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Should second-hand book stores pay royalties?
December 25, 2008 | 2:13 pm
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By Chris Meadows
I had not been aware of this until a LiveJournal post from Steve Miller brought this to my attention, but after checking around (and being pointed to a link by Sharon Lee) I was able to find a fair amount of supporting evidence. It seems there is a movement to require second-hand (or “used”) book stores to pay royalties on books they resell.
Here is a page from the website of Novelists, Inc., a group which claims to be “the international organization of multi-published novelists” (although I have never heard of them to this point), in which they advocate amending United State copyright law to require that used book stores pay royalties on books they resell for up to two years after their publication. (A quick search also pulled up a pair of blog posts by authors who are for and against this position.)
In Europe, this idea is called droit de suite and has been in force in France for some time and over the rest of Europe more recently for resale of original works of art. (For example, it went into effect in the United Kingdom in 2006.) However, it has not been applied to books (though writer A.S. Byatt argued in 2005 that it should).
A Moral Quandary
The argument goes that, with the advent of high-tech, high-volume Internet booksellers, used (or remaindered) copies of books can compete side-by-side with new copies—even from the very moment of the book’s official release date. Thus, if a consumer sees a listing on Amazon.com of a book for $20 new, along with “7 used copies available starting at $13,” he is more likely to buy the $13 used book instead of the $20 new, and the author and publisher lose out on royalties. (The Authors Guild kicked up a fuss back in 2002 when Amazon first began offering used book sales on the same page as new.)
Some people consider this to be a serious (or, conversely, a tongue-in-cheek) moral issue. However, the Doctrine of First Sale, enshrined in American law these last hundred years, states that we can resell anything we buy—including books—without limitation (provided we don’t violate some other law by doing it). This applies not only to consumers, but to stores.
A number of people with relatively low budgets make much use of used bookstores. (My parents almost never buy any book new, for example.) Tacking a royalty onto used book resales would increase the barriers to book ownership for these people, making it harder for them to buy books in an era when many already lament that reading is dying out.
It would also mean that bookstores that don’t have to worry about tracking used books now would have to retrofit inventory tracking systems, increasing their costs considerably (and guess who would end up eating those increased costs? Hint: Not the bookstores). Some stores, such as charity stores or flea markets that simply don’t have the time or money to devote to keeping track of used sales, would either have to get an exemption or stop selling books altogether.
“Spillage” and Exposure
In the LiveJournal entry mentioned above, Steve Miller notes:
From a practical standpoint, for me and us, when one publisher gave up on us, it was the used bookstores that hand-sold our used books and kept us in front of readers, and when we went to conventions we autographed thousands of used books … for readers who wanted more. So, we support used bookstores, we sign used books at conventions, bookstores, and fleamarkets. Readers deserve the opportunity, especially in these times when jobs and cash are at a premium, to buy a used book. Yes we need to sell new books, too,but used book dealers are not taking food out of our pockets.
Eric Flint makes a similar point in his Salvos Against Big Brother column about “Spillage”—the idea that letting customers “try before they buy” ends up leading to greater sales:
What I like to see are copies of my books available all over the place in editions that bring me no direct income—whether that’s in a library, a used bookstore, a remaindered table, or simply being passed from one person to another. Because I know that that "spillage" is simply the necessary lubricant for this very opaque market that my livelihood depends upon. It’s that spillage—that penumbra of free or cheap copies, if you will—that makes everything else possible in the first place.
What I don’t want to see are those books piling up, because they aren’t moving. (Or the library equivalent, which is not being checked out.)
Flint notes that the death knell for authors is when libraries, used book stores, and remainder tables won’t stock an author’s books because there is no demand for them. He adds:
It’s the author’s job to write books that are good enough—at least, in the eyes of enough people—that no matter what form of sale or distribution any given copy of a given title winds up having, it will have enough turnover to keep making it attractive to the distributor.
The E-book Angle
These arguments over fairness of authors getting paid versus getting broader exposure echo very similar arguments over the harm that e-book “piracy” does to authors by “stealing” sales. In fact, Eric Flint often compares them directly in his Salvos and Baen Free Library Prime Palaver columns. Both of them serve to increase exposure for authors, leading to a greater chance that the person not paying the author now will buy something that pays him in the future.
And in both cases, if the used-book buyer or illicit downloader had been prevented from buying or downloading the book, it would probably not have led to a new sale for the author instead. Rather, they would probably have bought used or downloaded illicitly something else instead, and checked the author’s work out of the library—another use that would not have led to the author getting paid (at least in America; the UK and Canadian library systems do both pay royalties for library book checkouts).
I wonder whether used book sales might end up being an issue that drives publishers further toward e-books. As I pointed out a few days ago, the prospect of a second-hand sale market for digital media such as e-books is considerably dimmer. While not very exciting from the consumer’s standpoint, it is highly likely publishers and authors could see this as a feature.
