You can always photocopy the screen of the Kindle.
I recognize that this makes me ridiculous, but I haven't been buying e-books because I want my children to grow up in a house full of interesting books like I did. Part of why this is ridiculous is that then I end up checking the books I want to read out of the library, so it's not like they're going to be on my shelf in the future anyway. But still, I'll be damned if I'm going to pay money for books (on a musicologist's income) and then not have them in some kid-accessible format in the future.
I'm not keen. Or I wasn't until I finished moving my 85 linear feet of books out of the old flat and into the new one up three flights of stairs.
I know this is kind of getting sad and everything, but please pay attention to me.
And I expect that at some point in the next couple of decades, something will happen such that all the books I've bought on Kindle will evaporate and no longer be accessible even to me.
Yeah, this seems like a problem.
Also it is somewhat disheartening to see the e-book triumphalism among all the cool sci-fi writers who write cool blogs. How much of that is selfish, i.e. because they're dreaming about a system where used books will not exist and therefore nobody can buy their books without them getting royalties?
I have the same issue with ebooks. However, I love being able to read ebooks on my IPad in the dark. It is a difficult balance.
I end up buying used books to give to friends.
I have gotten better about giving away my books to friends, knowing that I will never again see a decent percentage of them. Like Alex, I had too many.
There's no such thing as too many books.
Though there is such a thing as too many books to move easily.
The solution, which is so blindingly obvious it's hard to believe publishers haven't yet landed on it, is to offer e-books and phyiscal copies together as bundles. Buy a physical book, and you can upload a copy to your reader for for free (for your reading convenience), and also then of course you have a physical book to do with as you please. Or, conversely, download an e-book outside the subway entrance, and you can read it immediately, but you'll also have a physical copy waiting on your doorstep in a few days.
The pricing for this feature should be the same as the price of the physical books (since the marginal production and distribution cost of the e-books is basically zero). It would make sense to preserve a cheaper, electronic-only option for most publications, for people who really do just want an "old used paperback" version (that they can read, but aren't worried about whether they'll effectively "own" it). But there's absolutely no reason the physical+e-book bundle isn't the standard for everything else.
5
Also it is somewhat disheartening to see the e-book triumphalism among all the cool sci-fi writers who write cool blogs. How much of that is selfish, i.e. because they're dreaming about a system where used books will not exist and therefore nobody can buy their books without them getting royalties?
Or maybe they are dreaming about getting $2 from a $3 ebook rather than $1 from a $7 paperback.
In the long run it seems unlikely that people will continue to pay the substantial costs involved in manufacturing and distributing traditional books. But publishers are dreaming if they think they can continue to charge the same prices.
Re 8, (I suppose publishers might worry that people would keep the e-version and give the physical copy to a friend who wanted to read it, thereby costing them a sale, but that objection is so stupid and shows so little familiarity with or understanding of the habits and preferences of their customers that it's not in my opinion worth addressing.)
There's no such thing as too many books.
Though there is such a thing as too many books to move easily.
Please dont encourage my book addiction.
Agree with the OP. On a related note, I got a Sony e-book reader a little less than two years ago and I'm looking into a replacement. Even two years seems fairly old for technology like this; new models have wifi support and several times the memory at less than half the price. Maybe I should have waited a bit before getting it, I guess. But I'm still using it and probably wouldn't be thinking about replacing it at all, if not for an annoying glitch it's developed where it skips pages sometimes. I hit the button or stroke the screen to go forward one page, but it goes forward two or three instead. Sometimes it does it when I haven't even touched the screen, or worst of all, sometimes when I'm trying to go back it also goes forward so I have to pound the button repeatedly just to stay where I am. I guess I could see about tech support, but (a) it never happens when I'm trying to show someone the problem, and (b) it was bought at a Borders and they've gone out of business, so I'm pessimistic about that anyway.
One problem with picking a new e-reader is figuring out file compatibility with all the books on my current one. At first glance at the description, the Kindle isn't compatible with anything at all, but then there's file conversion options. Barnes & Noble seems to have picked over the corpse of Borders, so that (among other things) pushes me towards the Nook, but who knows about any copy-prevention DRM on my files themselves.
I don't know much about books, but I guarantee you that publishers, etc, of electronic media are well aware of this general problem, and I've heard of a few solutions in the pipeline. But the technology appears to be difficult. Most likely the DRM will be provided in such a way as to limit the sharing to a finite number of customers, although somewhat paradoxically this probably requires an expansion of IP rights that makes the initial provision of the copy a license rather than a sale, and the legal landscape in this area is not exactly clear.
I don't know the book publishing industry well enough to know why they don't bundle, but my guess is that theyve concluded that there 's not much demand, or at least not enough to make it worth foregoing the ability to sell two copies for near full price. There are likely also contractual constraints (with both authors and retailers) that prevent bundling, but again I don't know the world of books well enough to know for sure.
8 is startlingly brilliant, so of course it will never happen.
The "8" option is pretty common with DVDs. At least in one direction -- you buy a physical copy of the dvd and it comes with a code for downloading a e version.
re: 15
It's not uncommon in music, too. Particularly if you buy vinyl. I've bought a few now where buying the vinyl also gets you a download code for FLAC or mp3 files. Which is great.
I recently got a kindle because I struggled with wanting to read more crappy genre-ish kind of novels, but not particularly wanting them around, and not being very motivated to buy or read them when confronted with the generally terrible covers. It solves all those problems ably, but I feel a little guilty for the reasons in the OP, among others.
On the other hand, the rise of scientific paper-reading-and-organizing software for the iPad is the greatest invention in the history of the world full stop.
I've thought of 8 as a solution (although the idea that you could do the instant gratification download and get the physical book in the mail later hadn't occurred to me, and is a good one.)
Charlie Stross is the only writer I've read saying much about ebooks, and he tends to focus on the idea that the cost of producing an ebook is almost the same as the physical book (the paper and printing are minor compared to editing and layout and so on) so the price should be the same. But I haven't noticed him addressing the fact that an ebook purchaser is in some sense getting a lot less than a physical book purchaser (he does talk about ditching DRM, but I'm not clear on what he thinks the implications of that are for what someone should be allowed to do with a book they've bought.)
you can't beat the instant gratification:
I love instantly buying books so, so much. And having so many books easily in progress, wherever I go. I can take ten books on a trip! Easily!
I don't want hard copies of these books. I like the current system - buying an e-book means you're buying cheap version that will deteriorate with time. If I want a version that will last, I'll buy a hard copy. I certainly don't want them bundled.
my guess is that theyve concluded that there 's not much demand
But that's really, really, hard to believe, since basically every book-reader I know (including those who buy e-books and those who don't) has worries or complaints similar to LB.
