the book remains on the physical property of the book store and therefore in the possession of the legal owner of that physical copy of the book. If you download a book illegally, then you are in fact taking possession of a book you have no legal right to.

Basically the big difference here is that when you are reading a book in a book store, whether you are reading a few pages or the whole thing, you are reading a copy of the book that is legally owned by the book store. Therefore the bookstore is engaging in fair use by letting you read the book. That is not the case with electronic books.

--
Bill

[Liviu_5]

Originally Posted by bill_mchale

2. While some small fraction of the population might read full books in a book store, it is safe to say that most people would prefer to bring the books home with them, and therefore will ultimately purchase the books they want to read all of. Further it is up to the book store, the current legal owner of the copy you are reading to limit your reading of said copy if they should choose (i.e. it falls under fair use).

An interesting question is if that small fraction is bigger than the fraction of the population reading ebooks

I do not generally disagree with the above post, but to me the whole drm debate misses a very important point - how do you convince people to read ebooks?

People always bring mp3's, how they took off overnight and so on but that misses the fact that you always needed equipmnet to listen to music, music is a one dimensional stream where device size is irrelevant for most people, music is complementary not immersive most of the time - see people jogging and reading lately? driving and reading?...

DRM for e-books is just another obstacle to their acceptance and to me the only way we will advance the e-book cause is when publishers will get squeezed hard in revenue and will do anything to get more. Maybe the current recession will do, maybe the next generation of all purpose devices combined with the next generation of young people who are growing up with p2p, maybe Google books, maybe Amazon Kindle e-textbooks, but still e-books growing and all are insignificant in the book business so far so the question I posed above is not really facetious right now...

[Andurian]

Originally Posted by bill_mchale

Andurian, you analogy of reading a book in the book store only goes so far. It fails to parallel the situation in the e-book world for the following reasons.

1. Barnes and Nobles and Borders are built on a model that encourages people to spend considerable time there reading potential purchases. It is up to them to decide if they want to limit the amount of time you spend reading a particular book. Since most extended browsers will end up buying coffee and or food at the book store, they still profit from such activities.

2. While some small fraction of the population might read full books in a book store, it is safe to say that most people would prefer to bring the books home with them, and therefore will ultimately purchase the books they want to read all of. Further it is up to the book store, the current legal owner of the copy you are reading to limit your reading of said copy if they should choose (i.e. it falls under fair use).

3. You never have possession of the book in question. You are allowed to hold it, but the book remains on the physical property of the book store and therefore in the possession of the legal owner of that physical copy of the book. If you download a book illegally, then you are in fact taking possession of a book you have no legal right to.

Basically the big difference here is that when you are reading a book in a book store, whether you are reading a few pages or the whole thing, you are reading a copy of the book that is legally owned by the book store. Therefore the bookstore is engaging in fair use by letting you read the book. That is not the case with electronic books.

--
Bill

I think you misunderstood my point. Your reply is odd to me, given that in the rest of this thread you have consistently been arguing the ethical (hence your insistance on "theft" vs "copyright violation") rather than the legal. Here you seem to have ignored the ethical entirely.

My point is this: If it is not immoral to read books and magazines in B&N, then there is at least one instance where it is not immoral to deny authors payment for their works. Your position in this thread seems to have been that the *reason* piracy is immoral is that it deprives authors of income. If other examples of situations where readers deprive authors of their income are *not* immoral, then depriving authors of their income cannot be a sufficient cause for piracy's immorality.

So what is the difference, *ethically*, between the B&N case and the downloading case, in your opinion? Assuming the B&N case isn't theft (and if you say the B&N case *is* theft I'll take that as a reductio against your position rather than accepting your conclusion), why is the downloading case?