Regardless, there should be more awareness of—and opposition to—Novelists Inc.’s attempt to amend copyright law to require used book sellers to collect royalties. The last thing we need in our current economic situation is to place even more burden on people who are not well-off enough to afford anything but used books—and on an entire sector of business that isn’t doing too well as it is.
Technorati Tags: Amazon,bookstores,used books,second-hand books,Novelists Inc.,Eric Flint,Sharon Lee,Steve Miller
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Not my real name I don’t want to irritate the people that sell my books.
I am a published author and I like used bookstores. When I look up my book on the net I find used copies for as much as three times the new price on the same web page. I write because I love to write. I receive $0.40 for one of my books sold for $4.00 wholesale, my book retails for $12.00 and on the same web page used $40.00 (the numbers are rounded). What are Chapters, Amazon and others doing? I wonder how many of the books marked as used on the net really are used, or are these sales technique to boost there profits or to promote making used bookstores pay royalties to put them out of business.
Used bookstores sell books for as little as ¼ the price of new. This promotes my new work and sometimes my old work as well. Used bookstores should not be paying royalties on books that the royalties already are paid. Although tracking used sales would give authors an idea as to how many people read there work. As it is now only royalties keep track of how many people they touch. I believe each person we touch we influence, each person we influence we become a part of. When we touch another with words that we write, we influence them. Should what we write survive our demise, our ability to influence others survives and for all intent and purposes. A part of us lives forever in those we touch we remain a part of the circle of life.
I have read the article and the replies with great interest. Wouldn’t have done it otherwise, I just like the pomposity f that statement.
I was looking for wholesale second-hand book suppliers to add to the selection in my (soon to be relaunched) bookshop in Spain. I would like to get my oar in the water before it freezes over even if it is superfluous.
As I understand it, the publishers, at least in England, maybe elsewhere, give large bookshops books on credit and do not claim for ninety to one hundred and twenty days. At that point, the large bookshops return all of the unsold books, thereby leaving the publisher taking all the risk and all the financing.
The books returned are no longer considered new and farmed to remainder and overstock wholesalers. They want, and need to get at least their costs back and they do not always get that. Part of that cost is the author’s royalties or advance.
The author has been paid for every copy sold and maybe even some extra if it did not make its advance. If the system worked as (here) proposed, pulping would be the cheapest solution.
Let us not fool ourselves, the power of the large shop is pressuring the producers and the producers have to pressure their suppliers. The farmer that wants more for their milk may be speaking about one sent a litre, but if that is a five per cent increase, everybody else takes a five per cent increase and the end of the game includes a twenty five per cent increase on the retail price and the farmer is still struggling. Meanwhile, Tescos is posting huge, record breaking, new profits on retail milk.
A S Byatt is asked for in second hand bookshops, (here in any case) and she has decided she is losing something. Success often brings the view not of “I am doing well”, but that “I can be doing so much better for the same effort.” The previously mentioned Tescos put on discount copies of Harry Potter when it came out. They offered a price that the independents could not match and the chains did not try to. I was open then and I remember the hype and pressure the publisher gave me to get my order in early, knowing full well they had a sweetheart deal with Tescos and were prepared to slit my throat with a dull razor; as they did to so many bookshops in England. Tescos is a large food shop chain that has no social conscience, or at least does not seem to have.
But, doesn’t the United States still have Reagan’s inventory tax in place? Doesn’t it still cost text book publishers to store extra textbooks they produce? From what I have heard it nearly doubled the price of textbooks.
It might also interest the readers to know that the copyright laws in most of Europe still restrict the royalties to the authors’ children and grandchildren (50 years) and have not allowed them to spread to the great grandchildren (70 years).
I remember the plant breeder’s rights wars that so bothered so many governments.The USA won that fight and now you have process patents that mean not only do you pay if you produce the same medication, but you have to pay if you use the same process anywhere along the line in doing so for a different medication.
Imagine taking a patent on fire. The process patents would cover picking up two sticks, A bow and string, lightning, even if you are not responsible for it hitting your property, even smoke and heat if they have a good lawyer.
What exactly do the writers of this law really want? What do they really have in mind? I think it may go well beyond second hand books; just like it went way beyond cross ferilisation in flowers.
Most writers are given a bad deal. Each book they write takes a huge amount of time and effort for which they receive very little in return unless you are Dan Brown or John Grisham. Until Amazon and other online bookshops came on the scene books were sold at a higher price which allowed publishers to take on more writers and pay them halfway decently. Now with Amazon and others pushing down prices it’s the author who take the brunt. Publishers have now become very reluctant to take on new writers and pay them very little if they do.
This is bad enough and now with the on-line selling of second hand books the writer is really trampled upon. Amazon still profits but the author get’s nothing and this is unfair. It after all was the writer who put in the hard work and not Amazon.