And, sure, anecdotes from friends vs. sophisticated market research, but still I just don't buy it.
You know a lot more about this than I do, but I'd guess it has more to do with royalties--the current system is set up such that authors get royalties on each physical book and each e-book separately, and bundling would count as two separate sales for which the author should get compensated, and even though it would be everyone's interest no one has made the first move towards restructuring that system.
I haven't been buying e-books because I want my children to grow up in a house full of interesting books like I did.
I also grew up in a house with three sets of encyclopedias and a lot of dictionaries, none of which I have any interest in acquiring.
Alternately, the publishers may be avoiding bundling because they want you to use their emerging technology for sharing, which they will try to monetize ("social sharing," ebook clubs). But I'd be surprised if you didn't see more bundling of electronic and physical copies of books.
I like the current system - buying an e-book means you're buying cheap version that will deteriorate with time.
Are they actually cheap? When I last looked, they weren't cheaper than a paperback.
On a related note, I'd like to be able to buy ebooks for various statistical texts that are heavy and useful. However, they cost over a hundred dollars. I'm not buying something that might decay.
22: If it goes this way, I will hate them even more. I don't want to have to be in a registered relationship mediated by some publishing company online to lend someone a book.
19: Doesn't it weird you out a little that the books you've bought aren't available to your kids unless you make a conscious decision that this particular book is something they should have access to? I mean, they won't be dipping into your shelves for a while, but eventually you'd want that to happen, right?
20.3 is probably right, but it wouldn't be hard to restructure contracts for new bestsellers which is where the money is anyway. Also differing royalty rates likely prevail depending in media, so you might be able to screw talent out of some extra cash by labeling more of your sale as "electronic.". But again I just don't know the book publishing world well enough to be sure.
Are they actually cheap? When I last looked, they weren't cheaper than a paperback.
They're not low priced. I meant low quality, in terms of how I categorize them.
23: Right, they're not. If they were somewhere around half or a third the price of a paperback, I'd feel fine about the reduced level of usefulness/propensity to decay. And I'd even be fine if they came out at the hardcover price, and only got cheap once the paperback was available -- I'm not offended by paying extra to read something that just came out.
23.last: it seems more than a bit problematic for the academic publishing world that the best way to get textbooks right now (from an ease-of-use standpoint) is to download them illicitly.
I used to have to have about ten linear feet of shelf space devoted to SAS and Stata manuals. When those started shipping with electronic manuals, I was so happy to get the space back. But, those people aren't selling books. They still get paid for the software.
Doesn't it weird you out a little that the books you've bought aren't available to your kids unless you make a conscious decision that this particular book is something they should have access to? I mean, they won't be dipping into your shelves for a while, but eventually you'd want that to happen, right?
I did like dipping into my parents' shelves, but I feel like that can be met with browsing at the library, and - probably - old, discarded ipads and kindles laying around.
Plus, say Hawaiian Punch gets a kindle for her 6th birthday. I'd log in as me, since it's my credit card, so she'd have access to all my books.
28: That's about how I feel.
29: I have my boss pay for the books.
Ebook triumphalism reminds me of blog triumphalism and Internet triumphalism before that. "We're all gonna be rich! And free! Free to ride without being hassled by the Man!" never seems to work out for quite the population predicted.
Is 29 really true?
There are so many reasons to short the textbook industry, which, couldn't happen to a nicer bunch.
I have a kindle and I do worry about what happens if Amazon goes out of business, but I also don't want a physical copy. The main thing I like about e-books is that I don't have to lug around physical books anymore. The whisper sync is also great. If I have some time to kill I can take out my phone read a little bit and when I go back to my kindle I can sync to the place I left off.
I also have a Safari library account through my job which I absolutely love. It is only available while I am online, there are download tokens that get around this somewhat. I do think the subscription model makes a lot of sense for technical reference books since the underlying technology tends to change so fast.
32: But the internet is amazing and liberating! It's unbelievable. I have a close community of friends I've mostly never met, which support me and have interesting discussions with me, and have wildly helped me develop my ability to think clearly about social issues and structure my arguments.
And obviously Unfogged is amazing, but my kids see their grandparents regularly on Skype. I have low-key occasional interactions with friends from college. Etc. It is really a quality of life difference.
33 to 28. Has textbook illegal downloading become widespread? It wouldn't surprise me one bit.
Sometimes I duplicate the bundling scheme in 8 by purchasing a physical copy of a book and then stealing a digital copy. Seems fair to me.
One thing that has kept me away from e-books is that when I read trash, I want pictures, so I mostly read comics. Have e-readers gotten to the point where they are satisfying for comics?
35: The easy reference is what continually wows me. Newt was asking if King Arthur had been a real person, and I gave him the 'kinda maybe, the first mention is in something purporting to be factual a couple of centuries later' talk, but had drawn a blank on the dates and names of the relevant chroniclers. A little googling pulled up Nennius, the Venomous Bead, and Geoffrey of Monmouth right off.
37: I've thought about doing that -- maybe I should more. But I don't have the chops to illegally download in that 'standing outside the subway' fashion.
The back of many of my textbooks samples have this ludicrous box about "How to reduce textbook costs for your students, and save the environment!" which amounts to keeping the free sample out of hands of students. Also, like yesterday, I got a mailing label in the mail, and a bag, for me to bag up all my textbook samples and return them to the publishing house. (So that I don't risk driving up the price for our poor students, and also save the environment!)
It's a hard decision. It's either protect the textbook industry, or make a quick $50 when the door-to-door online sales people drop by my office.
I wouldn't know how to steal an e-book if I wanted to. Although I bet there are instructions on the internet somewhere.
(I also have never figured out how to steal music, at least since Napster originally shut down. (In what--2000? 2001?))
the Venomous Bead
Is that "Damn you, autocorrect!", or "Damn you, Wikipedia!"?
37.2: the iPad is supposed to be absolutely amazing for comics.
I learned from x.trapnel, who mentioned a website with a whole lot of pirated books. (library.nu, not that you heard it from me.) Downloaded a couple of books that I owned already with dead authors to check that I could work it, but haven't done anything else with it -- I do think writers should get paid.)
42: It's "1066 and All That" owns that portion of my brain.
33: it certainly seems that way to me; they don't sell the books in ebook format, but they're much handier in ebook format, and they're easily acquired in ebook format. Ergo.
42: I think it's a "damn you, 1066 and All That".
How would you attempt to deal with
a) The Venomous Bead
b) a Mabinogion or Wapentake?
(Be quick.)
How angry would you be if it was suggested
a) That the XIth Chap. of the Consolations of Boethius was an interpolated palimpsest?
b) That an eisteddfod was an agricultural implement?
