i will try to explain my stand. 2005-12. a small "user" from india HAD 0 means to purchase online content. local content in the stores was the same expensive "imported" stuff and TV was the only main means of consuming content. then with internet, i could suddenly go to piratebay and watch any movie or read any book or download any game. talking about "buying using paypal and stuff", INDIANS STILL CANNOT EASILY BUY F…
This is broadly correct of course. Modern IPR's have been explicitly pushed since the 1990s or so as a neo-colonialist racket; force dirt-poor people in other parts of the world to pay for the West's tech and content, and rake in the billions. Needless to say it doesn't work like that and can never work like that.
yes, and as i said, the pricing is always made with american rates in mind, sure $100 looks good for a software/ music cd or a movie, whatever but poor people from poor countries cannot afford it in the first place.
ebooks are especially stupid in this regard. we are told "this book costs $20 to write, edit, print, sell, transport, wastage and all that" but when it comes to ebooks, prices are equal or more so what happened? i was told back when that a textbook author gets no more than 5% of the sticker price royalty. rest is in transportation and seller margins and stuff. i've always said "here, 5% of $20 is $1. how about the author gets $2 or 3, that is the extent of my "moral obligation" and everyone is happy but no. "
Each time this subject comes up I feel moved to repost this article [1]. The welfare of humanity, our species, no longer aligns with the "publishing industry". Brutal, radical reform is now necessary. [1] https://www.timeshighereducation.com/opinion/2048-informatio... (turn off js to view)
Alternative archive.ph link for people having trouble to disable Javascript (e.g. on mobile):
I wonder why there isn't a "spotify for books"? We got streaming sites for videos, movies and music, why not a subscription based library?
Amazon has Kindle Unlimited. Also, most libraries allow you to checkout Kindle ebooks.
Kindle Unlimited is not a good model, though. It is extremely anti-competitive. I'm amazed that it is legal in the EU (no big surprise about the US). You can only enter it as an author if you guarantee that your book is not available anywhere else. If you don't put your book on Kindle Unlimited, however, then Amazon will make discovery way harder and sales will be very low. It's essentially a way to keep books on Amazon only.
On a side note, I once had a book that steadily sold 3-5 copies per month, then ran an ad on Amazon that barely boosted the sales and had negative ROI, and directly afterwards there were 0 sales/month. How do I know Amazon's algorithm hasn't downgraded discovery to make me continue to buy ads? I don't, this is entirely up to Amazon and nobody controls or oversees these kind of things.
This google search[0] will provide a list of interesting papers about piracy. They seem generally to support what I think is something like the majority consensus here: - piracy does some harm to sales, especially of new books, but can increase consumer knowledge and therefor increase diversity of sales and sales of older works: "effect of piracy is heterogeneous: piracy decreased the legitimate sales of ongoing comi…
This seems to imply that you could get most of the socially-desirable effects of piracy simply by instituting compulsory royalties for previously-published works that have since fallen out of print. As of today, most out of print works will simply never get republished and users who want to access them legally have to resort to substandard solutions such as the used market, or merely borrowing a legitimate copy of th…
Yes, that's one possible solution to the issue of out-of-print works. Compulsory licensing or royalty payments for these works could provide a way for them to be republished and made available to the public again. This would create value by ensuring that these works remain accessible, and by providing a financial incentive for publishers to republish them.
This google search[0] will provide a list of interesting papers about piracy. They seem generally to support what I think is something like the majority consensus here: - piracy does some harm to sales, especially of new books, but can increase consumer knowledge and therefor increase diversity of sales and sales of older works: "effect of piracy is heterogeneous: piracy decreased the legitimate sales of ongoing comi…
It’s a well organized discussion of the philosophical viewpoints surrounding piracy. I felt a compulsion to share based on the parent’s use of “where none should exist” (which borders on opinion).
Each time this subject comes up I feel moved to repost this article [1]. The welfare of humanity, our species, no longer aligns with the "publishing industry". Brutal, radical reform is now necessary. [1] https://www.timeshighereducation.com/opinion/2048-informatio... (turn off js to view)
Alternative archive.ph link for people having trouble to disable Javascript (e.g. on mobile): https://archive.ph/EHird