One thing often misunderstood here is that books are not items like a tv, a radio or a car. If you sell a tv second hand you are giving up something. You can’t watch tv anymore until you buy a new tv. You don’t buy a tv, watch it for a month and then are finished with it (unless you give up watching tv altogether).
A book is more like food. It gives nourishment for the mind. Unlike a bag of potatoes however it doesn’t loose it’s nutritional value. It can be resold and somebody else receives the nourishment without giving proper due to the author who created it for her.
Imagine a farmer who produces potatoes and these potatoes could be resold indefinitely. The farmer, who already makes very low profit on the potatoes now makes even less, because most people buy them second-hand, third-hand, a.s.o. Eventually the farmer will say enough is enough and pack in farming. What’s the point? He has to feed a family.
The author has to feed a family, too. If people don’t buy new books, he doesn’t get paid. Is it right, to eat potatoes and not pay the farmer? Is it right to profit at the expense of those who do the hard work? I think, it’s morally wrong. Authors deserve to be paid for doing hard work like everybody else. If nutritional value is given, the person who worked for it should be rewarded. It’s not about the paper but what’s written on it.
How would people here feel if they had to work for no or very little money? How do you feel if you work yourself to the bone and at the end of the day it’s other’s who profit from your work and you have to take to driving the bus in your spare-time just to get some food on your plate?
I’m all for second-hand book shops but let them pay royalties where royalties are due. It’s the same as with software. You don’t have rights to it only because you own the media like a CD or DVD. You’re not allowed to resell software unless specifically given permission, why should it be different with books? The same argument applies as for software. It is not the media but about intellectual property right.
If you buy a book, you don’t buy the paper, but what is written on the paper. This cannot be compared with commodities but are intellectual property. Selling on books is like installing software on a computer and reselling the media to others. It’s illegal and for good reasons.
Once a book has been read, it’s installed in the mind of a person. Passing the book on allows the same creative ideas to be installed in another person’s mind. This process can be repeated indefinitely, like software can be indefinitely installed from computer to computer. Why should we have two standards. Isn’t that hypocritical? Why should software houses have the right to ensure, that for each installed software they receive payment but not authors and publishers?
The book is merely a container for an intellectual good. When Amazon or other on-line bookshops sell second hand books they should be obliged to pay royalties from the profit they make foremost to the author but also to the publisher.
Concerning charity and other second hand shops I don’t think they are really the problem. It’s mainly the on-line booksellers where for each new book they often already have second-hand books available. There are many people who would buy new but buy second-hand now, because it’s so easy. They don’t have to go out the house to hunt books down walking from one charity shop to another. If it’s as easy to buy second-hand as buying new, than royalties should be paid or the writers go without food. Why should writers work for others to eat and themselves going hungry? I mean, as I said before, Amazon like other on-line bookshops still profit from the second-hand sale. They grow fat from the work of others. Come on guys, give some respect to those who write books, what would we do without them? Do you really think it’s fair they should not get paid when others profit from their work?
Ben, I have to disagree with you. There are tons of businesses where people secondary to the original customer benefit. For example I can watch free cable at my parents (I do not have cable) and maybe I will enjoy a sow enough to buy the DVD. Maybe not. They have to win me just like any other entertainment purchase. Or how about my job, I am a teacher and my students often go home and tea h stories and songs to parents or siblings. Such is life. I got paid the first time I taught it, to the kid. Authors too get paid, on first sale. What happens after that is up to the purchaser. If you try to control every scenario, you will control yourself into obscurity. Just let people have as many channels to get the book, that is how authors grow audiences.
Dear Joanna,
This is not about forbidding people to read books at their parents house or even passing on a book to a friend. Of course there will always be secondary benefiters.
What this is about is people profiting from selling the works of others without passing any of the profits on to the author and publishers. A book can be resold hundreds of time. This means, even if it is sold cheaper, it can make lots of profits for the resellers.
If you buy a book second hand, you can resell it for the same price again and so can the next person. This means, you are actually getting the book for free.
Through on-line sellers like Amazon, this process is made so easy now that more and more people who normally would buy new now buy second-hand and after they read it put it back on Amazon for resale. Economically this makes sense for the buyer, of course, and for Amazon, but it’s very bad for the publisher and especially the author.
It is for good reasons, that software houses have protected their interest by not allowing people to resell the software they buy. The same should be for books. It only makes sense.
Of course, like in software there are those who believe that everything should be free. If a publisher or author is happy that his books can be freely distributed or resold, he should have that right. But it should not be automatically assumed. If in a book the permission is given to resell it, than fine, resell it.
In software we have people who develop programs in their spare-time. They are happy to share their applications with everybody and put them out with an OpenSource contract. This means, they are giving explicit permission to use their software for free and forbid anybody to resell it for profit.
Writers should have a choice if they want to allow people to resell their books or not. At the moment too many take it for granted, that writers should go hungry and that it’s just their tough luck.
