Please explain Books On Line, then. The ONLY monopoly here is the one of copyright. Don't like
Does the word "non sequitur" mean anything to you?
The current US copyright system is broken. The current version was a revision intended, as far as I can tell, primarily to prevent Mickey Mouse from dropping into the public domain and hence to allow one of the most powerful corporations in the world, Disney, to prevent make money from their iconic character.
Except that Amazon has nothing even near a monopoly on books, whether electronic, paper, or audio.
Except this is clearly not true. Think about it. After Amazon says "we don't like your price on e-books and so we won't sell them," what is their motiviation to not to sell Macmillan paper books; an unrelated product? What do they gain from this?
Up until they disagreed with e-book pricing, they had no problem with Macmillan products, so it's clearly not a case of them not liking their prices on paper books. So what exactly do they gain by what appears, on the surface, to be an economically unjustified decision? If the market were indeed completely fungible, as you suggest, this would only reduce their sales volume. It would put no pressure on Macmillan, since their customers would just buy from somebody else.
The only reason that they would attempt to muscle Macmillan into accepting their pricing terms on e-books by refusing to sell paper books would be if they do have some degree of monopoly power (or, at least, they think that they have power). You say "negotiate using any leverage they can," but there simply isn't any leverage there unless they are market dominant.
Here's a rule of thumb you might consider: When a company uses market dominance to set pricing terms, it pretty much never is a good thing for the consumer. Even if it looks good on the surface.
I see it as publishers imposing price controls. Not a very "free market" thing to do.
Huh? When somebody makes a product and says "this is the price we're selling it for," you call that "Not a very 'free market' thing to do"?
What do you believe the word "free market" means? That's the very definition of a free market; producers are free to sell at whatever price they want, and buyers are free to buy, or not buy. If people don't buy it at that price, they're free to change it. That's what we mean by a free market.
I checked the prices of ebooks, and as far as I am concerned, I am finding those prices outrageous.
I do respect the right of authors to make some money, but when an ebook is twice as expensive as a cheap paperback version, there's something highly wrong.
I actually agree with this, and I don't think that the fifteen dollar price, or even the proposed 9.99 price, will end up being the long-term equilibrium price. In the long term, I'll bet on low single digits-- the only question is how low. Four dollars for a book, or one dollar?
However, I really am horrified by Amazon's anticompetitive actions-- basically, holding paper books hostage for a deal on e-book prices.
And if you think that Amazon using its market-dominance power to set prices is a good thing for consumers, because they're setting prices at a point where they actually lose money on every e-book sold and low prices are good, right? -- you are not thinking very far ahead. Let me clue you in: Amazon is not trying to secure a dominant market position because they intend to lose money.
Almost all monopolies are the result of government intervention. The anti-trust laws were written to break up monopolies that had been created by government intervention in the market.
Nice to think so, but it's not true.
Anti-trust laws were written to break up the big 19th- and early 20th century trusts-- essentially groups of large businesses collaborating to drive smaller ones out of the market so that they could set prices-- for example, Standard Oil's agreement with the railroads, which was not merely that the railroads would give them low prices (that's standard business practice), but that the railroads had to agree to not give smaller competitors good prices.
Amazon is one party in a two party negotiation. If they don't like the terms of the negotiation, they don't have to accept them...
You're missing the point. Amazon didn't merely say "we don't like your terms, so we won't sell your e-books." What they did was say "We don't like your terms on one item, e-books, so unless you accept our terms on that we won't sell anything else of yours, either, no hardcover or paperback, sales, not just electronic."
They were trying to use their market dominance in one area to allow them to dictate prices in another area. And not for the first time.
But it is not clear whether the internet causes depression or whether depressed people are drawn to it.
Exactly. And an earlier study showed a correlation between television watching and depression. Worth repeating: correlation is not always causation.
In this case, I could easily see the correlation as: depressed people are too depressed to do anything requiring activity, so they tend to sit around and watch television or surf the web.
Given the name of the company it's most probably nanotechnology...
"Nanotechnology" has become a buzz-word that no longer has any significant content. Biology is "nanotechnology". Chemistry is "nanotechnology". Even concrete is "nanotechnology". If you use the buzz-word right, anything made up of atoms is "nanotechnology."