How would you dispose of
a) A Papal Bull?
b) Your nephews?
c) Your mother? (Be brutal.)
When I'm on all my meds I'm actually close to fully functioning, as long as no one mentions Quine. But I flushed them all down the toilet, secretly.
The Venomous Bead should be someone's pseudonym.
@38
Yes. It occasionally amazes me to think how idle questions like "Who was the actress who played that minor character in that movie from 1977?" required real time/effort to answer back when I was a teenager in the pre-www era.
It occurs to me that there was/is a special type of trivia savant whose superpower is no longer as valuable as it once was.
I don't know how this happened but I grew up in a house full of books and have very fond memories of being able to pull things randomly (oh ugh, look, I just made the use of the word "random" a little more diffuse but I won't delete it) off the shelf...but I get really annoyed by book fetishism. It sometimes feels ostentatious/competitive to me (LOOK HOW MANY BOOKS I HAVE DO YOU HAVE THIS MANY BOOKS?) I'm kind of in favor of reading stuff, keeping it if you love it and will read it again, and getting rid of it if not. I guess this is most likely a function of 1) living in small spaces, and 2) always having been a slow reader and so feeling defensive about emphasizing the amount of reading one has done.
That said, I can't get excited about e-readers, even though they fit nicely into the broom-closet I call home and cloak my under-readness.
I very much enjoy being able to browse and buy real books via the Internet, but I've quite enjoyed the times when I've been far beyond the clutching grasp of information. Perhaps I ought to to look into the Carthusians.
The only book I've gotten as an ebook that I sort of regret (as I might like to have it around, lend it out, etcetera) is Gleick's The Information, but it just seemed too damned approrpriate to buy it electronically.
Smearcase just put me in mind of this.
George Plimpton, the ur East Sider, also rattled off acidic observations. ''Honestly, I have a very dim view of anything west of Central Park,'' he said. ''The apartments are all corridors, little rooms and quite dark, with books everywhere.''
Mr. Plimpton ventured that he had nothing against books but wondered, ''Why are they always on the floor?''
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"Gingrich emerges as clear front-runner in Iowa"
Hahahahahahaha.
Poor ole Mitt.
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re: 50.last
Me. I am/was that trivia savant.* Not through any conscious giving a shit, but that sort of trivial fact is the sort of thing my brain remembers effortlessly. Actual important shit, not so much.
* once as a teenager, at a party, I played Trivial Pursuits, on my own against everybody else there organised in teams. I won.**
** funnily enough, quite a shitty record at pub quizzes, though. Which usually feature: i) a sports round, ii) some sort of round designed to make sure the regulars win and not that bunch of smart-arses who've never drunk here before.
56: Same here, although I usually do pretty well at sports trivia too.
51: I'm actually kind of embarrassed by my bookshelves (while being neurotically attached to them and feeling insecure when not living in a place well insulated by a continuous layer of paper) because of the way in which they expose the crap I read -- if I were slightly more self-consciously self-protective, I'd pare them down to only the plausibly-impressive fifth of the collection. (And of course I do a fair amount of pruning at intervals or we couldn't live in the apartment).
But I read a lot, and have a high tolerance for rereading tripe -- if I need some tripe to read, something I haven't read for three or four years is almost as good as something new, if I liked it the first time through. So having an accumulation of tripe around to pick up again does save me money.
56: I used to be almost that good at Trivial Pursuit and similar trivia games (playing along with Jeopardy and so on) but more by psyching out the questions than brute memory. My straight trivia recall is better than average, but not all that impressive, but if the question gets cute about hinting at the answer at all (and most of those games do) I've got it.
re: 57
I am OK with football, if it's the past 15 or 20 years, or so. But hopeless at many other sports, and didn't start following football until I was an adult. So the sort of stuff that 30/40-something pub-sports-bore blokes know, I don't.
re: 58
Yeah. My bookshelves are a mix of truly trashy shit, some decent but reputable genre fix, and the incredibly highbrow. More the former than the latter. And I often reread any old shit if it wasn't terrible. Much of the objectively pretty awful crap on my shelves has been read more than once.
43: the ipad is amazing for comics! it goes from panel to panel, correctly, backing up to full page with a tap; if it can't decide on the right transition you probably have some doubt yourself. I don't know how it is for manga, though. am I supposed to look at that wordless nature panel now, or what? houses without books are an awful idea and no one should ever raise children in such an environment. but perhaps I would read more books if they were pretending to be the computer, at which I look constantly, ignoring my children? o, that read were here to adjudicate which manner of inattentive parenting is worse.
I struggled with wanting to read more crappy genre-ish kind of novels, but not particularly wanting them around, and not being very motivated to buy or read them when confronted with the generally terrible covers.
Don't be embarrassed! You can explain that you're reading bodice-rippers because you're a feminist.
A brief search on bad romance novel covers turned up this fabulous one.
Many of the books I think that I want are expensive academic bricks, need to read a chapter to see if I like it. Often unavailable legally electronically. $50 unwieldy doorstop, or piracy? Many nice BD are available pirated, I go for older ones. I support living artists too, so I get hard copies of newer ones.
For music, hype machine or torrents. Subscription-based emusic is a lot cheaper for many labels than either amazon or apple.
I'm with heebie in pretty much everything she's said in this thread. The idea that my kids wouldn't be just as comfortable browsing through my e-books as pulling things off a shelf seems to underestimate the comfort that younger generations will have with new-in-our-lifetimes technology. Not that there's absolutely nothing lost, but I'm okay with the tradeoffs.
I find that I now only have the desire to own physical books that I value for their objectness: art books, books of photographs, children's books. Cookbooks are still somewhere in between for me, for I really like making notes on the recipes themselves. I had thought that there was a category of books that are nice bedside books, things for reading little magical snippets out of a bit at a time, like Invisible Cities and The Book of Imaginary Beings, but then I recently got the e-book of The Lost Books of the Odyssey and read it very much that way on the Kindle, so that category has pretty much gone by the wayside for me as well.
manner of inattentive parenting
Latent attention is still attention and your kids know it. You'll turn up for a scream or a question or a persistent whine.
For cooking, I'd need some sort of reader on my fridge that was impervious to spills and such.
You'll turn up for a scream or a question or a persistent whine.
Although there's a downside for the latently attentive parent -- you're kind of training your kids to develop emergencies as a means of attracting your attention. Sally and Newt have a choreographed class of fight with a lot of clearly articulated grievances bellowed at each other that appears to have grown out the desire to drag one of us into it.
66: If someone hasn't already developed the iPad fridgemagnet holder, they will soon.
What's kept me from the Kindle is a feeling that I spend too much time staring at a screen all day; when I read for fun, it's to relax, and I don't like the idea of yet another shiny electroscreen awaiting me before bed. I guess I'd get used to it.
