The downward spiral of ownership and value

[xchrom]

http://www.librarything.com/blogs/thingology/2011/01/ebooks-the-downward-spiral-of-ownership-and-value/

Second, the more ownership is devalued, the less people care about the rights of the seller. When someone sells you something they made, or through a small number of simple intermediaries, it’s easy to see what’s wrong about cheating them. When authors’ work is reduced to a limitless soup, available through shiny digital spigots at cheap, but limited, rates, it’s hard to see where problem with piracy really lies, and easier to rationalize cheating authors.



this is very interesting and thought provoking piece about e-books, books and owning books.

me? i love owning books. reading them -- feeling them in my hand.
i use technology only for article reading.

[leveymg]

1. Literacy and access to literature and information are a basic human need and right.

Hence, the public library and public broadcasting, which are two of the crowning glories of modern western civilization. Anyone who denies these things in the name of profit or governmental austerity is an enemy of humanity, in my book.

However, authors and publishers deserve fair compensation for their work, like everyone else. Same for musicians and the recording industry. If we remove the incentive of compensation, access will diminish, particularly for new works. That would be a disaster.

[HereSince1628]

2. Libraries have changed,

The smell of ink and gently moldering books in the stacks of one college I know has been replaced by the smell of a Starbucks franchise in what years ago was the reading room.

[Tansy_Gold]

3. I only read this one segment of the series, so my view may be skewed.

I, too, love books and I own several tons of them. But I also love ebooks. So I have to wonder if some of the argument against ebooks is merely nostalgia and a resistance to change.

My point of view, of course, is that of a reader but also as an author of published popular fiction. I have, therefore, some experience with the way publishing-in-paper works, and doesn't work.

Here are some of the points that came to mind while I was reading the essay.

1. The chain of profit-skimmers between author and reader is vast, and most of the people in that chain make more off a copy of a book than the author. There are printers and binders, typesetters and cover artists, distributors and truck drivers, loggers and pulp mill operators, mall owners and property managers, etc., etc., etc. Throw in libraries and used bookstores and even Amazon, ABE, and other online sellers of second-hand books, and there are a lot of people making money off the printed word. Romance novelist Rebecca Brandewyne campaigned vociferously for years to get library rental royalties and used-book royalties paid to authors, but as far as I know, she never got anywhere with it. (Never mind the dollars involved in subsidiary rights sales such as to movies and tv.) If a proliferation of epublishing eliminated all these profit-takers, maybe authors would make out a lot better EVEN AT VASTLY REDUCED PRICES.

2. The cost of printing paper copies of some books makes owning them out of the reach of many readers. I remember having to buy a large paperback book as a text for one of my classes in 2002 and hte price was $53. Of course, it had a lot of pictures, many in color, and it was an academic text with a small potential audience. When the publisher has to recoup set-up costs over, say, 5,000 copies rather than 50,000, the price is going to go up considerably. For another class we were supposed to buy a lavishly illustrated art book, until the instructor found out the price was something over $150 and the book was out of print anyway. An ebook that merely referenced public domain images on the web wouldn't cost nearly as much. In fact, I was able to transcribe the text of another art book required for that class, link to the works on the internet, and it didn't cost me anything, other than some time.

3. Physical ownership is often more of a class and status issue than a personal reading preference. In the days when hand-written manuscripts were the province only of the very wealthy, so today are book collections the sign of disposable income to buy them AND ownership of space to keep them. My books occupy a lot of space. I had to buy bookcases on which to store -- and display -- them. A Kindle or an external hard drive isn't quite so ostentatious.

4. A library of searchable ebooks would save me hours and hours and hours of looking for bits of esoteric information. Like the time I spent days looking for a quote by a specific author and actually read three complete books by him, only to realize the quote was from another author. . . . .