Anybody else notice that the article has essentially no information on what the stuff is? One thing that it isn't is "we extract molecules of SiO2, and then we add the molecules to water or ethanol," which is what the article tries to imply-- you can't just "add" molecules of silicon dioxide to water, nor to alcohol. So, just exactly what is it?
The actual press release from which this article seem to have been drawn is here.
I guess I don't understand why this argument can't be decided in the free market. Let Macmillan charge a higher price - I just won't buy the books until they come down in price.
"Amazon was fighting this one because if the publisher wins, it hurts their profitability because it pushes prices down."
It's pushing prices up not down.
That's always the argument of monopolists-- "we can sell the product cheaper -- even if it means we have to actually lose money on each product sold!"
(Which, by the way, is what Amazon is doing-- they are losing something like two to four dollars on every e-book they sell, in order to capture market share.) The footnote here is "* cheaper, until the point where we have finally driven our competitors out of the market."
Do you really, truly believe that Amazon is fighting this because if Macmillan gets their way Amazon will make more profits, and they don't want that? Does this make economic sense to you?
Amazon using their large market share on paper books to allow them to apply muscle dictate the price of e-books is not a good thing.
For that matter, why do the RIAA's members still control the music business? Why do these dinosaur publishing businesses still manage to thrive despite the Internet?"
Because they 1) Provide money and pay the big costs while artists are producing their album 2) Provide marketing 3) Find the promising artists and writers 4) Have the distribution channels
Actually, from what I hear of the music business, they don't really do any of these for new artists (unless, maybe, you just won American Idol or something).
The reason RIAA is still thriving is because they have a huge backlist of stuff that people still listen to, from artists who had signed contracts back when big studios really were the only way you could get airplay or distribution.
In fact, Amazon was the one who was trying to use their market dominance as a tool to set prices, which is what we call monopolistic behavior. Note that what they did was not merely decide not to sell those books that they thought were overpriced-- they attempted to force the publisher by pulling all Macmillan titles from their store, including the physical (paper) ones-- saying "either you accept our prices for e-books, or else we will not sell any of your books." (And, of course, also all the imprints of Macmillan, such as Tor.)
That only works, though, if Amazon were enough of a monopoly that people wouldn't just go elsewhere... and it turns out that Amazon isn't. Yet.
In the long run, it benefits consumers that Amazon backed down-- it's never good for one vendor to have the power to set prices, even if (initially) they claim that they are only using that power to lower prices to the consumer.
As Charlie Stoss commented, Amazon was fighting this one because if the publisher wins, it hurts their profitability because it pushes prices down.
"The google-model is opt-out-- "unless you specifically contact us and tell us not to, we now have your implied permission to use your work.""
But as opt-out is currenty LEGAL, I don't see a problem.
It is?
I want your car. I will pick it up at my convenience, and will pay you one dollar per day for as long as I use it. You may opt out of this contract, but unless you specifically opt out (by certified letter to my home address), you consent to this agreement and the above terms. Thanks!
So, which corporation is more evil when it comes to copyright: Disney or Google? Seems to me that Le Guin is in effect supporting the Disney model.
No.
She's saying that, during the term of a copyright, a corporation should have to actually get permission from the copyright holder to use a writer's work.
The google-model is opt-out-- "unless you specifically contact us and tell us not to, we now have your implied permission to use your work."
I disagree that this could just be bad editing, as the tertiary source had originally stated something very similar to the final typo. This doesnt pass the smell test, it smells like a cover-up.
Seems more likely that both sources were quoting the same typo.
This group of people has currently lost the benefit of the doubt from me.
I'm not sure what you mean by "the current group of people." You mean, the people who wrote that paragraph in the summary article? Well, I agree-- they did slipshod work, and I'd like to see somebody verify their future writings carefully. Do you mean, the entirety of Working-Group II? Errors in one paragraph out of a report of something like six hundred pages is annoying, but I'm not sure that you can throw out the entirety of the work. Do you mean, the errors in the summary cast doubt on the science being summarized? This is contradictory, since the error pointed is that they didn't cite the actual science. Do you mean, errors in a paragraph of the Working-Group II report cast doubt on the results reported by Working-Group I? No, here I'll disagree. Or, do you mean that finding errors in one report casts doubt on every scientist ever to work in the field of global climate modeling? If that's what you mean, I'd say that's silly.