Mr. Plimpton ventured that he had nothing against books but wondered, ''Why are they always on the floor?''
At the next NY meet-up I can, if the audience wishes, mimic a former colleague's mimicry of George Plimpton's father Francis.
OT: I love A Charlie Brown Christmas so much. "Shermy, you're a shepherd."
when I read for fun, it's to relax, and I don't like the idea of yet another shiny electroscreen awaiting me before bed.
I had this fear. Computers and TV aren't relaxing in quite the same way as a good book. But for me, e-books are still totally satisfying.
I don't like the idea of yet another shiny electroscreen
That's the thing about the Kindle, actually: the e-ink is really pleasant to read. Much better than reading on an illuminated screen.
68: I wouldn't feel comfortable going near the current technology with flour on my hands or whatever.
And oh my god, the best thing ever is being able to tap a word and look it up online instantly.
"Oh, this character is in an iron lung? You know, I've never really known what those look like....OH WOW. I'll read about them for two minutes and then return to my story."
All of my books are currently in storage, and I keep falling prey to the idea that it would be awfully nice to have them all in one Kindle. But, about 50% of my collection are history books, that I find easiest to read with a pencil in hand (I know you can mark things up, but there's something about underlining that actively makes me read and understand in a way highlighting doesn't). Another 15% or so are cookbooks, which I feel need to be in paper as I like marking them up AND I make a huge mess and I have the computer in the kitchen enough already to make me nervous about it.
I tend to get my fiction from the library (which is why I own relatively little despite my actual reading habits), and so far I haven't been impressed with the availability or selection.
66: It is to me mildly crazy-making that waterproof tablets aren't readily available. What about using them in the kitchen or reading in the bath or just living a life that's not sterile and devoid of accidents? It's not like making something at least spill resistant is particularly difficult. Waterproof is a bit more of a challenge, but still not terribly so.
77: I would be a total convert if I could read in the bathtub easily.
Mitt Romney says Battlefield Earth is his favorite novel. I really don't understand. It can't be true -- I've read Battlefield Earth, and I don't think it's psychologically possible for it to be anyone's favorite novel -- but I can't see what possible advantage he could think he could get from lying about it.
Moby, does your institution's library not give you access to e-versions of the technical books you need? Springer especially seems to make that an option (e.g., my library offers the whole Use R! series, as far as I can tell), so you can download fully legal PDFs chapter by chapter. Via an annoying interface, granted, but you only have to deal with that once.
re: 62
I was in a pub recently that had pages from romance novels framed on the toilet walls. From fairly big name publishers in that genre (Mills and Boon, etc). Never having ready any I was surprised at how ... rapey, they were.
My imperfect solution to the problem in the OP is to make my book purchasing hierarchical: if it's a book I think I'm likely to enjoy and reread and lend and want people to see, I'll buy a physical copy; if it's something I merely want to read once, I buy an ebook. Graber's Debt is in the former category, Ehrenreich's Bright-sided in the latter. My crappy genre reading is still physical, though, since paperbacks are usually as cheap as ebooks.
Also, most of my ebooks so far are from Gutenberg etc., public domain stuff I think I should read.
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On the subject of reading, I had the depressing experience of going to the optometrist yesterday and realizing how crappy my vision is.
Quick summary: right eye turns out at near. Eyes can't work together so I switch back and forth between eyes to avoid seeing double which is very tiring. At distance, I mostly suppress the use of one eye. I do have reading glasses which help some but not quite enough.
This is theoretically partially treatable with therapy.
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On the subject of reading, I had the depressing experience of going to the optometrist yesterday and realizing how crappy my vision is.
Quick summary: right eye turns out at near. Eyes can't work together so I switch back and forth between eyes to avoid seeing double which is very tiring. At distance, I mostly suppress the use of one eye. I do have reading glasses which help some but not quite enough.
This is theoretically partially treatable with therapy.
77: These work. For that matter, so do these.
Battlefield Earth is so much more fun if you are familiar with Scientology's scriptures. I read it right during the big blowup about the release of OT III. Good times. I doubt that Romney enjoyed it in quite the same way.
It seems like it puts his Mormonism in the worst light possible: not only do I believe in a religion with some rather unusual beliefs founded by a con artist, I'm sympathetic to a much weirder religion which is still just a con.
Didn't mean to double post or post in the first place.
Therapy takes time and a lot of money since it's not covered by my insurance and most of the people take no insurance. Plus without a car it's a long trek to the office.
I think it would cost me $5-7,000 for a year's worth of treatment. (Totally not a crook, it's just that weekly therapy at $100/week individual adds up. Awesome guy.)
Mine is pretty bad, and even so the kind of crap exams you get at Pearl Vision don't catch it. I was trying to be positive, so I said "I'm pretty smart, and I've compensated okay." His response, "Yes, but it's cost you."
And I've done better than kids with problems that aren't as bad, but it's a whole ra extlevel of work, and it's exhausting.
Fuck.
Sorry for the self-pity.
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88: Maybe he's hoping to unleash some scientology money. They have some deep pockets and rich famous people on their side.
38: What bugs the fuck out of me is that people still rely on hearsay and nebulous memory when they have the internet right there. My students repeat things on class discussion forums that their uncle or someone told them that are dubious at best, and I always chastise them. Look, information that is a step more reliable than something someone told you is one google search away. Make the effort.
How about nationalizing the access system for intellectual property and running it through a government-managed download system? Royalties to property creators could be paid in proportion to downloads out of that system. It could be funded through a subscription fee, per-download charges, or some mix (by far the most economically efficient way would be a flat subscription fee for unlimited downloads, but that would also make it harder to detect gaming the system).
The intellectual property, once acquired, could be ported to whatever reading technologies were being used and would be converted to whatever format changes were necessary. A standardized format could be imposed from the top in consultation with industry and then changed when necessary based on industry input. That way, users would not be subject to all the endless transaction costs of private actors quibbling over format, trying to monopolize the market, etc. Only government can really create secure property.
It helps to realize that the intellectual property system is already completely government-controlled through the legal system, it is just done in a way that pays zero attention to benefits for consumers and is obsessively focused on maximizing corporate (not just actual producer) profit. Another advantage of the government system is it could make direct distribution access for real producers easier and lower the rents to corporate middlemen.
(by far the most economically efficient way would be a flat subscription fee for unlimited downloads, but that would also make it harder to detect gaming the system).
That would be such an awesome subsidy for my reading habits. Taxpayers of America! Feed the monkey on my back!
On the subject of annoyances and doctors, we just got a letter from a collections agency for a doctor's bill, when we'd never gotten a single bill from the doctor for the money before. Infuriating.
