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Authors Guild To Members: De-link Amazon.com
theodp writes: "Angered by Amazon.com's practice of offering [prominently placed] used editions of relatively new titles, the Authors Guild is urging authors to replace Amazon.com links on their web sites with links to Barnesandnoble.com and BookSense.com.
Amazon spokesperson Patty Smith insisted the policy really "ends up helping authors and publishers" although neither the author nor the publisher receives royalties from Amazon's used book sales, and Smith could not cite an author or genre helped by the availability of used editions.
" CD: I'd imagine they don't want us to go to our local used book stores either? This is the second time they've tried to call Amazon to task for this.
What's the difference between what Amazon are doing, and what many car sales firms are doing (other than the cost, of course...). Plenty of car firms sell nearly new cars right next to the brand new ones.
Except for those books that I buy from the used/discounted section that I would never buy at full price, and then go buy a bunch of books by that author because I found out I like him/her.
Recent case in point- I picked up a book called "The Ice Limit" by 2 authors. Same guys wrote "The Relic" and "Riptide". Ice Limit was so freaking good I went and 3 more of their books at full price becuase I liked their stuff so much. (Review- Ice Limit was great, Riptide was merely very good, haven't finished Relic yet)
I'm guessing that most people (who read a lot) buy used books to try out new authors rather than wait around to get a used book by a favored author. I buy every Clancy and Dennis McKiernan (spelling might be off; he did a great job of taking Tolkien's universe and changed it slightly to produce a great serious of books. Check him out.) book as soon as I now that they have been released.
To wind down this windy post, I think that once again an industry is making a big fuss out of a certain method of legal distribution.
But what do I know, I'm merely human.
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
Well, I've recently bought a copy of Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House. This is original book of the brilliant film, a film which for me is probably the best horror ever made.
Has he lost his mind, I hear Slashdotters say? No, I haven't. I'm not talking about the recent effects-driven dross, I'm talking about one of the edgiest, psychological non-gore horrors that have been filmed.
Sadly, my new book's cover is splattered with "Now a major motion picture!"-type idiocy all over it, and the 'major' picture they refer to is the recent poor quality remake. I have the actors from this 1999 abomination all across the top, whereas I'd prefer to simply erase all knowledge of the film's existence from my memory.
Now, I definitely would have paid extra for an older copy of the book which had a non-film based cover. Sadly, one wasn't available in a reasonable amount of time and so I've ended up with the new cover.
Just one personal example as to why people are sometimes willing to pay for more for older copies.
Cheers,
Ian
I can see the logic in their argument, as I too would be quite pissed if I didn't see any money from the sales of something that I created. I've wondered for a long time how artists felt about used book sales, because in their mind it might just as well be someone selling illegal copies of their creations.
well, then their mind is stupid. it's not an illegal copy of their creation. it's not even a legal copy of their creation. it's not a copy at all. it's the original book that was bought and paid for. once you own it, you're free to do with it whatever you want. if you buy a used car from someone, should the manufacturer get a portion of the money?
--ben
http://hollywoodbitchslap.com/
And more importantly, not like they tried to pass legislation banning the sale of used books. Let them cry all they want right. Amazon has to make a business decision, which is more important to their business, the prominent used book link, or the free advertising. I'd place my bets that the free advertising is creating more revenue, but that's just a guess.
I'm the big fish in the big pond bitch.
I don't know about the US, but in the UK, Canada and Australia, authors get paid according to how frequently their books are withdrawn in libraries. The amount is pathetically small, but it's there.
My favorite quote:
"We asked could we at least talk about when something could become available as a used book? Could we maybe wait three months after the book was published?" said Patricia Schroeder, president of the Association of American Publishers. "The biggest problem is that it is legal, I think. I wring my hands, pound my desk and say, `Aargh.'"
Easy solution: outlaw used book sales. As the RIAA/MPAA have shown, convenient new laws can be bought on Capitol Hill. It's time for the Association of American Publishers to pay up....
.... So how long before all the clothing i donate to school yard sales and the salvation army becomes illegal because the manufactures want a cut of the sales or would prefer poorer people to only buy new clothes(and damn the poor sucker who buys my stinky shoes)...
Come on... you're putting a sensationalist spin on this one that's just not fair to the Author's Guild at all. Of course they got money on the first sale, and of course you have the right to sell the book if you want to. That's not the point.
The point is that they are upset with the prominent placement these used editions are getting on the website, because people will generally prefer the cheaper used edition to the new one. This will prevent the author from getting that second or third new copy sold, and thus 1/2 or 1/3 of the potential money. They are not trying to restrict your rights in any way at all, so stop being so sensationalist about it.
The fact is that both sides have a very good point, if you bothered to read the article. The authors are concerned that they will get less sales of new books (which is a tough thing to get if you're not someone like Anne Rice or Steven King to begin with) which will decrease their profits. Note that this isn't the publishers talking (like the equivalent of the RIAA) but it is the Author's Guild, which represents the authors themselves.