Who in their right mind would want to go to work and see other people who don’t contribute get paid for the work they do? This is what happens to writers. They spend months, years on a book and then have to see how their books are sold profiting others but not them. Publishers who put out enormous amounts of sums upfront to support and promote a book for the writer have to watch how less and less new books are bought because it’s so easy now to buy second hand. They struggle more and more to recoup their costs unless they get big deals with TESCO or ASDA, who only buy what sells and don’t stock less known writers. This is bad news for bookshops who offer a wider range, bad news for writers of more demanding literature and bad news for the reader.
Of course, there might be just the saving grace for our book industry, let’s put advertisements in books. Let’s have free books and an add on every page. Let’s have them on electronic readers than they can even be animated. Wouldn’t that be fun to read Jane Eyre, Lord of the Rings, Oliver Twist, Harry Potter with McDonald and Burger King competing for your attention between the lines. God, I rather die then live in a world where books are becoming like TV owned by the big businesses to sell their products through them. But this is what’s going to happen if the current trend is not stopped.
Of course, many writers don’t primarily write for money. They have a passion for what they do and receive pleasure if their books are read, no matter if it was bought new or second hand. But at the end of the day, taking pleasure out of one’s work being read doesn’t put food on the table.
If somebody benefits from their work, they should say thank you buy paying for the book in a way that the author get’s paid through it and not just the distributor. But because many people unfortunately don’t yet think like that, we need regulation to protect the publishing industry. They need to be protected through price-regulation and clear laws protecting the interests of the writers and publishers. We already have it in the software industry, it is only fair, that the same protection should be given to writers.
If we don’t control the selling of books we condemn the writers and their books into obscurity. If we want to have good quality books in the future we need to protect our artists and honour them. It’s only right and fair.
Right now Ben, the issue is that people have property rights to things they buy and own. If you want people not to own the books, and not to have those rights, then you need to charge them rental prices, not ownership prices. Personally, I would be happy with that—pay $4 a book and have no rights at all to it other than to read it and be done. And in the e-era, this would certainly be easier. I’d be happy to pay $3 and have it go away (like library books do) after 30 days, the same way I do with a video rental. But if you are going to charge me an ownership price, then you can’t take away my property rights to it. I guess as authors, you have to gamble on whether you’ll make more money selling the book to an owner, or renting it to a renter where the sticker price would have to be so much less.
No way do I buy into this nonsense. And nonsense it is. Writers have been published successfully for centuries and have made good income from it while 2nd hand book shops have also been successful in parallel. The idea that writers ‘suffer’ in some way is totally false and is driven solely and exclusively by greed.
We have had a ‘model’ in operation since the beginning of writing, whereby a writer gets paid for each hard copy of his works sold. End of story.
I bough my car from Toyota five years ago and then sold it to my brother. We did not and never intend to make an additional payment to Toyota. Writers need to get a grip on this sparkle of greed they have in their eyes. They should also wake up to realise that 2nd hand book sales spread their reputation and lead to increased sales overall for them.
We already have the outrageous laws restricting copyright until 50 or even 70 years after a writer’s death. This appalling law is what we need to rid ourselves of and stop allowing this uber-control of the writer.
Well, Joanna, I guess you own the book as it concerns the paper and ink, in the same way you own a CD or DVD. But when it comes to the content, you don’t own it and never will, it belongs to the author.
Book rental might be a good idea for the future instead of libraries letting people read them for free. I wouldn’t be quite for that, for I like that I can go to the library and have free access to books. But I can also have a good conscience here, because as far as I know there is a system in place that authors still get paid through it. Either the library acquires the books at a much higher price or they keep track how often a book is lend out and pay royalties. In one of the writers magazines I read a few months ago they advised not to sell books second hand but to give them to the library as this way the author still will be paid.
There is of course an argument if library services need to be overhauled. We don’t see yet many software freely available in libraries. If we want to play games on the computer or use Microsoft Office we still are expected to pay for it. There are not many voices who say that Microsoft should allow their software to be given away for free or to be resold once a person made a first purchase. And in software we have the same process of development, an author (or group of authors) who write it, a publisher/software house and distributors.
Games for example are as creative as novels and we don’t expect that they should be passed on for free. That’s why they constantly develop new security measures to prevent software piracy. And just the fact, that copying a piece of software is illegal should tell us something. Why do we have two different standards here? If copying and reselling software is wrong then so is reselling a book without the express permission of the author and publisher.
As I said before, the problem here are more the on-line bookshops like Amazon then the small second-hand and charity shops in the street. Before Amazon came on the scene I had to get out of the house and hunt for books. If I wanted a specific book I usually had to buy it new as there was no guarantee to find it second hand quickly enough. But now, within a short period of time when a book is released, it can be easily acquired second hand from Amazon and other on-line book stores. This means that where before people would have bought new, many now buy second-hand.
