Being the tech dude that I am, had I decided to write a book and do this I think (perhaps - hindsight and all that) I would have changed the title slightly to prevent the automatons from causing such a problem. Akin to how Apple's App Store policies recommend naming the free version of your app differently from the paid version.
"If these were physical books", there would be a material loss involved: Publisher A paid to produce X books, the distributor lost part of them, and now the Publisher cannot sell them anymore, suffering a direct and quantifiable economic loss. Here, it's more like the distributor left their books around in a library, and some people got to read them for free. The publisher can still sell them. There is no direct loss…
>Here, it's more like the distributor left their books around in a library, and some people got to read them for free. I would say it's more like some people walked out of the library with them. The author most certainly did lose something: sales.
>I would say it's more like some people walked out of the library with them.
No. If anything, they are walking out of the library with a perfect copy of the book, while the library still has the original. Nobody looses anything. People need to stop clinging to paid distribution of content as a business model. It's obsolete.
You list with them, you play by their rules. They're not locking you into their store in anyway shape or form.
Except he was playing by the rules, and got shafted anyway. They erroneously price-matched, making his book free, and depriving him of royalties. Their mistake; his loss.
>Here, it's more like the distributor left their books around in a library, and some people got to read them for free. I would say it's more like some people walked out of the library with them. The author most certainly did lose something: sales.
>I would say it's more like some people walked out of the library with them. No. If anything, they are walking out of the library with a perfect copy of the book, while the library still has the original. Nobody looses anything. People need to stop clinging to paid distribution of content as a business model. It's obsolete.
If by "obsolete", you mean "a business that rolls in many billions of dollars every year", then you're right.
Amazon should own up and pay. They have effectively stolen from this author. No, we can't guarantee that those people would have bought it for free, but if these were physical books, the law would require that they pay the author. The agreement wasn't that they get to change the price any time they like. The agreement was that they get to match competitors. They violated that.
And you should go fuck yourself, you self-entitled bastard.
You have effectively stolen from everyone with your belief in the ownership of expression. You and your buddy, PG, can go fuck yourselves.
Being the tech dude that I am, had I decided to write a book and do this I think (perhaps - hindsight and all that) I would have changed the title slightly to prevent the automatons from causing such a problem. Akin to how Apple's App Store policies recommend naming the free version of your app differently from the paid version.
Who sells in a marketplace where someone else sets your price for you automatically without your approval? Amazon isn't a distributor in this case any more than the person who owns the tent at a fleamarket allows people to sell underneath it. In any case, Amazon's automatic algorithm to save themselves money from having to pay humans to do it nipped them this time and they owe the author. Do the right thing and settl…
'Who sells in a marketplace where someone else sets your price for you automatically without your approval?' Most people who sell products do. You sell at your wholesale price, and the retailer sets the retail price.
True, but the tricky part here is that Amazon got to set the wholesale price, too. Larger publishers have negotiated fixed wholesale prices (against Amazon's attempt to push back), but self-published eBook authors get a percentage of the retail price, so when Amazon varies the retail price, the wholesale price varies accordingly.
"If these were physical books", there would be a material loss involved: Publisher A paid to produce X books, the distributor lost part of them, and now the Publisher cannot sell them anymore, suffering a direct and quantifiable economic loss. Here, it's more like the distributor left their books around in a library, and some people got to read them for free. The publisher can still sell them. There is no direct loss…
Your point only hold up if the _only_ reason for compensation in the case of physical books would be the cost to the publisher to print them. I'm trying to understand your point as far as intellectual property. Is it your belief that IP should not be compensated for and the only cost of the work should be whatever is necessary to the goods into consumers hands, be it physical or digital distribution? I'm not trying t…
No, my point was simply that analogies between real and digital world are flawed and shouldn't be used.