However, in the end I think I like Amazon's position: "It encourages customers to explore authors or genres they might not otherwise try because of the price," said spokeswoman Patty Smith. "That ends up helping authors and publishers." This is a good thing for new authors that won't really hurt the established authors or the publishers themselves. Either way, no one is trying to slap a EULA on your books, so please try and calm down a bit before you post.
"I may not have morals, but I have standards."
Being an author myself, I can sympathize with the Author's Guild. I spent a great deal of time on my book and just barely made any money off of it to begin with. Had Amazon had this at the time my book came out, I may have never made a dime.
Unlike movies and CDs, authors main source of benefit from a book is usually the book itself, and if new copies don't sell, the author doesn't make any money.
With CDs, this isn't really a significant source of income for most musicians. They tend to make most of their money from touring. Movies tend to make most of their money from theatres and selling to video stores (who then rent).
Authors, unfortunately, usually don't have another source of income from their books.
That said, there have been used book stores for years, and there should be. There are certainly a lot of out of print books that are made available through this channel that is invaluable to book collectors. If you allow this, you simply have to allow any book to be bought used.
Then there's Amazon.com. They're a company that is trying to make money. That's their job. They have an obligation to their shareholders to do the best they can to make money. Failure to do that, especially after they've clearly shown that it's a source of income for them, could actually make them liable to stockholders. They'd have to somehow show to their stockholders that the overall benefit would be to remove this feature (such as the Actors Guild putting together a big enough campaign against Amazon to cost them more to implement it than it makes them).
As an author, I'm torn, but when it comes down to it, Amazon is doing the right thing for them. They have to try to make money.
Would it be so bad if our government, laws, and ethics, revolved around a simple principle ?
An individual can do anything they like such that it doesn't infringe on anyone elses rights.
Where there is no "right" to profit, and if you're doing something in the privacy of your own home, no one else is involved, so theres clearly no infringing of anyone elses rights going on.
I don't want anarchy. You shouldn't be allowed to shoot me, but you should be allowed to buy a gun.
I shouldn't be allowed to steal a TV (or a copy of Windows), but i should certainly be able to build my own TV or my own windows.
If i dont feel like paying for aspirin, why shouldn't i just make it myself ?
When did our system get so unusable. When did it become "Acceptable" to pull this kind of shit ? I expect revolution at some point. I claim that our current system of laws is so complicated that it is not possible to spend even a single second of your life without breaking some law at some level of government. Is it any wonder why there are more people entering law school currently then ther are lawyers, and people have a utter malaise and disrespect for the law in general ?
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
Neither does Barnes and Noble, they broker them from data mined and average pricing, off of used book dealers central listings (Abebooks.com Bibliofind.com, etc)
Heres how it goes, amazon lists ANY book out there look at the lead times on out of print sometime. THEN they Order from a Used book dealer in their distribution channel, theey tak and ADDITIONAL 15% and you (the book dealer) Ship using Amazon shipping materials , lbels boxes, bagging etc, they have supplied, they then to the consumer mark up about another 15% over that (the mandatory 15% cut on YOUR list price).
Amazon and Barnes and Noble SELL NO USED BOOKS THEMSELVES, they BROKER them PERIOD.
Want to buy them cheaper ? Got to bebooks.com Bibliofind.com (one even being owned by B&N) and buy direct from the dealer. Youll get a hell of a lot beter deal. PLUS youll get extended information on the book condition not available on Amazon (Especially important for those tasty first editions).
Amazon will sell you a book they dont have and dont even know wqhereone is , if they can locat it throught their network Great, if they cant they cancel your order. They offer an average pricing based on the books listed previously of that edition/title.
How do I know these things ?
My mom in addition to being a F500 exec owns a Rare book shop.
Check it out if youere a paper head Snowball Books
Sig went tro...aahemmm.....fishing........
I co-wrote this book and I don't have a problem with Amazon's used book policy. Heck, I wouldn't have been able to read the out-of-print Day of the Triffids without that used book option. While I have great sympathy for full-time authors who need every red cent they can get, I also feel that it is better to look ahead to the next project rather than worry about used book/priracy sales for an old project (I'm looking at you, RIAA). I think focusing on the past (if you aren't a historian) is generally unproductive.
Last I knew in the U.S. (unless there's yet another sneaky law just around the corner) we have something called the "First sale doctrine" it basically boils down to the copyright holder looses the right to say what you can do with a work, (book, CD-ROM, VHS tape, etc.) once they have sold it to you. You can lend it, sell it, give it away, burn it, wallpaper your bathroom, or wipe your bottom with it. The only thing you can't do is make copies and sell them (I think with the NET law you can't make copies and give them away either).
So a library just has to buy a book like anyone else and they have the right to loan it out as often as the like. No additional charge levied or required. Sometimes a publisher will produce a "library edition" which has a better binding for libraries, and probably cost more.