I think, it’s OK to sell second-hand, but Amazon and other on-line book stores have the capability to track the sales and should be obliged to pass on profits from each sale to the authors and publishers.
There is actually a positive slant to it. It’s a way of recycling books and protecting the environment. Through on-line selling it has become possible to print less and sell more. It’s the same when bottles used to get recycled. They were washed out and filled again with juice, milk, etc. But those who provided the juice were still paid . The juice is the content. If Amazon decides to recycle old books by encouraging people to send them back to them once read, that’s great. But please pay the author each time you sell it again. It’s not that much the author get’s from a book anyway, usually between 10 to 15%. If a book is sold new for £10, he gets maybe £1. If Amazon decides to resell that same book again, they should pay this £1 again.
Amazon charges £0.86 plus a referral fee (17.25% of the sale). If a book is sold at £10 they make a profit of £1.75 + £0.86 = £2.61. Of course, second hand books are sold cheaper, so say it sells at £7 then Amazon makes £1.23 + £0.86 = £2.09.
The point is, that Amazon should continue paying the royalties at least to the author but also to the publisher. Amazon, like other on-line book stores, does the least work but makes the most money. This is not right. By all means, let them sell the books new or second hand, but prevent them from undercutting the market and ripping off the writers and publishers.
Ben, you seem to have wavered from the debate somewhat when you say:
They struggle more and more to recoup their costs unless they get big deals with TESCO or ASDA, who only buy what sells and don’t stock less known writers. This is bad news for bookshops who offer a wider range, bad news for writers of more demanding literature and bad news for the reader.
But back to the point – and Joanna has made an excellent point above, once a person has paid for an item, be it a book, a car, a house…..that person has the right to sell it on for a profit or not.
Your arguement suggests that the original creator/manufacturer/designer of a product should continue to make a profit through the entire life-span of the item. If I privately sell my car to someone, should I give a percentage of the profit I make to the garage I originally purchased the car from and a percentage to the company Ford?
PS Ben, re your comment that begins: Most writers are given a bad deal. Each book they write takes a huge amount of time and effort for which they receive very little in return unless you are Dan Brown or John Grisham………
do what most of us undiscovered lesser-known writers do, go into teaching and stop sounding so hard done to man. There’s only one thing worse than a struggling writer and that’s a struggling writer who whinges about it!
Dear Ben, are you being serious when you write:
Who in their right mind would want to go to work and see other people who don’t contribute get paid for the work they do? This is what happens to writers.
This is what happens to everyone!!!! It’s called having a boss.
This comment is directed to the commenter Ben Cambell,
in one of your statements above, you have written:
I guess you own the book as it concerns the paper and ink, in the same way you own a CD or DVD. But when it comes to the content, you don’t own it and never will, it belongs to the author.
This is a very mis-guided statement to make.
If you buy a book, you do own it and you always will, unless you sell it or give it to someone else,
in the same way if you buy a chair from IKEA.
A designer has created the design for the chair in the same way an author has created the story/novel/poem he has written.
You’re trying to talk about intellectual property (IP) but I think you’re getting a bit confused.
Intellectual property (IP) is a term referring to a number of distinct types of creations of the mind for which property rights are recognised–and the corresponding fields of law.[1] Under intellectual property law, owners are granted certain exclusive rights to a variety of intangible assets, such as musical, literary, and artistic works; discoveries and inventions; and words, phrases, symbols, and designs. Common types of intellectual property include copyrights, trademarks, patents, industrial design rights and trade secrets in some jurisdictions.
IP refers to the copyright and not the physical book itself.
Bemused makes a good point. I own a couch from IKEA which somebody has exerted intellectual effort to design, but my purchase of it has compensated him or her for it. And now I can keep the couch forever (and as a result not spend money on further couches if I don’t want to) or give it away. And how about all those decorating blogs out there? Does Apartment Therapy have to pay royalties to IKEA if they photograph my apartment and thereby expose non-paying eyeballs to the design of my couch? No. The creators of the couch got their compensation when I bought it. Once I buy a physical object, it is MINE. If you want to remove that right, you need to remove the physical object. Ebooks might be a way toward that. But then if the people have fewer rights, they will expect commensurately to pay fewer dollars…
Howard, I guess you’re not a writer, otherwise you wouldn’t say that they are driven by greed. A writer works extremely hard for each book that they publish. They are driven by their passion for the art and enrich our lives. It is only right that we should look after them and not let them go hungry. Your accusation of greed is directed at the wrong people. Think about it, who makes the most money out of the books? Who are the people who get wealthy on the back of the writers? And you can’t compare books with a Toyota, but I already explained this.
