what is Sony thinking?

[yvanleterrible]

Must be in the works somewhere, they have very good lawyers.

[UncleDuke]

if they own the books they can also mine the content for new movies, tv shows and doughnuts

[NatCh]

Mmmmm, do-nuts.

[Amadeus]

Originally Posted by ultim8fury

How is this in any way in the interest of the rights holder ? they make absolutely no cash on the sale of second-hand books.

This is how it has always been with with paper books. The rights holder gets nothing from secondhand sales. In the case of paper books rights holders have always accepted this and we are allowed to sell on the books we purchase with few restrictions. Similar is the case with normal music CDs, which have always been unprotected - the publishers don't like it, but they still get copied. Another way of thinking of this is that the rights owner is getting a "Mechanical Copyright" payment for every legitimate physical copy of the product pressed under the agreement with the publisher, regardless of whether that copy is sold on, copied or whatever. This is the way that the media distribution market has always worked up to now, simply because there was no other option.

The DRM brigade, not content with simply copying the market model of paper books, is trying to rein in our rights as much as possible. IMO this is a retrograde step and instead of stimulating uptake of the technology motivates people to find ways of breaking the copyright protection.

They just don't get it - offer a cheap, flexible service which gives people what they are used to, and everyone will buy it without question. Try to screw people into the ground and you'll just get their backs up. Just because you CAN control things more with DRM doesn't necessarily mean that you SHOULD do so.

[Amadeus]

Originally Posted by HarryT

In a capitalist society, isn't it the goal of every company to monopolise its market sector and discourage competition? A company's goal - in fact its legal obligation - is to make money for its shareholders, not to be "nice" to its customers! If being "nice" helps to win it business, then that may be a part of its business strategy, but one should never make the mistake of thinking that a large company exists to "make the world a better place".

That is exactly my point. If I were a Sony shareholder, I'd be wondering about the effectiveness of their policy. You gain more revenue by having hordes of happy customers making repeat purchases than you do by driving them away with high prices and restrictive controls on the product. The knock-on effect is that if you have customers bad-mouthing you and accusing you of being greedy, it doesn't help your other product areas either.

Then there is the issue of motivation to crack the copyright protection - all it takes is a few p*ssed-off tech-savvy users with enough resources and you end up like Microsoft have with the breaking of their protected .LIT format. Once all your released catalogue gets pushed out illegally into the public domain you start to lose a lot of potential sales, so better try to avoid that problem by a more enlightened approach.

I'm advocating the kind of model that offers excellent value, wide range, good quality and flexibility - like the extremely successful "Gourmet Chinese Buffet" concept, rather than trying to sell "The Ivy" to people who can't afford to eat lunch there every day.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Amadeus

That is exactly my point. If I were a Sony shareholder, I'd be wondering about the effectiveness of their policy. You gain more revenue by having hordes of happy customers making repeat purchases than you do by driving them away with high prices and restrictive controls on the product. The knock-on effect is that if you have customers bad-mouthing you and accusing you of being greedy, it doesn't help your other product areas either.

Sorry - I really don't agree with you that prices are high. The typical price of a book in the Connect store is something like half, or even less, what it would cost me to buy that same paper book here in the UK.

Then there is the issue of motivation to crack the copyright protection - all it takes is a few p*ssed-off tech-savvy users with enough resources and you end up like Microsoft have with the breaking of their protected .LIT format. Once all your released catalogue gets pushed out illegally into the public domain you start to lose a lot of potential sales, so better try to avoid that problem by a more enlightened approach.

I must respectfully disagree with you again. I think you're doing most users an injustice by saying that they will obtain illegal copies of copyrighted material rather than buy it. I still buy music CDs even though I could trivially download the same music from the Internet "free". Why? Because I'm honest, and I believe that most other users are honest too. BTW, one minor point - releasing illegal copies of copyrighted material onto the Internet certainly does not place it into the "public domain". That is a phrase which has a specific legal meaning, and illegally copied material certainly isn't included in it.

I'm advocating the kind of model that offers excellent value, wide range, good quality and flexibility - like the extremely successful "Gourmet Chinese Buffet" concept, rather than trying to sell "The Ivy" to people who can't afford to eat lunch there every day.

I'm afraid I'm not familiar with your examples, but personally I feel that the Connect Store does sell books at reasonable prices. Remember, most of the cost of publishing is not the process of printing the book - it's the work done by the publisher in advance of publication, the cost of which has to be re-couped in the price of the book. I say that as an author. There is a myth that eBooks should somehow be a lot cheaper than printed books. That's simply not true - all the costs other than the relatively minor costs of printing are still there.

[Xenophon]

HarryT wrote:

Sorry - I really don't agree with you that prices are high. The typical price of a book in the Connect store is something like half, or even less, what it would cost me to buy that same paper book here in the UK.

Harry:

The typical price of a book in the Connect store is within a few percent of what it would cost me to purchase the paper book from Amazon.com or bn.com, including shipping!

Beyond that, I have the example of Baen Books, who have demonstrated that they can make a handy profit on eBooks at about $6.00 per book (for singles) or with bundles of 6-8 books for $15.00 if you purchase the batch of stuff they published in a particular month. And the authors get about the same (or better) royalty payment when compared to a paper sale. And the publisher clears a bit more too. And they're not DRM-crippled either.

