Main Area and Open Discussion > Living Room
Why ebooks are bad for you
Deozaan:
The lion's share of the money still goes to the publishers - who used to justify their percentage because of the mechanical reproduction costs they incurred by printing, binding, and shipping books. But now that most of that has gone away (save for the relative low overhead of maintaining licensing and distribution servers) they justify their percentage by...I'm sorry - exactly how do they justify their share?-40hz (June 13, 2011, 07:24 PM)
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For providing the DRM of course!
Renegade:
No-one likes DRM, but at least it means authors get a few bucks for their work.
-johnk (June 13, 2011, 05:59 PM)
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Unfortunately, that's pretty much all they get.
The lion's share of the money still goes to the publishers - who used to justify their percentage because of the mechanical reproduction costs they incurred by printing, binding, and shipping books. But now that most of that has gone away (save for the relative low overhead of maintaining licensing and distribution servers) they justify their percentage by...I'm sorry - exactly how do they justify their share?
Oh...I see...they don't feel the need to justify it.
Ok. Now I got it. :-\
-40hz (June 13, 2011, 07:24 PM)
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+1
Or maybe it's because the publishers and their stakeholders have invested significant resources into securing distribution channels that empower authors to reach end-users through efficient marketization which facilitates monetization of intellectual properties and brings increased value to works and content that otherwise would require individual artists to maintain ecommerce infrastructure and complex systems which would detract them from their artistic pursuits and feed them better, which could lead to food-coma, thus reducing their productivity in global markets and reducing their facetime with prospective buyers looking to enrich their lives through content consumption for which publishers can charge a premium to ensure the viability of authors, artists and content producers that can thankfully take full advantage of publisher channels and relationships that extend their reach beyond what they could hope to achieve by setting up a PayPal account, spending $25 a month on a web site, and doing the marketing that they would have to do anyways because they will only ever become a part of the long tail in the publisher's value-chain.
Ooops... That last little bit kind of blew it...
Never mind.
:P
zridling:
On a related note, technology is forcing the music industry to reinvent itself -- or embrace annihilation:
http://www.economist.com/node/18805473?fsrc=scn/fb/wl/ar/digitallyremastered
Similar take:
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/google/google-to-hollywood-well-do-music-with-or-without-you/2942?tag=mantle_skin;content
Deozaan:
EDIT: Erm, I guess this is off topic for this thread. Oops!
On a related note, technology is forcing the music industry to reinvent itself -- or embrace annihilation:
-zridling (June 14, 2011, 05:38 AM)
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Responding to the Economist article:
It will search devices for tracks purchased from the iTunes store, and automatically give customers the rights to download the music to any Apple device. That puts Apple’s service ahead of recent offerings by Amazon and Google, which require users to upload music to the cloud.-http://www.economist.com/node/18805473?fsrc=scn/fb/wl/ar/digitallyremastered
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That only puts Apple's service ahead of Amazon and Google if you own an Apple device and use iTunes. Whereas for me Google Music is much way ahead of iCloud because I don't use iTunes and I don't own an iDevice.
Even if I did use iTunes, not all music is available on it so just putting tracks I purchased from iTunes in the cloud doesn't help me get my entire collection on the cloud. I owned music before iTunes even existed. What about those songs?
Oh, here's Apple's solution for those songs:
Apple also announced a service, not available even in America until later this year, which will scan computers for all music tracks and offer cloud-based access to them for $24.99 a year. Apple will take a cut of sales and give the rest to the record companies. Whereas the iCloud is simply better than the competition, this is a breakthrough. In effect, it will allow music companies to levy an annual fee for the use of their music, whether ripped from CDs or downloaded illegally.
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So they're going to charge me money to access music I already bought or got for free (e.g. CC licensed music or otherwise free tracks) to get cloud access to it. Meanwhile Google Music lets me access all my music on the cloud for free? Oh yeah, Apple is definitely way ahead of Google. :huh:
The ZDNet article seems to get it, though. Speaking of Google Music:
If a user can put 20,000 tracks from an iTunes collection into the cloud and stream to any device, the company takes all of those Android devices out there and turns them into music players. Sure, we could always play music from those devices, via the SD card in the phone, but exponentially intensifying that with a cloud-sync offering raises the stakes - and kind of makes me wonder why I need an iPod.-http://www.zdnet.com/blog/google/google-to-hollywood-well-do-music-with-or-without-you/2942
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johnk:
The lion's share of the money still goes to the publishers
-40hz (June 13, 2011, 07:24 PM)
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Not true -- the biggest share goes to the retailer.
who used to justify their percentage because of the mechanical reproduction costs they incurred by printing, binding, and shipping books.
-40hz (June 13, 2011, 07:24 PM)
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Not true -- it's always been a small part of publishing costs (10-15 per cent)
+1
Or maybe it's because the publishers and their stakeholders have invested significant resources into securing distribution channels that empower authors to reach end-users through efficient marketization which facilitates monetization of intellectual properties and brings increased value to works and content that otherwise would require individual artists to maintain ecommerce infrastructure and complex systems which would detract them from their artistic pursuits and feed them better, which could lead to food-coma, thus reducing their productivity in global markets and reducing their facetime with prospective buyers looking to enrich their lives through content consumption for which publishers can charge a premium to ensure the viability of authors, artists and content producers that can thankfully take full advantage of publisher channels and relationships that extend their reach beyond what they could hope to achieve by setting up a PayPal account, spending $25 a month on a web site, and doing the marketing that they would have to do anyways because they will only ever become a part of the long tail in the publisher's value-chain.
-Renegade (June 13, 2011, 10:34 PM)
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Any time these forums discuss the marketing of books/music/tech there is a general tendency to kick the big companies involved who want to make money. Add to that a general loathing of DRM without offering any idea as to how content creators are supposed to make any money. I have no illusions about big bad corporate life (I've done my time there) but putting two fingers up to the money-making machine without offering any alternative doesn't advance the argument.
Book authors face a serious problem making money from ebooks. No DRM, no income. It's that simple. I'm sure the good folk here will happily sponsor their favourite authors by sending them a few dollars a month direct. But the vast majority won't. And writers will just stop writing.
I used to be a local newspaper journalist and editor. The industry's income has vanished. Few people will pay for online news. The paper I worked for employed 35 journalists in its heyday. It now employs a handful. The story is repeated in countless papers across the UK. More importantly, the news they used to provide has vanished. Detailed analysis of local government spending, for example, or the performance of local schools and hospitals. And no-one has stepped in to do the same thing. Sure, all this information is out there, somewhere, if you know how to dig, and how to make Freedom of Information requests to government/official bodies, and how to analyse the data. But the average punter doesn't have the time or the inclination. Many local government officials and politicians are delighted to see local newspapers vanishing. And at its essence it's the same debate as books. If no-one will pay for the information, the writers and skills will simply disappear. And our lives will be the poorer for it.
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