ScottishWriter, you like many here seem to not quite understand the dilemma. As I already explained, you can’t compare books with buying a car or house. Read my reasons. If an identical copy of a car or house could be resold over and over again, I’m sure the manufacturers would seek to protect their interest. But anyway, manufacturers make sure that they make enough money for themselves on a first sale. This does not happen for most writers, only very very extremely very few like J. K. Rowling with Harry Potter. Most writers get peanuts and are required to work at other jobs for a living. If car manufacturers had to work for peanuts they would quit their jobs, and so would Architects, builders and estate agents. A question: would you work eight or more hours for your boss and not get paid enough to pay the rent and buy food? Would you think, that if you work all day on a buliding site and somebody else cashes in your checks, that this is acceptable? This is what happens, when books get resold. It’s work for which money is exchanged but the worker is not paid.
Anon.Says, as I said to ScottishWriter, would you be willing to work and have somebody else get paid for it? Of course I understand that in most job situations the employer profits from his employers. But we’re speaking here about the exploitation of writers, where online-booksellers profit and become extremly rich while the writers who do the hard work don’t get a share in it.
BemusedScribbler, I don’t see what mis-guidance should be in my statement. Do you really think that five, six pounds/dollars or whatever you pay gives you ownership of the content of a book? Of course not. The price you pay for a book is in no relation to the work a writer put into it. Depending on the book, many require months and even years of hard work to get written down, often in isolation and difficult circumstances.
The content of a book will always remain owned by the author. He gives permission to have it printed and sold. Any person who wants access to the story should be required to pay the author royalty either directly or via the reseller. This cannot be compared with reselling a car.
If you resell a chair from IKEA you stop owning it. If you resell a book, you already have installed the content in your mind, so by reselling the book you practically copy the content into another persons mind and thus violate the copyright. This is the equivalent of physically copying the IKEA chair and selling it on. If you do this IKEA will have a problem with you, for you stealing business from them.
Books are containers for stories. It’s the stories that need to be protected, not the books. He who buys a book gets the right to install that story into his mind. The same way when you buy a game you are allowed to install it on only one computer. If you install it on yours and then give the installation CD to your friend, you are breaking the law.
What you said about IP, it is exactly that, referring to intangible assets like musical, literary and other artistic works, etc. What I meant to say is that the content of the book is such an intangible asset, like the software on a CD. Owning an installation CD does not give me ownership over the software and neither does owning a book give me ownership of the story.
Guys, think about it. If you see a book on Amazon new for £10 new and £6 second-hand like new, which one would you go for? I guess moust of us would go for the cheaper option. Of course, it makes economically sense. We save money. But, if this option wasn’t there we would have to buy it new. This means, simply by having the option to buy second-hand, the author and publishers will miss out on royalties that they should be getting. This is a huge loss and creates problems for the publishing industry. If this trends continues, we will soon have to say good-bye to good books and hello to easy selling junk. Already publishers are taking on less new writers than they used to and cut payments to them.
Joanna, again, you can’t compare things like an IKEA chair/couch with books. If you sell your couch, you would need to buy another one to get into the benefit of owning one. It’s not the same with a book. Once you read a story you have it embedded in your mind. The reason you might want to sell the book is because after having read it you have no need anymore for it. You now know the story. Maybe you want to read the book again in a couple of years, but it’s not like a couch, which, if you sell it, would require you to have to sit on the floor. Same with a car, you can’t drive unless you buy another car. Or a house, you don’t want to live on the street so you buy or rent another one. With a book, once you read it, you can discard it. It’s now just a shell for you because you already know the content. Not so for the next person who buys it. For her it’s full of mysterious content that she wants to explore. And for that content, that experience the writer has created for her, she should not pay thanks to you, but the writer. You haven’t created the story, it’s the writer who did.
Wow, I wonder why this article has suddenly gotten so popular over the last couple of days. Did someone link it from somewhere?
It seems like a lot of authors don’t like the idea that a book they write might be resold without them taking a cut of it. But the fact is, they’ve already been paid for that book.
A used bookstore making money off that book is not so much profiteering on the writer’s hard work as it is making money by providing the service of collecting and organizing used books in such a fashion that consumers can search through and find what they want.
It also helps drive the sale of new books by ensuring that customers have a way to sell them when they no longer want them. If you didn’t know you could resell a book, you’d be less likely to want to buy it. That’s part of why a lot of people think e-books should be cheaper than paper ones.
And requiring that used stores pay royalties would only serve to drive used-book stores out of business and drive up the prices of used books at the ones that remain. That wouldn’t do anybody any good.
Chris – some of the confusion in this thread is because the re-sale of physical books is being mixed into discussion of the re-sale of digital books. If I purchase a physical book and sell it after reading it, I no longer have possession of the book. If I buy a digital book, I could produce and sell an infinite number of perfect copies of the book.
The re-sale of digital books worries publishers (and authors), so publishers are tending to use digital locks to prevent easy copying. Readers don’t like digital locks because they make it difficult to “lend” a digital book to a family member or friend and because there is a nasty history of vendors departing the business and in so doing causing the consumer’s library to fail (cf. Microsoft, K-Mart and others abandoning the online music business). Try to imagine what might happen if Adobe were to fail.