The other annoying thing is that it's very likely that there are 4 or so other outstanding bills (there was a mixup with insurance and it turns out they're out of network and so instead of routine care being free it's $300 an appointment, I'm not totally sure if it's their mixup or ours but they didn't tell us anything about it for two years while they and the insurance company were going back and forth about it), and I'd like to get those taken care of before they get sent to a collections agency but since I have no bills I don't know who to call. Furthermore, we no longer use the same insurance or the same doctor, and the doctor has moved practices.
I'm OK with 92 as long as we nationalize all other major American industries, particularly finance, energy/resource extraction, and health care.
I do think we should have a public option both for banking, for healthcare, and for ISP. But I think that IP is a bit of a special case, as PGD says IP is already a government program if they want to run it a bit differently based on changes in technology that seems totally reasonable. It's already the case that radio has a totally different system. The suggestion isn't to nationalize the entertainment industry, just to change the way IP works. If you want to get a copyright then you have to add your work to the system.
I haven't had time to follow the news recently, but apparently few of the large publishers have decided to stop making ebooks available for library lending (as in, no new ebooks - I think old ones may still circulate under various deals). And not all of them allowed library lending in the first place.
Nationalized healthcare! Woohoo!
PGD's suggestion is not a million miles away from something proposed by the UK government's recent review of IP law, namely a pan-European IP database/automatic licensing system.
Taxpayers of America! Feed the monkey on my back!
Christ, I doubt I'd ever leave the house again.
About Romney's citing Battlefield Earth. At first I assumed he meant to cite something else, like Heinlein or something actually good, but stuck with his first choice for fear of seeming like a flip-flopper. But no, he knew what he was referring to.
Maybe he doesn't read many novels?
It doesn't seem possible that he's angling for the Scientology vote (not that many, except MAYBE in Florida), or for Scientology cash (aren't they spending it all on church centers and Tom Cruise's wood-carved motorcycles?).
Maybe he's just got shitty taste in books.
I have to admit that I read Battlefield Earth as a teenager, and I liked it. It was before I knew who L. Ron Hubbard was.
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OT: Huh, I just happened to click over to MY new place for the first time and was surprised to find that I wasn't interested in any of the articles, and that skimming them just made me cranky.
I don't know if it's (a) I've lost my tolerance for his style after not reading him for a few weeks, (b) he's gotten worse or (c) reading anything on the slate site is irritating.
I suspect it might be (c) since I even skipped his NBA post and I was always willing to read those on his old sites even if they were inevitable wrong-headed (they often has surprisingly good discussions in comments)
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I'm not saying that you couldn't possibly like it -- I liked enough to finish it. But there's something weird if you're a fluent enough novel reader to finish a big brick of a book like that, but it's still what comes to mind as your favorite novel. There's just too much stuff that's really better in that exact genre.
Huh, I just happened to click over to MY new place for the first time and was surprised to find that I wasn't interested in any of the articles, and that skimming them just made me cranky.
It's something real -- the focus of the Moneybox blog, as he's doing it, is something that bores the crap out of me. I read him consistently right up to the switch, and now I'm bouncing right off; looking at it but not reading it.
How about nationalizing the access system for intellectual property and running it through a government-managed download system? Royalties to property creators could be paid in proportion to downloads out of that system.
This is basically the way that UK libraries work.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Lending_Right
I borrowed a Weber book from the library once and found it had a CDROM tucked inside with all his novels on it, free to copy. They're on my laptop now... Baen's quite good about that. Shame they don't publish more good stuff.
105 -- they gave contrarian/libertarian crack to a crack addict, and killed off the only thing MY was really good at, namely succinctly describing the stupid in stupid Republican arguments.
Compulsory licensing (a) already exists in some IP domains (b) would not in any way kill of publishers (c) would not in any way avoid the need for DRM or other means of restricting the distribution right. I don't think compulsory licensing is necessary or particularly useful for ebooks, though I strongly support it in some areas (music sampling, noncommercial use, documentary film).
I love A Charlie Brown Christmas so much.
This gets it exactly wrong. I'd never seen it until a couple of years ago; watching it was stomach-churningly uncomfortable. It's 90% people being horrible to Charlie Brown mixed with 9% "non-Christians can suck it".
111: I had never actually watched any of the Charlie Brown movies, as far as I know. Lee had me get the Great Pumpkin dvd from the library for Mara and holy shit has it had an awful impact on the things the kids say. "I'll just kill myself!" "My stupid brother!" "Blockhead!" I know there's a lot more and it's just unrelenting. I know this means I'm an old fuddy-duddy (and don't want CPS reports made against me because my the 4-year-old in my care claims to want to kill himself) but it's awful and so of course the kids want to watch it non-stop.
Then the Christmas special was on tv last night and Mara wouldn't even watch it because she wanted to watch the school election Charlie Brown movie that's also on the Great Pumpkin dvd and she and Lee got all upset with each other before Mara ended up weeping and screaming and Lee just watched football. Fun for the whole family!
After I stabbed the basement sofa up so bad that one time, my mom says I can't watch the Charlie Brown movies anymore. But I've still got Urkel! Urkel's smart like you guys. YOU'RE THE BEST!!!
It's 90% people being horrible to Charlie Brown mixed with 9% "non-Christians can suck it".
Charlie Brown yearns to be loved. I cannot be the only commenter in whom ACBC's portrait of melancholy wishing at Yule strikes a chord.
It's 90% people being horrible to Charlie Brown...
Isn't it the whole point of Charlie Brown's character that people are horrible to him?
That would be such an awesome subsidy for my reading habits. Taxpayers of America! Feed the monkey on my back!
That's the wrong way to think about it...the marginal cost of electronic reproduction is zero, so there is no subsidy involved in giving you free download rights. Subsidies happen when you pay a positive price for an ebook. Government is forcing you to subsidize the production and distribution system for IP. Which may or may not be good, but it seems very clear the current IP subsidies are way too large (even though they do keep Halford in Porsches and fancy restaurant dinners).
Jesus Christ I hate it when economists spout off on this topic based on Econ 101 reasoning without bothering to learn a fucking thing about it. The system you propose would be a kind of nationalization, but wouldn't either reduce the need for an IP "subsidy" (which is a variation of the same "subsidy" that we give to most forms of private property, or don't you think the government has something to do with your mortgage? Oh I forgot all capitalism is "natural" except somehow for intellectual property) or even it's absolute amount. We already have similar compulsory license schemes, notably for the performance of musical works, and they keep publishers plenty powerful and fat and require an extremely intrusive IP regime. Nonetheless, in many contexts compulsory licensing is a good idea, and I would probably support something like the UK library royalty system for the US. There are lots of changes that should be made to IP law in general and copyright in particular, it's just the goddamn misapplied Econ 101/Yglesias arguments that piss me off.