And, do keep in mind that this was an error in an overview summary of scientific results-- there was no error alleged in the actual science itself-- in fact, the error would have vanished if they had correctly cited the science. And, this wasn't even the working group summarizing the basic science-- that's WG 1.
You state below that you dont think that ideology shouldnt drive the facts you choose to believe. I agree with this completely. It just seems that there are serious ideological drivers in this group
"This group" meaning, the scientists summarizing the work on Himalayan glaciers?
Have you actually read the letter in Science by Cogley, Kargel, Kaser and Van derVeen? Here's quote from it: "A bibliographic search suggests that the second WG-II sentence (stating "Its total area will likely shrink from the present 500,000 to 100,000 km2 by the year 2035") is copied inaccurately from (8), in which the predicted date for shrinkage of the world total from 500,000 to 100,000 km2 is 2350, not 2035."
As I thought. You're not reading sources at all. You're simply hiding from reality.You're the real denier.
Let me see if I understand this correctly. I quoted from Science. Your reply saying I'm "not reading the sources"... and substatiate that with a link to a blog that quotes a story from a British tabloid?
You don't think that Science counts as a source, but blog quoting (and, in fact, misquoting) The Daily Mail is?
So you're saying "it's ok that we spread lies about the climate, as long as the science is sound"?
I don't recall saying that, or anything similar, no. I suppose, if I was saying something of that sort, I'd say that it's preferable to base actions on sound science than on unsound science. I'd also suggest that it is a bad idea to decide what science you want believe based on what your ideology tells you.
I think your reply, which is based on a complete fabrication, nicely shows how these movements gather steam. You see, you made something up (which was a complete lie), and because others share your viewpoint, they mod you up. So it must be true!
Have you actually read the letter in Science by Cogley, Kargel, Kaser and Van derVeen? Here's quote from it:
"A bibliographic search suggests that the second WG-II sentence (stating "Its total area will likely shrink from the present 500,000 to 100,000 km2 by the year 2035") is copied inaccurately from (8), in which the predicted date for shrinkage of the world total from 500,000 to 100,000 km2 is 2350, not 2035."
In other words: the 2035 date is a typo. The source material said 2350, not 2035.
(Yes, they also reference another mention of the 2035 date in the same report. However, they note that the citation for this tracks back from one source to another to a source that doesn't give any date at all. They don't speculate where the date came from in that mention of 2035, but I will suggest it probably came from the exact same place-- it's hard to believe independent mistakes would both come up with the identical wrong number.)
Gpasp, there was a TYPO in a summary report, and the editing process didn't catch it.
A typo.
About as much a typo as your claim. If you RTFM (I know, asking a lot on/.), you will see that the UN Panel wrote the number in the report based on "a 2005 publication by the World Wildlife Fund. The WWF itself had picked it up from a 1999 magazine article based on a phone interview with an Indian scientist".
The WWF, and several other sources, repeated the 2035 number, but didn't originate it. If you dig down further, focused on the specific question of where the 2035 number actually came from, the best answer is that the original source was shrinkage rates quoted in 1996 by V. M. Kotlyakov, which lead to a 2350 date, which accidentally was transposed to 2035.
Also, this was listed as if it were for Himalayan glaciers shrinking, but in fact it was a rough estimate of the shrinkage of all extrapolar glaciers (excluding those in basins of internal drainage) between the present and 2350-- the part stating that the shrinkage of Himalayan glaciers is extraordinary was also incorrect.
In short, the whole paragraph was dubious (and was criticized as dubious in the letter to Science by Cogley, Kargel, Kaser and Van derVeen). But the source for the specific point highlighted in all the media articles-- 2035 shrinkage, rather than 2350-- was a typo.
Slashdot Mirror
Please explain Books On Line, then. The ONLY monopoly here is the one of copyright. Don't like
Does the word "non sequitur" mean anything to you?
