Comments on: Publishers trying to avoid music industry debacle

By: Steve Jordan

Steve Jordan — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 17:47:11 +0000

The “everything should be free” people have been around since money was invented. Somehow, commerce has found ways to work around them over the last 3000 years. Anyone who thinks that now, because the internet exists, the game is finally over, needs to have their horizons expanded a few degrees. Okay, to be more specific, about 359 degrees…

Or they need to try not to make too much fuss as the real innovators of the Digital era run them over.

By: David S.

David S. — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 23:14:21 +0000

“The thing that’s the most frightening is this sense of some people that everything should be free”.

There’s nothing like basing the future of your multinational corporation, indeed an entire multibillion dollar multinational industry, on fear and a vague “sense” rather than actual evidence. However much these clowns are getting paid it’s too much, way too much. Maybe they could get a job in Wall Street.

By: David

David — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 17:19:45 +0000

And I feel they don’t need DRM, and that issue is finished evolving for me. I support authors who go outside their system and only read within their system if I simply must.

They deserve all the piracy they get so long as they treat us good honest customers like crap.

By: Paul Durrant

Paul Durrant — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 17:12:19 +0000

If the major publishers are trying to avoid the “music industry decbacle” they show no signs that their efforts are working.

*DRM
*High Prices
*Format Confusion

We just need some high-profile prosecutions and they’ll have managed to copy everything the music industry got wrong.

By: gnawingonfoot

gnawingonfoot — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 16:49:21 +0000

As a student who switches apartments and acquires a shiny new piece of (refurbished) technology (computer/phone/Mindspring visor), dead tree and DRM are both value-subtract add-ons to my books, and DRM even moreso than the dead tree simply because there is no single good reason to add it to any purchase I would make. I’ve never pirated an ebook that was available in a chains-free format, and frankly I’d rather buy the a dead tree and seek out darknet copies of the ebook rather than buy into DRM. Publishers look like they’re setting themselves up for the same sort of Evil Corporate Overlords scorn that the RIAA brought upon themselves.

By: Steve Jordan

Steve Jordan — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 16:32:10 +0000

“the difference is with books there’s nothing wrong with books, the book is not a value-subtract medium but a value-add medium.”

It all depends on how you look at it, though… innit?

I mean, to someone in a tiny closed-in apartment, the bulk of books can be a serious negative factor. To someone who travels a lot (yes, you, Paul), the weight of books to carry with you is a negative.

To someone whose house just caught fire, the mass of books that need saving is a definite negative (compared to the flash drive that could have held their entire library).

Publishers are still stuck in the old paradigms, to the extent that they cannot even fathom how anyone would have a problem with a printed book. That’s how you know that they haven’t “got it” yet.