Agree with Martin that it's a pity Baen doesn't have more stuff I like, since their ebook model is the best - I can download stuff I bought years ago again in any of several formats. Nightshade Books are on Webscriptions so that improves things. Good stuff IMO: Bujold, Lee & Miller's Liaden books (the bundles are good value but beware Baen's trick of putting book A & B together and a couple of years later putting B & C together), P.C. Hodgell, loads of Glen Cook if you like that kind of thing. just got a Martha Wells book there the other day for half the price of the Kindle book.
Since Halford doesn't seem annoyed enough, here's Richard Stallman's (he of the "don't buy a parrot just for my visit, but if you already have one, that'd be great") classic dystopian short story about what happens when we go all the way down the road to "every use a licensed use": "The Right to Read."
Eventually we will pay for access to our own memories, and hope that they're not for sale to the highest bidder.
That said, I like the third photo in this set:
http://imgur.com/a/PrLrB
117: you calling me out, motherfucker? OK, IT'S ON! My econ 101 knowledge vs. your actual knowledge! I think we know from looking at U.S. public policy since Reagan which one of us is going to win that battle!
Seriously, I would strongly defend the utility of the abstract economics model in the case of IP. It seems to me that plenty of IP lawyers use crude econ 101 arguments too. However, if you follow these arguments out this is one of the major areas where basic economics gives politically progressive results. Economic theory is also extremely useful for getting a good perspective on the real world here. The zero marginal cost of producing electronic copies is a very real economic phenomenon that shows up in all kinds of ways in the real world. The economic pressures created by a marginal cost of production enormously below the average cost is one of the key concepts for understanding a huge range of markets, from software to movies to pharmaceuticals.
A simple way of talking about how IP and patent address this problem is that they guarantee the full monopoly rent to the producer for some period of time. Government enforces the monopoly and then the producer is given more or less complete freedom to set the price. This keeps government out of a direct price setting role. But the problem is that there is no particular reason to believe that the monopoly price for X years is the correct subsidy to produce the socially optimal outcome. It can over reward producers and unnecessarily restrict supply.
You are right that compulsory licensing schemes do not necessarily address the pricing problem. The scheme I laid out would however address the transactions cost problems that LB rightly complained about in the original post. In addition, one thing I like about a centralized licensing / repository / distribution system as discussed above is that it would make it very technically simple for government to adopt a direct price-setting role, and lead to more questioning of the full monopoly pricing powers given to producers. But that is the more radical side of me.
I'm sure you have a better perspective on many areas of this stuff than I do, since it's your job and all. One objection of yours that I already share is that it is probably incorrect to single out IP prices as "unnatural" as if all other market prices were "natural". However I think it is still worth pointing out that using the same arguments that so many people use to justify competitive markets as natural, IP prices are the unnatural result of a government enforced monopoly.
I know that books aren't Halford's thing, but I'd be curious to hear if and why he thinks it makes sense for the book publishers to cling fast to DRM (while constantly tinkering with it, and in the process rendering old versions obsolete, and claiming each time that they've finally made it not-annoying enough for consumers) at a time when music sellers seem to have finally given up after a decade of trying the same thing. I mean, one answer is that there are lots of important and relevant distinctions between the products, such that this sort of lock against casual copying is more important with books than with music, but if anything, I'd figure the substantive differences cut the other way. From a naive outsider perspective, it looks like the best explanation runs purely at the level of organizational sociology: in both cases, the reaction by industry leaders to a loss of control was to redouble their efforts to maintain it, and this simply struck the music sellers first.
I know that I, personally, would buy more ebooks if it weren't a bother to get them into my preferred devices and formats.
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OT again: this story is kind of awesome:
[Orlando Magic CEO Bob] Vander Weide confirmed that he made a 1 a.m. phone call in recent days to Magic superstar Dwight Howard, and Howard thought Vander Weide may have been intoxicated. On that call, Vander Weide told Howard how much the Magic wanted to keep him in Orlando. "I was playing paddle with friends and had a couple of glasses of wine," Vander Weide told BHSN. "Maybe Dwight thought it was inappropriate to talk business after a couple of glasses of wine... Maybe I should have waited until the morning."
Everybody said that compressing the NBA offseason into two weeks would make things slightly chaotic but I don't think they expected team executives to start drunk-dialing their star players at 1 AM.
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However, if you follow these arguments out this is one of the major areas where basic economics gives politically progressive results.
Basic economics gives politically progressive results across the entire issue spectrum. Except in the 80-90% of cases where it is misinterpreted or misapplied, usually by someone with an agenda.
Food for thought: the German Pirate Party, best know for their positions on internet-related matters (most obviously, against copyright maximalism), just recently came out in favor of a Basic Income Guarantee. Some might see no connection between such a policy and their core net-activist concerns, but I think there's a very obvious one: a BIG is one way of funding (or subsidizing, if you prefer) the production of arts that, whatever else you may say of it, largely sidesteps the need for an intrusive and expensive system of monitoring outputs and matching inputs to the favored ones. If you're a creative producer, go forth and produce; your BIG will allow you to live while doing so. If you want to get rich off of that, well, you're welcome to try to leverage your works into greater remuneration, but you won't have the state throwing people in jail or fining people for what they choose to do with what you've contributed to the cultural stew.
80: We have ebooks, but I've never found any of them useful. I'm scheduled to try again in 2014.
124.--I was playing paddle with friends
Is this a commonly accepted euphemism for ping-pong? Because I'm twelve and think it's hilarious.
Note that this idea--the Basic Income Guarantee, seen not as "welfare" or "redistribution" but as radical industrial policy--makes increasing sense, across the board, for two reasons. First, as a greater and greater percentage of the value our societies create lies in non-rivalrous goods (like software or books or music), a greater and greater deadweight-loss is incurred by any attempt to ration by price. Second, the greater inequality grows, the less we're able to reasonably justify making judgements about social value on the basis of market pricing, as that leads to an ordering equivalent to that of a social welfare function that weights people's interests more, the less utility they get from wealth--which is to say, the richer they are.
121: Don't forget, the current model is "full monopoly rents forever" not for a certain amount of time.
Is this a commonly accepted euphemism for ping-pong? Because I'm twelve and think it's hilarious.
I had the same reaction that you did.
I was playing paddle with friends
Isn't the idea of a guaranteed minimum income one of those things that some Republicans supported in the 70s but are now worse than the Soviet Union?
Isn't the idea of a guaranteed minimum income one of those things that some Republicans supported in the 70s but are now worse than the Soviet Union?
