Today In Ridiculous French Regulations: eBook Price Controls!

[elcreative]

Depends on your definition of rather low... real break point is between 30 and 40 mph... 40 mph on residential estate is not slow nor in any heavily pedestrianised area or country lane...

Originally Posted by tompe

I am aware of some of these studies. But I was not aware that they influences how much pedestrians was hurt. It is not obvious since above a certain rather low speed limit most pedestrians hit will die.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by murraypaul

This is getting into fairy-tale territory.
So buying a book from a local store rather than Amazon will prevent child labour in India?

Buying from local stores will allow those local stores to continue trading and act as competition to the multinationals that put profit before everything else.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by murraypaul

You said "What people do is not necessarily correlated with what is good for people."

If that is to have a meaning within the context of this thread surely it must be that buying from the cheapest source is not necessarily good for me?

People buy from the cheapest source because they don't care how that source got to be the cheapest. All they see is the small monetary saving, nothing else really matters to them because they don't need to see it.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by HarryT

What may be good for the individual may not be good for society. It could be argued that, although it's beneficial for you personally to be able to buy cheap books from Amazon, if the result of that is that all the small independent bookshops go out of business, society as a whole is the poorer for it.

For new paper books, Amazon demands a massive discount from the publisher before they will stock them. The only reason they can demand such discounts is because of the immense power they now have over the distribution of books. Tesco (and probably Walmart in America) have the same power over food producers.

[Andrew H.]

Originally Posted by Gaurnim

If you allow small stores to persist (fixed price doesn't ensure they're thriving, mind you), you tend to increase the diversisty of books available to consumers.

This may be true in France. It was demonstrably *not* the case in the US, where big chain bookstores (Borders, B&N) vastly increased the number and diversity of books available.

Big chains usually don't take risks with the books they stock, they take the mainstream stuff and maybe a small number of fringe stuff if the relevant personnel is knowledgeable and interested enough.

Again, certainly not true in most of the US, where the small bookstores mostly had a small selection and focused primarily on bestsellers.

Small stores tend to be a bit specialized and so usually propose a wider variety of books in their chosen field of predilection.

There are a *handful* of bookstores like this here - but the vast majority of small bookstores carried a very general and generic selection of books.

The big chains still dominate the market because they can have a larger stock of the bestsellers and a wider general selection.
They also tend (in France, at least) to stock other items such as CDs, games, DVDs, ... making them a one stop location for "cultural" products and thus drawing more customers.

That's basically the way they are here - but the "wider general selection" was much wider, as the big chains carried almost 10x as many books as the small stores; consequently, the selection and variety was much greater.

And of course the chains also have discounts, mostly on bestsellers, which are substantial - 30-40% off means a savings of roughly $8-$12 per book.

[Andrew H.]

Originally Posted by tompe

But that is like saying that laws to always wear a seatbelt is a "loss" because given the choice consumers nearly always choose not to wear a seatbelt. And so on. What people do is not necessarily correlated with what is good for people.

True enough.

And yet your example makes things too easy. There is a fundamental difference between regulating things because they relate to health and safety and regulating things because you think that certain businesses are better than others. And while I'm not of the opinion that favoring certain businesses over others is always wrong, making me pay more for a car because the safety devices in the car will demonstrably reduce the number of people killed or injured is a lot more justifiable than making me pay more for a consumer product because otherwise someone's expensive business model will suffer.

(Again, not to say that it isn't justifiable - but it's a lot harder to justify).

[tompe]

Originally Posted by murraypaul

You said "What people do is not necessarily correlated with what is good for people."

If that is to have a meaning within the context of this thread surely it must be that buying from the cheapest source is not necessarily good for me?

No it is not necessarily good for you taken the whole future into consideration. Isn't that obvious? Like eating something you like now might kill you later.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by elcreative

Depends on your definition of rather low... real break point is between 30 and 40 mph... 40 mph on residential estate is not slow nor in any heavily pedestrianised area or country lane...

Yes, and I do not believe at all that wearing a seat belt or not makes people go faster at these speeds.