That's one of the reasons that e-book publishers are so upset over libraries. They want to license the title, not sell it.
We've bought into that silliness with software and now they want to push that lucrative, rights withering model to everything else. Licensed music, movies, books. Seems like a real convenient way to get around silly little things like the "First Sale Doctrine" and "Fair Use".
The problem is that unlike software, or even movies, books have been around near forever and people (especially libraries) have gotten used to actually BUYING books.
Unlike the disorganized groups of people fighting EULA's and the MPAA/RIAA, libraries are pretty well organized.
They have the added PR benefit of being real hard to miscatagorize as "evil, thieving, hacker pirates, hell bent on bringing down the American way".
Just my $0.02 (Canadian, before taxes)
The law on that point is that the authors have already received all they can expect on the basis of the first sale of the book; they cannot expect nor deserve more. This was codified by the US Supreme Court saying exactly that, back in 1910.
The theoretics is this: secondary markets (used-X sales, for whatever X you choose) are a characteristic of free markets; attempts to suppress secondary markets are (technically) exercises in fascism.
The pragmatics are this: for all that Paragraph 1 says that the authors already have theirs, the reality is that probably the publishers got it but the authors never saw it. It makes me sad; an editorial on MediaChannel argues that the habits of publishers would make a good object for antitrust action: see http://www.mediachannel.org/views/oped/bookcontrac t.shtml
"My opinions are my own, and I've got *lots* of them!"
ZZZTTTT, that is SEPERATE,
I need to look at nothing but the back room filled with Amazon shipping materials.
My mom does approx 5k a month through amazon, its not bad,
Market place is SEPERATE and DIFFERENT, there complete descriptions, of the same books are listed for a direct purchase, the cut is different.
You have absolutley no clue what you are talking about.
The above informationholds true if you purchase it through Marketplace, it does NOT if you order the same book through their main interface while searching, althought the book will return both results.
Sig went tro...aahemmm.....fishing........
How is the parent to this +5? Rogerborg doesn't know a thing about how books are remaindered or reimbursed for by the publishing companies.
If Amazon was selling remaindered books, the publishers would sue them so fast it would make their heads spin. The publishers are always on the lookout for people selling remaindered books.
It's not like it's hard to spot a remaindered book - they don't have covers (that's what is sent back to the publishers for the refund).
In general, it's the making a copy part that's prohibited, not the what you do with it. You can buy a work and give it away on the NET, so long as you don't make a copy in the process. When you figure out how to do that, let us know.
This is an excellent point which is often overlooked, but it goes much deeper. Think about state of the art computing ten years ago (1992). The 386's were just begining to gain popularity, and Windows 95 was just a proposal on Microsoft's 5 year plan. If you were "computer literate" back then, you likely bought (or otherwise acquired) some software to run on it. How much of that software do you still have? How much of it will still run on any sort of computer you still have access to?
Go back another decade to 1982, the era of the Commodore Vic20 and the Timex/Sinclair ZX80/ZX81. Apple's Macintosh wouldn't hit the market for another two years yet; their Apple ][ was dominant. How much of that software do you still have? How much of it will still run on any sort of computer you still have access to today? Emulation is fair game.
And that's just looking twenty years into the past.
Now think about electronic media going forward. You know that eBook you bought last week? Do you think your eBook reader will still be running 10 years from now? 20 years? Do you think your license will still be valid? What about that DVD? How long do you suppose you have before the 'new and improved' DVD players won't play the 2002-format DVD's, even if you've kept them in mint condition? And you can bet DMCA-like laws will make emulation a non-option.
Now go to your bookshelf and see if you can find a book with a copyright date in the 1992 or 1982 era. Got some? Can you still read them? Is the information still relevant? Heck, I've got magazines from back then, some of which I haven't got around to reading yet. I've got paperback (disposable) books from the 60's. I have hardcover books a century older than those. In many cases, the publisher is long out of business, but fortunately my license (and ability) to read those books is not dependent on the publisher being around.
I can't fault the authors or publishers for choosing the more money option over the less money option, and I guess they think there's more money for them if a new copy is sold over an old copy being resold. But what we see here again is the age old truism that businesses like dumb consumers. Where education will lead the consumers to purchase less product, a business has only one incentive to educate or inform: competition. This is why the Author's Guild is reacting against Amazon; in this case, Amazon is providing a service which is beneficial to consumers at the (percieved) expense of the members of the Author's Guild. It also shows how important competition and the free exchange of information has become in this new wired world, and how damaging a monopolistic construction, or the obstruction of free information flow can be.
The thing about things we don't know is we often don't know we don't know them.
Correction: It should have been 1908 for the Supreme Court First Sale Doctrine decision. More precisely, it's Bobbs-Merrill Co. v. Straus, 210 U.S. 339 (1908). See http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?c ourt=US&vol=210&invol=339
"My opinions are my own, and I've got *lots* of them!"