Dear Log,
An odd Guardian story about authors getting upset about Amazon selling used books: "Brought to book: Authors are unhappy that Amazon's secondhand book sale is reducing their royalties. But it's a bad deal for buyers, too"
I think the whole idea of people yowling about connecting used-book sellers with used-book buyers is absolutely crazy. Why don't these authors also demand that their books be made with weak binding, like a lot of college textbooks are, so that after a few weeks of use, the book falls apart, so that you can't ever sell it back?
Or print books on flash-paper, with a wee detonator in the binding that goes off after one month, reducing the book instantly to a pile of ash! And if you try to remove the denotator, the DMCA cops can hunt you down.
Next up: AOLDisneySony sends Fuzzy Lumpkins to US Congress to teach everyone to "respeck mah innellectual propertah!"
A few years ago, Garth Brooks loudly complained about used CDs "costing" him sales. Of course, Microsoft isn't really happy about people reselling their their software. It's all insane. There is a time to let go of one's product and I submit that a good time for doing that would be AFTER YOU SELL IT. I'm lucky enough to be an author and I'd not at all concerned about used book sales canibalizing my royalities. I like to look toward the future, not the past. I wish more people would think like this instead of losing sleep of maybe losing a couple of bucks now and then (this assumes that those who bought the used product would have bought a new one if no used copy was available -- I think this is a questionable assumption. I've bought used CDs that I would have never bought new. Same goes for books.).
Re:Every red cent is mine, Mine, MIME!
TorgoX on 2002-05-05T04:06:57
Hey, remember when it was assumed that the purpose of capitalism was to serve the consumer, not the capitalist? Man, those were the days.And while I'm ranting, I love how DVD players are "zoned", because the movie industry "needs" to be able to treat the different zones as distinct markets. I love how the word "need" gets used there. Can I do that too? As in: "I need my DVD player to play whatever DVD I can put in it."
Re:Every red cent is mine, Mine, MIME!
djberg96 on 2002-05-05T16:37:58
For a short while, Circuit City was selling a version of the APEX AD600 DVD player that would play any zone. It wasn't long before it was removed from the shelves and replaced with one that had the zone restrictions.I think you can find the multi-zoned versions on ebay from time to time if you're *really* interested.
I admit I don't listen to much of heat in this debate, but I have noticed one publisher which tends to lean in entirely the other direction: Baen Books
Not only do they provide a bunch of books for free in electronic form, they also have a service where you can buy online access to 4 or 5 of their titles. This isn't the limited access that Safari apparently provides - but the ability to download the books in a number of formats, and continued access to the books online.
The free books are available from the Baen Free Library, and while these aren't their latest titles, they are all still in print or available for order in hardcopy.
The webscriptions service provides paid access to their very latest titles - certainly well before they're available in Australia. I don't think every author's books are present here, but many are.
Baen have also provided draft snippets from up and coming books on their web board, and these are also available in a central location, with Baen's permission.
I guess this is sounding like an ad for Baen, but I just wanted to point at that at least one publisher doesn't have it's head stuck up it's behind.