The current US copyright system is broken. The current version was a revision intended, as far as I can tell, primarily to prevent Mickey Mouse from dropping into the public domain and hence to allow one of the most powerful corporations in the world, Disney, to prevent make money from their iconic character.
However, that's a different issue.
Except that Amazon has nothing even near a monopoly on books, whether electronic, paper, or audio.
Except this is clearly not true. Think about it. After Amazon says "we don't like your price on e-books and so we won't sell them," what is their motiviation to not to sell Macmillan paper books; an unrelated product? What do they gain from this?
Up until they disagreed with e-book pricing, they had no problem with Macmillan products, so it's clearly not a case of them not liking their prices on paper books. So what exactly do they gain by what appears, on the surface, to be an economically unjustified decision? If the market were indeed completely fungible, as you suggest, this would only reduce their sales volume. It would put no pressure on Macmillan, since their customers would just buy from somebody else.
The only reason that they would attempt to muscle Macmillan into accepting their pricing terms on e-books by refusing to sell paper books would be if they do have some degree of monopoly power (or, at least, they think that they have power). You say "negotiate using any leverage they can," but there simply isn't any leverage there unless they are market dominant.
Here's a rule of thumb you might consider: When a company uses market dominance to set pricing terms, it pretty much never is a good thing for the consumer. Even if it looks good on the surface.
I see it as publishers imposing price controls. Not a very "free market" thing to do.
Huh? When somebody makes a product and says "this is the price we're selling it for," you call that "Not a very 'free market' thing to do"?
What do you believe the word "free market" means? That's the very definition of a free market; producers are free to sell at whatever price they want, and buyers are free to buy, or not buy. If people don't buy it at that price, they're free to change it. That's what we mean by a free market.
I checked the prices of ebooks, and as far as I am concerned, I am finding those prices outrageous.
I do respect the right of authors to make some money, but when an ebook is twice as expensive as a cheap paperback version, there's something highly wrong.
I actually agree with this, and I don't think that the fifteen dollar price, or even the proposed 9.99 price, will end up being the long-term equilibrium price. In the long term, I'll bet on low single digits-- the only question is how low. Four dollars for a book, or one dollar?
However, I really am horrified by Amazon's anticompetitive actions-- basically, holding paper books hostage for a deal on e-book prices.
And if you think that Amazon using its market-dominance power to set prices is a good thing for consumers, because they're setting prices at a point where they actually lose money on every e-book sold and low prices are good, right? -- you are not thinking very far ahead. Let me clue you in: Amazon is not trying to secure a dominant market position because they intend to lose money.
Almost all monopolies are the result of government intervention. The anti-trust laws were written to break up monopolies that had been created by government intervention in the market.
Nice to think so, but it's not true.
Anti-trust laws were written to break up the big 19th- and early 20th century trusts-- essentially groups of large businesses collaborating to drive smaller ones out of the market so that they could set prices-- for example, Standard Oil's agreement with the railroads, which was not merely that the railroads would give them low prices (that's standard business practice), but that the railroads had to agree to not give smaller competitors good prices.
Amazon is one party in a two party negotiation. If they don't like the terms of the negotiation, they don't have to accept them...
You're missing the point. Amazon didn't merely say "we don't like your terms, so we won't sell your e-books." What they did was say "We don't like your terms on one item, e-books, so unless you accept our terms on that we won't sell anything else of yours, either, no hardcover or paperback, sales, not just electronic."
They were trying to use their market dominance in one area to allow them to dictate prices in another area. And not for the first time.
This why monopoly is bad.
kthx.
But it is not clear whether the internet causes depression or whether depressed people are drawn to it.
Exactly. And an earlier study showed a correlation between television watching and depression. Worth repeating: correlation is not always causation.
In this case, I could easily see the correlation as: depressed people are too depressed to do anything requiring activity, so they tend to sit around and watch television or surf the web.
Given the name of the company it's most probably nanotechnology...
"Nanotechnology" has become a buzz-word that no longer has any significant content. Biology is "nanotechnology". Chemistry is "nanotechnology". Even concrete is "nanotechnology". If you use the buzz-word right, anything made up of atoms is "nanotechnology."