I'm NOT going to pay paper-book prices for bits that I won't be able to use in a few years because my reader stops working, or Sony exits the market (or just stops supporting the PRS500). Each of these has happened to me with past reader devices -- they are not straw-man scenarios!

I must respectfully disagree with you again. I think you're doing most users an injustice by saying that they will obtain illegal copies of copyrighted material rather than buy it. I still buy music CDs even though I could trivially download the same music from the Internet "free". Why? Because I'm honest, and I believe that most other users are honest too. BTW, one minor point - releasing illegal copies of copyrighted material onto the Internet certainly does not place it into the "public domain". That is a phrase which has a specific legal meaning, and illegally copied material certainly isn't included in it.

I'm with you on this part, though, especially on the meaning of "public domain" and the willingness of most users to purchase conveniently available, reasonably priced content.

Remember, most of the cost of publishing is not the process of printing the book - it's the work done by the publisher in advance of publication, the cost of which has to be re-couped in the price of the book. I say that as an author. There is a myth that eBooks should somehow be a lot cheaper than printed books. That's simply not true - all the costs other than the relatively minor costs of printing are still there.

I partly agree here. Certainly there are significant editorial costs, as well as proof-reading, copy-editing, and lots of other stuff. On the flip side, these costs are already incurred for the production of the dead-tree edition. In the Baen example above, the eBooks are paying their full share of those costs (amortized over dollar-value-to-Baen of the sales). The costs that are NOT there, however, are the distributor's markup (to cover their overhead and profit) and the retailer's markup (to cover ditto). Baen and Baen's authors do at least as well when you buy bits as they do when you buy dead-tree-in-a-store -- and sometimes a good deal better! And that's at the very reasonable price-points I gave above. With no encryption, no DRM, and no piracy problem.

Given my comparison with purchasing dead-tree editions from Amazon or BN, and my example taken from Baen, I submit that books in the connect store are over priced. And that's for less value due to the DRM, to boot.

Xenophon

[igorsk]

Originally Posted by Xenophon

In the Baen example above, the eBooks are paying their full share of those costs (amortized over dollar-value-to-Baen of the sales). The costs that are NOT there, however, are the distributor's markup (to cover their overhead and profit) and the retailer's markup (to cover ditto). Baen and Baen's authors do at least as well when you buy bits as they do when you buy dead-tree-in-a-store -- and sometimes a good deal better!

Hm, do you have a source for this info?

[Xenophon]

Originally Posted by igorsk

Hm, do you have a source for this info?

Jim Baen used to post now and then at Baen's Bar giving semi-specific information about how Webscriptions was doing. I either saw the information there, or in one of Eric Flint's missives on Copyright, DRM, and the like.

A recent guestimate posted by one of Baen's authors (I'm brain-stalling on which one) said that royalties on Webscriptions purchases work out roughly as eArc pays a royalty similar to a hardcover sale; single-book purchase pays similar to large-format paperback; monthly bundle sale similar to paperback purchase. Except that there's a fudge factor in splitting the money from bundle sales between the various authors, so that the guy with the best-seller gets more than the guy whose book went noplace.

If you want better information, go ask in person at baen's bar -- bar.baen.com.

Xenophon

[slayda]

Originally Posted by igorsk

Hm, do you have a source for this info?

Igorsk, I concur with Xenophon. I, too, have seen such statements on the Baen site.

EDIT: However, be careful on the Baen site. I had already finished the purchase for "Off Armageddon Reef" by David Weber before I noticed the price ($18).

[igorsk]

I see, thanks!

[Xenophon]

Originally Posted by slayda

Igorsk, I concur with Xenophon. I, too, have seen such statements on the Baen site.

EDIT: However, be careful on the Baen site. I had already finished the purchase for "Off Armageddon Reef" by David Weber before I noticed the price ($18).

Do please note that "Off Armageddon Reef" is a Tor book being sold electronically by Baen. As such, the price was set by Tor, not Baen. My comments about pricing certainly don't apply to it. As for the deal on royalties... who knows? I intended my comments on pricing to apply to Baen's books sold through Webscriptions. Books from other publishers may or may not fall under other deals.

Xenophon

[slayda]

Originally Posted by Xenophon

Do please note that "Off Armageddon Reef" is a Tor book being sold electronically by Baen. As such, the price was set by Tor, not Baen. My comments about pricing certainly don't apply to it. As for the deal on royalties... who knows? I intended my comments on pricing to apply to Baen's books sold through Webscriptions. Books from other publishers may or may not fall under other deals.

Xenophon

Yeah I know but that EDIT was mor a reminder to me to "Look before I leap" than anything else.

[JSWolf]

The solution to the problem is to purchase LIT format files. Then use CLIT to strip the DRM. Load it into Book Designer and you can then write out other formats as needed. If I have to pay for an ebook, I'll pay for lit format. And because I did, the ebooks I have purchased pre-sony I can read in my Sony.

[HarryT]

It's still a great book, even for $18. How could one not buy a new David Weber?

I prefer to look at the positives and think that it's good that Tor have finally released an e-book. Now they've done do, if sales go well, hopefully they'll release more at lower prices in the future.