Yes and no. I think you're thinking of negative income taxes, which Friedman among others championed in the 70s, and which, in a modified form, let to the EITC; but this is different insofar as it is conditional on having some sort of suitable employment (and hence maintains the state-oversight issue--although I see that self-employment counts, so maybe it's less strict about that then I was imagining). It's also not really intended to be an income one could live off of.
On the other hand, a few years back, Charles ("Bell Curve") Mur/ray came out in favor of a a Basic Income of $10k, but only if it were coupled with dismantling the rest of the welfare state.
Download the kindle library torrent and you probably already have the book that you want on your harddrive. Use Calibre to move the book to your device.
Yes and no. I think you're thinking of negative income taxes, which Friedman among others championed in the 70s, and which, in a modified form, let to the EITC...
No, this wasn't something percolating in academia in the 1970's, it passed the House - if apparently with some weak work requirements.
I would strongly defend the utility of the abstract economics model in the case of IP. It seems to me that plenty of IP lawyers use crude econ 101 arguments too.
Sorry for getting so pissy, you got the brunt of my ire that's really directed at Matthew Yglesias and a lot of cod-libertarians on this issue. You are certainly correct that plenty of IP lawyers use crude, terrible econ 101 arguments. (I have too, when it's necessary. You use the tools in the toolbox when you're a hired gun.)
I agree that it's important to understand the Econ 101 model of IP. There are a few things that really get me about it, though. (These are just a few random thoughts, not really an argument). First, the amount of the economy that actually consists of rivalrous goods priced at marginal cost in a competitive market is so, so small; the hand of the law, the state, and history are everywhere in capitalism. The idea that the culture industry (which is economically not very significant) should be particularly singled out always gets me riled up, as if, say, the entire financial services industry or the real estate industry isn't created by a gigantic "subsidy" based on the law and the state. Second, I understand why the economists use the term "monopoly" and "monopoly pricing" to describe the rights holder's control of the rights, but it sure doesn't feel like an industry with monopoly control; there is always an enormous risk that no one will watch your cultural product at whatever price point, and in fact most people don't watch most of what is produced, and most things lose money. Third, the result of the purported "monopoly" has been to allow an industrial development of culture that is basically enormously successful, not just in a financial sense but more importantly in a human sense; we have a culture industry that is unique in human history, particularly in its capacity to produce cultural goods at great cost and distribute them worldwide at very low cost to the consumer. There is an enormous amount of culture out there. I really love popular American culture and don't want to see another great American manufacturing industry -- the culture industry -- wrecked on the basis of Chicago School abstractions.
The bottlenecks created by IP rights, especially historic culture, are very real problem, and I think the strongest arguments of the anti-copyright folks have to do with libraries and the ability to create new works from past knowledge without running into bottlenecks created by rights holders. I agree that the current system is very deeply screwed up in this area, and things like the CTEA or the inability to deal with orphan works give copyright a bad name. But producing (and distributing) culture is also a very real problem, and the threat from piracy and free online distribution are real. I don't take seriously people who handwave away the problem; there's a significant issue, that needs solving, when we have free online distribution that pays artists and content providers nothing.
Again, I would be perfectly willing to see the culture industry taken over as part of a general program of reforming the economy; I am very skeptical of the idea that we can or should allow things like piracy while allowing the rest of capitalism to move full steam ahead;. this would IMO make the world a much worse place.
Wow, that was way too long. Not gonna edit.
if and why he thinks it makes sense for the book publishers to cling fast to DRM (while constantly tinkering with it, and in the process rendering old versions obsolete, and claiming each time that they've finally made it not-annoying enough for consumers) at a time when music sellers seem to have finally given up after a decade of trying the same thing.
I honestly don't know enough about the book industry to give a good answer to this question. I believe (but don't really know) that most of the action in this area is being driven not by the publishers, but by distributors like Amazon, who are interested in controlling the distribution channel more than the right in the content itself. My guess is that eventually we'll settle into some system that allows mild but tolerable DRM, things stored in the cloud, and a very substantial culling of the publishing industry if it hasn't been culled to the bone already (and it's certainly in huge decline).
I think non-commercial piracy is just going to be accepted. It could have bad effects on the culture industry. It will likely just happen.
Thanks Rob. Nice answer. Agree completely that much of the economy is about various forms of market power that are supported by the state in one way or other. Also think the biggest damage that IP restrictions do are in things like software patents and pharma, copyright is the most constant daily irritation to folks like us but not the biggest offender. I also like the way you approach the problem -- in terms of empirical claims about how existing arrangements serve human needs, not abstract justifications.
Agree too that the issue of totally uncompensated cultural production is a serious one that can't be handwaved away. (But would note that it's pretty notorious that actual producers in areas like music have historically been undercompensated under our current system as well). I think the point of having the state take a bigger role is that current inefficiencies are big enough that there is a potential for a win-win solution -- lowering access prices and frictions through a centralized system could actually increase total revenue. I know I might pay more for a year-long subscription to all IP then I spend now on individual pieces of IP in a year. Perhaps the market will find its way to realizing those efficiencies. But as LB said in the initial post, the possibility that any market solution could be temporary is also a force that depresses spending. I'm functioning at blog-comment analytic level here, so I'm sure there is plenty I've overlooked.
lowering access prices and frictions through a centralized system could actually increase total revenue.
Maybe? I don't think that having a centralized clearinghouse for downloading ebooks is the biggest problem; the formatting issues are there but not crippling the industry. You'd still have all the marketing and publicity costs that would be priced into the book, and it's likely that we'll be at a point in a few years where you can get ebooks in the format of your choice through a subscription service anyway. You'd still have the problem of how to deal with copying and sharing of the work.
If I had to pick one form of nationalization of the book publishing industry, it would be to require statutory licensing at fixed low royalty rates, for works created for noncommercial purposes.
I should clarify: the compulsory license would be available to those creating works for noncommercial purposes. Any work, whether or not commercial in origin, could be licensed.
18
Charlie Stross is the only writer I've read saying much about ebooks, and he tends to focus on the idea that the cost of producing an ebook is almost the same as the physical book (the paper and printing are minor compared to editing and layout and so on) so the price should be the same. ...
I believe this is utter nonsense.
I'm ready to believe that the cost of producing the first copy of an ebook is about the same as the cost of producing the first copy of the same physical book. But the cost of producing (and distributing!) all subsequent copies of the physical book are real, whereas with ebooks those costs are at or very near zero. And it's the marginal costs that matter.
The margin is where I write limericks if the book is from a library.
One really obvious difference between music and books is that musicians can make up some of their lost revenue by performing live.
Authors can read from their books and give talks. The most succesful ones sometimes charge for the reading, but traditionally writers did not need to be performers too.