Anybody else notice that the article has essentially no information on what the stuff is? One thing that it isn't is "we extract molecules of SiO2, and then we add the molecules to water or ethanol," which is what the article tries to imply-- you can't just "add" molecules of silicon dioxide to water, nor to alcohol. So, just exactly what is it?
The actual press release from which this article seem to have been drawn is here.
I guess I don't understand why this argument can't be decided in the free market. Let Macmillan charge a higher price - I just won't buy the books until they come down in price.
Exactly.
Unfortunately, you're wrong. That's not what Amazon was doing.
What Amazon was saying was: either you sell us e-books at the price we tell you to, or else we won't carry any of your books, electronic or paper.
"Amazon was fighting this one because if the publisher wins, it hurts their profitability because it pushes prices down."
It's pushing prices up not down.
That's always the argument of monopolists-- "we can sell the product cheaper -- even if it means we have to actually lose money on each product sold!"
(Which, by the way, is what Amazon is doing-- they are losing something like two to four dollars on every e-book they sell, in order to capture market share.) The footnote here is "* cheaper, until the point where we have finally driven our competitors out of the market."
Do you really, truly believe that Amazon is fighting this because if Macmillan gets their way Amazon will make more profits, and they don't want that? Does this make economic sense to you?
Amazon using their large market share on paper books to allow them to apply muscle dictate the price of e-books is not a good thing.
For that matter, why do the RIAA's members still control the music business? Why do these dinosaur publishing businesses still manage to thrive despite the Internet?"
Because they
1) Provide money and pay the big costs while artists are producing their album
2) Provide marketing
3) Find the promising artists and writers
4) Have the distribution channels
Actually, from what I hear of the music business, they don't really do any of these for new artists (unless, maybe, you just won American Idol or something).
The reason RIAA is still thriving is because they have a huge backlist of stuff that people still listen to, from artists who had signed contracts back when big studios really were the only way you could get airplay or distribution.
In fact, Amazon was the one who was trying to use their market dominance as a tool to set prices, which is what we call monopolistic behavior. Note that what they did was not merely decide not to sell those books that they thought were overpriced-- they attempted to force the publisher by pulling all Macmillan titles from their store, including the physical (paper) ones-- saying "either you accept our prices for e-books, or else we will not sell any of your books." (And, of course, also all the imprints of Macmillan, such as Tor.)
That only works, though, if Amazon were enough of a monopoly that people wouldn't just go elsewhere... and it turns out that Amazon isn't. Yet.
In the long run, it benefits consumers that Amazon backed down-- it's never good for one vendor to have the power to set prices, even if (initially) they claim that they are only using that power to lower prices to the consumer.
As Charlie Stoss commented, Amazon was fighting this one because if the publisher wins, it hurts their profitability because it pushes prices down.
Nevertheless, we're still doing science-- there's a lot of stuff that we can do even without driving around.
That's actually a myth, as it turns out.
There's at least one notable substance that shares this property: Water.
And another notable one, silicon.
"The google-model is opt-out-- "unless you specifically contact us and tell us not to, we now have your implied permission to use your work.""
But as opt-out is currenty LEGAL, I don't see a problem.
It is?
I want your car. I will pick it up at my convenience, and will pay you one dollar per day for as long as I use it. You may opt out of this contract, but unless you specifically opt out (by certified letter to my home address), you consent to this agreement and the above terms.
Thanks!
So, which corporation is more evil when it comes to copyright: Disney or Google? Seems to me that Le Guin is in effect supporting the Disney model.
No.
She's saying that, during the term of a copyright, a corporation should have to actually get permission from the copyright holder to use a writer's work.
The google-model is opt-out-- "unless you specifically contact us and tell us not to, we now have your implied permission to use your work."
I'm not real happy with opt-out models, myself.
I disagree that this could just be bad editing, as the tertiary source had originally stated something very similar to the final typo. This doesnt pass the smell test, it smells like a cover-up.
Seems more likely that both sources were quoting the same typo.
This group of people has currently lost the benefit of the doubt from me.
I'm not sure what you mean by "the current group of people." You mean, the people who wrote that paragraph in the summary article? Well, I agree-- they did slipshod work, and I'd like to see somebody verify their future writings carefully.