The music and video industries are pushing for ever-tougher laws to prevent the unlocking of digital goods. Canada has a new bill before parliament that wool make breaking a digital lock a criminal offense; other countries are being encouraged to enact similar law.
So consumers have I think a good argument that digital books are really rentals, not purchases, and that prices should reflect this. Publishers are not sure they want lower prices – they are still unsure of the business model for digital goods (printing, shipping, and warehouse distribution costs go away for digital, but new costs including software locks, secure servers, digital distributor fees, not to mention author requests for higher royalty percentages, are being added).
It will be a while before the dust settles and we have a stable business in digital books. Before that happens, I expect there will be as much confusion as there was when music went digital. And quite a lot of casualties.
Chris – some of the confusion in this thread is because the re-sale of physical books is being mixed into discussion of the re-sale of digital books. If I purchase a physical book and sell it after reading it, I no longer have possession of the book. If I buy a digital book, I could produce and sell an infinite number of perfect copies of the book.
The re-sale of digital books worries publishers (and authors), so publishers are tending to use digital locks to prevent easy copying. Readers don’t like digital locks because they make it difficult to “lend” a digital book to a family member or friend and because there is a nasty history of vendors departing the business and in so doing causing the consumer’s library to fail (cf. Microsoft, K-Mart and others abandoning the online music business). Try to imagine what might happen if Adobe were to fail.
The music and video industries are pushing for ever-tougher laws to prevent the unlocking of digital goods. Canada has a new bill before parliament that wool make breaking a digital lock a criminal offense; other countries are being encouraged to enact similar law.
So consumers have I think a good argument that digital books are really rentals, not purchases, and that prices should reflect this. Publishers are not sure they want lower prices – they are still unsure of the business model for digital goods (printing, shipping, and warehouse distribution costs go away for digital, but new costs including software locks, secure servers, digital distributor fees, not to mention author requests for higher royalty percentages, are being added).
It will be a while before the dust settles and we have a stable business in digital books. Before that happens, I expect there will be as much confusion as there was when music went digital. And quite a lot of casualties.
Ben wrote:
“If you resell a book, you already have installed the content in your mind, so by reselling the book you practically copy the content into another persons mind and thus violate the copyright. This is the equivalent of physically copying the IKEA chair and selling it on. If you do this IKEA will have a problem with you, for you stealing business from them. ”
This is truly the daftest, most idiotic argument I have encountered in MANY a year. A daft argument that is clearly driven not by logic or rational thinking – but by a new kind of greed that is gripping some of the writing community who see the new ebook development as a golden opportunity to leverage a new cash cow.
Ben talks about “A writer works extremely hard for each book that they publish. They are driven by their passion for the art and enrich our lives. It is only right that we should look after them and not let them go hungry.”
For goodness sakes that goes for all kinds of people all around the world. Writers are not any more deserving than any others. If they are good they will earn good money, if they are crap they won’t. Simple as that.
If writers are smart enough they should realise that Publishing as an industry is undergoing a massive change and writers who have real talent can start to look at bypassing publishers and going straight to the public to sell their work. This is the future, not trying to leverage some idiotic and irrational sob story as a justification to tap into money they don’t deserve.
We have too many new books being published as it is. Too many really ordinary books that would be no loss if they were to be lost to the world.
Chris Meadows, the idea that if you buy a book you can do with it what you want is an idea that needs to be challenged. In the past before the internet it was no problem. You bought a book, read it and passed it on to a friend, charity or resell it. Books then were a lot more expensive so that writers got a bigger cut from a first sale. Now online bookstores push down the prices for first sales and on top of it offer second hand versions of the same book on the same page. Now, make the math.
The publishing industry is, as Howard said, undergoing a massive change. The writer needs to be protected from those sharks who use their work to make themselves rich.
What does a writer get? 10 – 15% for each first sale. That’s basically it. Sometimes publishers give them an advance payments, but this has become less and less over the years. Publishers are pressured by supermarkets and online-bookstores to lower their prices. To recoup the loss, they therefore are forced to pay less to the writer.
What does Amazon for example get for a re-sale? 85p plus 17.5% referral charge. That is nearly twice the amount from what a writer gets for a first-sale. Amazon gets it each time a book is re-sold. The writer gets his pay only for the first time his book is sold.
This is big business for the boys from Amazon and other online bookshops. And yet, people here accuse writers of being greedy. Ridiculous.
A book is not the same as it’s content. The book is just a container for a story so that it can conveniantly read. What we pay for when we buy a book, is the benefit to hear the story in our mind. It’s not the paper and ink but the wonderful experience of being transported away for a period of time into another world.