5. Books would never be out of print. (I love Project Gutenberg!!!!)

6. Think of all the trees we'd save.



TG, TT

[xchrom]

4. i think his is the first in a series thinking about this.

and i would make a couple of -- observations -- where owning books was a sign of class -- it is a good deal less so today.
being someone who has shopped high priced booksellers and salvation army and good will.

now i also make a point of editing what i own -- i'm a -- and you won't be surprised -- a promiscuous reader -- but i don't want to own everything.

the book at least makes sure the author does get some compensation -- i would note this from the blog:
'First, people who love autonomy and personal freedom rebel against metered and monitored access to reading. They don’t want inconvenient DRM, monstrous and opaque licenses, transfer limitations, constant access requirements or icky, opaque monitoring. These people will turn to piracy to avoid it. (Or at least that’s what they’ll say they’re doing.)

Second, the more ownership is devalued, the less people care about the rights of the seller. When someone sells you something they made, or through a small number of simple intermediaries, it’s easy to see what’s wrong about cheating them. When authors’ work is reduced to a limitless soup, available through shiny digital spigots at cheap, but limited, rates, it’s hard to see where problem with piracy really lies, and easier to rationalize cheating authors.

As devalued ownership feeds piracy, rising piracy in turn devalues ownership. Anyone with an internet connection can rapidly assemble a “library” of books it would have once taken years to build–so why bother building one?'

so i know i don't engage all your points -- but those were the two that struck me.
i don't pretend to be any kind of expert -- but i do have some passion that the person who creates a book, music, whatever -- gets paid for it.

[bhikkhu]

5. Things are definitely shifting, but it need not be negative

I think the big failure of the music industry is the result of the insistence of corporate interests to stand as impermeable barriers between artist and consumer. The publishing industry seems to be following the same model.

...which is to say, while the internet allows almost immediate access to any book or music through piracy, the only legitimate alternative the industry offers is convoluted and expensive, and (in my experience) unpleasantly final. One can "friend" a writer or musician directly on the internet, but in most cases one cannot directly download a writer or musician's work, whether for pay or not; one must choose between one of two possible intermediaries: an anonymous pirate association who cares nothing for anyone, or a corporate entity who also cares nothing for anyone, unless sufficient cash is forthcoming. The current arrangement is clearly antique and inefficient, and will likely be replaced by darwinian means.

What I see in the future is an inevitable democratization and opening up of the whole process, where the corporate part of the industry becomes increasingly superfluous. Like many, I would love to sample work directly from authors and artists, and I would love to directly and fairly support the work that enriches my own life.

[customerserviceguy]

6. Is the satisfaction of a book in 'owning' a bunch of bound paper?

Or is it in 'experiencing' the story in a work of fiction, or the learning from reading a non-fiction book? Amassing great libraries of books you don't read from is just hoarding.

I read the piece, too, it seems like it's trying too hard to justify an old, outdated model of imparting knowledge, or obtaining entertainment. I wonder if the buggy whip makers had such sorts of logic as their industry was dying, too.

It costs a lot of money to produce dead-tree editions of books, and to transport them around. It also costs a lot to make large edifices in which to store them for sale or lending to others. Why should an author be any less pleased with a buck they got from an e-book than they are from the buck they got for the $25 paper book? I would think that an author would be more pleased to have a greater base of readers, rather than a small base of people willing to fork out a considerable sum, when the return to the author is the same.

[Tansy_Gold]

9. This also makes for a smaller base of authors

The best-selling authors' works command attention. The booksellers want what they know they can sell. The publishers want to print what they know they can sell. They are less and less and less likely to take the risks of publishing "unknowns." So they push the best sellers, who would sell anyway, and neglect the new and midlist writers, who never "break out" to become best sellers.

Publishing is a for-profit enterprise, and most of the publishers are corporations. You can take it from there.



TG, TT

[marmar]

7. I'm with you on books, xchrom.....

I'm no Luddite by any stretch of the imagination, but give me an actual book with the book smell, the cracking of the pages, the bookmarks etc etc. I have no desire to sit there with a little digital pad reading scrolling text for hours.

[xchrom]

8. I appreciate that. Nt

[Tansy_Gold]

10. X-post from The Straight Story, for sake of discussion

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x357791




I just thought it interesting that the same subject, from slightly different points of view, came up. The compulsive reader/writer in me had to dive into both. . . .




TG, TT

[xchrom]

12. +1

[zehnkatzen]

11. Your Kindle may be all shiny and neat - but my book will still open after an EMP. k/r n/t