[rogue_librarian]

Originally Posted by Andrew H.

This may be true in France. It was demonstrably *not* the case in the US, where big chain bookstores (Borders, B&N) vastly increased the number and diversity of books available.

When did the US ever have a fixed book price scheme?

Again, certainly not true in most of the US, where the small bookstores mostly had a small selection and focused primarily on bestsellers.

Again, there wasn't anything shielding them from price-based competition. It's a bit disingenuous to say that the scheme failed when it has not been implemented, ever.

[Giggleton]

Originally Posted by rogue_librarian

You, too, sadly fail to grasp the concept. That is exactly what this system allows the author or publisher to do: they get to set the final retail price.

Why do we need a system that ensures that an author will be able to set their own price, it is a natural right. It is also a natural right for anyone who "owns" a pbook to set whatever price they wish when they resell it. If someone decides to resell an ebook, they should be able to set whatever price they wish as well...

This will all become academic when we abolish copyright.

[rogue_librarian]

Originally Posted by Giggleton

Why do we need a system that ensures that an author will be able to set their own price, it is a natural right.

In a word: no. They may, obviously, choose the price they sell for (to the bookseller / distributor / whoever), but once they do it's out of their hands. They have no (and shouldn't have any) influence over the price the reseller demands from his customers.

[Giggleton]

Originally Posted by rogue_librarian

In a word: no. They may, obviously, choose the price they sell for (to the bookseller / distributor / whoever), but once they do it's out of their hands. They have no (and shouldn't have any) influence over the price the reseller demands from his customers.

In the digital world, THERE ARE NO RESELLERS! Get that archaic idea out of your head.

Copyright is censorship, I feel that you do not wish to accept this fact because it will shatter your conceptions, which many find hard to do.

[Ken Maltby]

Hmm... Giggleton, you are making me dizzy.

You support the free market idea that the author ought to be able to establish the price
he charges for his manuscript and the price the publisher gets to set what he charges
when he sells the book and even the consumer gets to set what he will take to resell the
book. This is all based on the natural law that "what I own is mine to sell, if I want or need to". Copyright - gives the Author a means to sell "the right to make copies" to the
publisher, so that the publisher can sell the copies "that he then owns".

There is no reason that a Copyright need provide exclusive, or unlimited right to make
copies to one publisher. (Except that the Publisher might not decide to publish a book
without such provisions. The Author may or may not be in a position to establish such
terms, and end up with a published book.)

It only becomes Censorship if we were to have the conditions you were advocating in
another thread.

Luck;
Ken

[Giggleton]

Originally Posted by Ken Maltby

Hmm... Giggleton, you are making me dizzy.

You support the free market idea that the author ought to be able to establish the price
he charges for his manuscript and the price the publisher gets to set what he charges
when he sells the book and even the consumer gets to set what he will take to resell the
book. This is all based on the natural law that "what I own is mine to sell, if I want or need to". Copyright - gives the Author a means to sell "the right to make copies" to the
publisher, so that the publisher can sell the copies "that he then owns".

There is no reason that a Copyright need provide exclusive, or unlimited right to make
copies to one publisher. (Except that the Publisher might not decide to publish a book
without such provisions. The Author may or may not be in a position to establish such
terms, and end up with a published book.)

It only becomes Censorship if we were to have the conditions you were advocating in
another thread.

Luck;
Ken

The only condition I have advocated is an end to copyright, this would stop price fixing in all of its forms.

Copyright is censorship in that I am currently not allowed under congressional law to make a copy of a book and give that book away to as many people as I please for the purposes of increasing human awareness.

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by Giggleton

The only condition I have advocated is an end to copyright, this would stop price fixing in all of its forms.

Copyright is censorship in that I am currently not allowed under congressional law to make a copy of a book and give that book away to as many people as I please for the purposes of increasing human awareness.

I have wonderful news for you. The current copyright system allows you to buy as many copies of a book as you want to and to give them away one by one to increase human awareness.

You are just not allowed to make the authors and publishers pick up the check for your generosity.