A writer could simply just read out their book in a concert hall. We all would have to pay for that privilege and it would be difficult to pass it on to another person after the event. However, who would want to attend a concert that lasts days and weeks? It’s just not practical. So we have books that we can read at our leasure.
Writers don’t have the same choices as musicians. They don’t get revenues from concerts but only from the sale of their books. They depend on them. And because prices have come down so much, they depend on high volume sales.
I think you’re wrong that it would drive prices up if bookstores would pay royalties on their books. They just have to split their profits which I think is only right and fair. As I said, Amazon takes 17.5% of each second hand sale plus 85p. If the writer would get half of that it would mean, Amazon makes less money, but they still make a lot. Those online sellers just have to stop being so greedy.
Ben: Did you even read the article you’re replying to?
Even leaving aside the additional costs from retrofitting inventory tracking, given the choice between “splitting its profit” and raising prices to keep making the same profit, what business is going to choose the former? Businesses are in business to make money, you know.
And bookstores are under siege from online firms like Amazon already. Did you know there are no longer any used bookstores at all in Kansas City? Imagine that, a metro area the size of KC without a single used bookstore.
The idea that when you buy something, it is yours is not simply an idea, it’s a definition. If an author doesn’t like it, well, then the author can choose not to sell his books. “In the past” books were a lot more expensive, but you had a lot more of middle mans, and each of them had a lot more power (so, they got a bigger slice). I won’t accept your argument that authors nowadays get less money in a first sale, if you don’t show me numbers to prove it.
Ben, you come across as a very angry and bitter person. Perhaps you are an unknown writer, perhaps you have not honed your craft enough or you do not have the talent to ‘make it’ big.
Either way, you sound quite silly in some of your points, as noted by Howard you say:
“If you resell a book, you already have installed the content in your mind, so by reselling the book you practically copy the content into another persons mind and thus violate the copyright. This is the equivalent of physically copying the IKEA chair and selling it on. If you do this IKEA will have a problem with you, for you stealing business from them. ”
The line that really got me there was: you practically copy the book into another persons mind….
Let me suggest this, if you are a writer, you should spend more of your time working on your craft instead of writing reams of comments on here, because in practice the original statement: should second-hand book stores pay royalties, would only apply to you, as a writer, if you are actually selling books.
Good post Bemused
I would just say to people here that this concept that Ben is banging on about is not one that will go away imho. The music industry has managed to get into the offices and heads of legislators in both the US and Europe in the last ten years flogging their fraudulent woes about file sharing. They have been ridiculously successful in getting Governments onside. In addition the writer’s lobby has managed to get copyright laws extended to a ridiculous length beyond the death of the writer.
Unless ordinary people call a halt and do it loudly we will find ourselves subject to even more appallingly stringent and punitive copyright and royalty laws in the future.
Writers see the current changes in technology as a cash cow they can raid. They have been emboldened by their success and that of the music industry.
We need to pay attention to what they are doing and take it seriously.
But my mother can buy a paper book, loan it to me and to her husband and to whomever she wishes and not have to pay anybody royalties—because she paid the royalties when she first bought the book. You just can’t regulate this sort of thing. IF you move to an all-digital model where you CAN regulate this type of thing and you want all books to be one-use things, I would accept that argument—IF you lowered the price to take into account that it is a rental and not a sale. If you continue to charge full retail price for what is essentially a rental, I fear you won’t have many takers.
I strongly disagree with the notion that writers are any more ‘deserving’ of societal support than anybody else is. Personally, I think it is wrong that a model can make more in a day than a daycare worker makes in a year, but if there are people willing to pay the model that sum, who am I to stop them. That’s what we call a free market economy. And as part of a free market economy, I have the right to sell or give away physical items I have purchased.
Ben, in response to your post –
1. Have you read the article you are debating on?
2. You write: we’re speaking here about the exploitation of writers, where online-booksellers profit and become extremly rich while the writers who do the hard work don’t get a share in it.
3. You write: would you be willing to work and have somebody else get paid for it?
In response to these comments – the article is about second-hand book stores paying royalties, you make an unsupported and outlandish statement about online book sellers making fortunes.
And again, as I stated previously, I do work for someone who puts no effort into the job I do, yet makes a very tidy profit from the work myself and my colleagues do, daily.
You ask if I want to do this, yes I want to do the job but of course I would like to be paid more for it. I teach. I put my creative and intellectual self into my job everyday, should I be expecting some monetary compensation from the kids when they pass their GCSEs because I have imprinted my knowledge onto them and they have reproduced it?
A job is a job: teaching, working in a bank or call-centre or writing books and yes Ben being a writer is a job.
As a writer you must work, produce a product, market yourself, advertise your work and sell your work. Just like the rest of us. The key point is that you sell your product. You sell it once.
You say of writers:
It is only right that we should look after them and not let them go hungry.
Nonsense statement. It seems you have a romantic idea of the starving, writer penning away by candle-light into the night.
Romantic maybe but very deluded.