Do you mean, the entirety of Working-Group II? Errors in one paragraph out of a report of something like six hundred pages is annoying, but I'm not sure that you can throw out the entirety of the work.
Do you mean, the errors in the summary cast doubt on the science being summarized? This is contradictory, since the error pointed is that they didn't cite the actual science.
Do you mean, errors in a paragraph of the Working-Group II report cast doubt on the results reported by Working-Group I? No, here I'll disagree.
Or, do you mean that finding errors in one report casts doubt on every scientist ever to work in the field of global climate modeling? If that's what you mean, I'd say that's silly.
And, do keep in mind that this was an error in an overview summary of scientific results-- there was no error alleged in the actual science itself-- in fact, the error would have vanished if they had correctly cited the science. And, this wasn't even the working group summarizing the basic science-- that's WG 1.
You state below that you dont think that ideology shouldnt drive the facts you choose to believe. I agree with this completely. It just seems that there are serious ideological drivers in this group
"This group" meaning, the scientists summarizing the work on Himalayan glaciers?
Have you actually read the letter in Science by Cogley, Kargel, Kaser and Van derVeen? Here's quote from it:
"A bibliographic search suggests that the second WG-II sentence (stating "Its total area will likely shrink from the present 500,000 to 100,000 km2 by the year 2035") is copied inaccurately from (8), in which the predicted date for shrinkage of the world total from 500,000 to 100,000 km2 is 2350, not 2035."
As I thought. You're not reading sources at all. You're simply hiding from reality.You're the real denier.
Let me see if I understand this correctly. I quoted from Science. Your reply saying I'm "not reading the sources"... and substatiate that with a link to a blog that quotes a story from a British tabloid?
You don't think that Science counts as a source, but blog quoting (and, in fact, misquoting) The Daily Mail is?
So you're saying "it's ok that we spread lies about the climate, as long as the science is sound"?
I don't recall saying that, or anything similar, no.
I suppose, if I was saying something of that sort, I'd say that it's preferable to base actions on sound science than on unsound science.
I'd also suggest that it is a bad idea to decide what science you want believe based on what your ideology tells you.
I think your reply, which is based on a complete fabrication, nicely shows how these movements gather steam. You see, you made something up (which was a complete lie), and because others share your viewpoint, they mod you up. So it must be true!
Have you actually read the letter in Science by Cogley, Kargel, Kaser and Van derVeen? Here's quote from it: "A bibliographic search suggests that the second WG-II sentence (stating "Its total area will likely shrink from the present 500,000 to 100,000 km2 by the year 2035") is copied inaccurately from (8), in which the predicted date for shrinkage of the world total from 500,000 to 100,000 km2 is 2350, not 2035."
In other words: the 2035 date is a typo. The source material said 2350, not 2035.
(Yes, they also reference another mention of the 2035 date in the same report. However, they note that the citation for this tracks back from one source to another to a source that doesn't give any date at all. They don't speculate where the date came from in that mention of 2035, but I will suggest it probably came from the exact same place-- it's hard to believe independent mistakes would both come up with the identical wrong number.)
About as much a typo as your claim. If you RTFM (I know, asking a lot on /.), you will see that the UN Panel wrote the number in the report based on "a 2005 publication by the World Wildlife Fund. The WWF itself had picked it up from a 1999 magazine article based on a phone interview with an Indian scientist".
The WWF, and several other sources, repeated the 2035 number, but didn't originate it. If you dig down further, focused on the specific question of where the 2035 number actually came from, the best answer is that the original source was shrinkage rates quoted in 1996 by V. M. Kotlyakov, which lead to a 2350 date, which accidentally was transposed to 2035.
Also, this was listed as if it were for Himalayan glaciers shrinking, but in fact it was a rough estimate of the shrinkage of all extrapolar glaciers (excluding those in basins of internal drainage) between the present and 2350-- the part stating that the shrinkage of Himalayan glaciers is extraordinary was also incorrect.
In short, the whole paragraph was dubious (and was criticized as dubious in the letter to Science by Cogley, Kargel, Kaser and Van derVeen). But the source for the specific point highlighted in all the media articles-- 2035 shrinkage, rather than 2350-- was a typo.