I have not looked in to this, but it may be that the musicians have just decided that it makes better business sense to avoid alienating their audiences and to just get out there and tour.
musicians can make up some of their lost revenue by performing live
Not to mention selling band merchandise, etc. For some reason fans of authors are much less likely to buy t-shirts proclaiming their fandom.
138: I believe (but don't really know) that most of the action in this area is being driven not by the publishers, but by distributors like Amazon, who are interested in controlling the distribution channel more than the right in the content itself.
Certainly true. Amazon et al. offer publishers a trade-off: e-books at a somewhat lesser price than the paper book, in exchange for volume, which volume is guaranteed by the fact that people can't share the books (there is no second-hand market).
This is an interesting thread. Alas, I know not a damn thing about IP law or policy.
I was thinking earlier today about how long copyright would be if I were running the world. I think for actual copying around 50 years is reasonable (though 25 is also fine), but for "derivative works" I think it should be at most 15-20 years. As a rule of thumb, by the time Lucas was putting out Episode 1 the Star Wars characters and world should have been in the public domain (even if the actual film of the first trilogy was still protected). Furthermore, noncommercial derivative works should always be legal with no payment.
I thought the publishers said "we need DRM or we won't sell" and Amazon said "ok, we can do that" and then more recently the publishers have been thinking "maybe we'd be better off if our books could sell through other services and not just amazon." But I've gotten that basically from overhearing, so I don't know if it's right.
Not to mention selling band merchandise, etc.
Sometimes! But you might be unsurprised to learn that some shitty recording deals feature clauses with strict prohibitions against selling anything at all, including T-shirts or stickers or whatever, that doesn't come (at a price) from the approved merchandise channels spelled out in the contract.
I'm shocked, having seen such a deal, that anyone signs it, but people do.
I think Halford's framing of the situation, and his analogizing the abolitionist impulse to the neoliberal willingness to see American manufacturing fade away, gets things precisely wrong.
A: As he sort of acknowledges, it's the content industries that have been proposing (and imposing) radical policy changes--and they've done it in the name of neoliberal ideology. It's been just another facet of the "property good, more property better!" movement: in this case, the idea only by allowing the owner to extract the full rents can we incentivize the optimal amount of production. It's the content industries that first insisted that we see all of "content production" through a neoliberal, rational-choice, equilibrium analysis framework, and that we change our laws to reflect this. We didn't used to have terms this long, or the sphere of protection this broad, or penalties nearly this draconian. What makes it worse is that the damage has spread far beyond the core concerns of copyright; the anti-circumvention prohibitions of the DMCA are now perhaps mainly used to control devices after sale--in other words, what started as a method to supposedly protect property rights increasingly is used to block individual consumers from ever truly owning the devices they've bought. What Halford's complaining about is an entirely reasonable backlash: people noticing that the arguments don't add up even within their own economistic sphere.
B: Halford's analogy is particularly misleading because the willingness to offshore manufacturing production was partly driven by precisely the same dismissal of the embeddedness of knowledge and learning that you see in the models used to justify ever-expanding copyright and patent protection. After all, if knowing how to make a semiconductor is a piece of abstract knowledge that can be fully captured by a patent application and then sold or licensed like anything else, who cares about where the factory's located, so long as America is still where all the patents get written? This ignores how innovation happens through production, and the way that learning diffuses up and down the supply chain. A general abolition of patents would result in relatively more value being placed on the knowledge that arises from and is embodied within production itself.
C: For all Halford's talk of the importance of practical knowledge of an industry's structure, it's Halford's opponents, whether squishy technocratic moderates like Lessig, humanists like James Boyle, or radicals like Stallman, who insist on looking at the processes of production, and recognizing how much of what goes on isn't captured by the logic of profit-maximization that drives the content industry's policy proposals. I find it rather ironic that Halford was so enthusiastic about Graeber's "Debt" book, because one of the book's main theses was that there exist other logics of social exchange beyond profit-maximization; Graeber himself, with his anthropological background, would find the idea that cultural production requires exclusionary rights almost unthinkably absurd. I find it particularly telling that Halford points to publicity and marketing costs as exemplifying what's wrong with thinking ebooks ought to be much cheaper than old-school physical ones used to; I suspect I'm not alone, in my grumpy way, in thinking that most of the marketing and publicity spend in the cultural arena make us worse off rather than better off.
Interesting thread. I've recently had some thoughts on the IP issue that I may work into a post at some point, though I'll have to do some more research first.
Some more screwing around on blogs, of course. Also drinking.
155 sounds like a good general plan.
The margin is where I write limericks if the book is from a library.
"This butter, garcon, is writ large in,"
A diner was heard to be chargin'.
"I 'ad to write zere,"
Replied Fermat, Pierre,
"Zere's not enough room in ze margarine."
The true problem with e-books is not so much they cost about the same to produce as physical books, but more that they're not worth as much. Take that Gollancz science fiction gateway idea, where they basically took their entire back catalogue and put it online. Great, but when prices are between four to seven bucks, I'd rather keep buying secondhand copies for the same price or less.
151: right, I'm aware that this money sometimes goes to people other than the artists, but it's still a revenue stream that's available to help support the production of music (whether it's going to the musicians themselves or to the record companies promoting them), which is basically unavailable to help support the production of written works. The point is just that there are significant differences in the markets for music and books, and that between live performance revenue and merchandising it's a lot easier to imagine a music industry supporting itself with very little revenue from the recorded music itself than it is to imagine a publishing industry supporting itself with very little revenue from the books. So, that's at least at first blush a reason to think maybe DRM is maybe more necessary or justifiable for books than it is for music. I don't know if that conclusion is actually right, but it's at least something that needs to be addressed in the analysis.
Harry Potter and its ilk are notable exceptions. but most books aren't like that.
Manning, at least, has implemented a form of the bundling scheme in 8 for one of the technical books I bought a few months ago. Included in the physical book is a sealed table of codes; with the table in hand, you can go to their website and download a PDF of the book personalized with your name and email address (answering a query with the answer from the table). That gives me a DRM-free version I can take with me to read on my laptop or Nook, and a physical copy to sit on my office shelf for reference or lending within the office. Presumably they assume that the personalization makes it unlikely you will distribute the electronic version too widely. It's worked out really well for me, as I find myself reading it at odd times when I wouldn't have been carrying the book around with me.
Yes to 105 and 107. It's very strange, I've read him super-regularly for years and really losing interest now. Does he ever still read here? Is there a non-hostile way to communicate that he's losing some part of his regular audience? I obviously don't know if he's also gaining a new audience that makes up for it, but in any event it seems worth noting.
Anti-Star Trek, a Theory of Posterity ...via Jacobin. About IP and more, a metaphor or not
Given the material abundance made possible by the replicator, how would it be possible to maintain a system based on money, profit, and class power?
a little old