Book People Archive

Re: Trade protectism explain in relation to cartoons.

On Wed, 1 Feb 2006 Haradda@[redacted] wrote:

> In a message dated 1/31/2006 5:11:07 PM Mountain Standard Time,
> prosfilaes@[redacted] writes:
>
>> How about a boot coming down on the collective face of mankind, not
>> ordinary tariffs and price supports?
>>
>
> I think you are mistaken if  you don't think the boot comming down is not the
> tariffs and price supports....

It is obvious that these a multiple boots coming down in our faces,
from extended copyrights to various methods of limiting distribution,
even of works in the public domain.


>>> The problem with your line of reasoning is that I shouldn't be able to go
>>> down to WalMart and purchase hundreds of public domain DVD's for a dollar
>>> apiece.
>>
>> There's a difference between a DVD that is dirt-cheap, in dirt-cheap
>> cases, that is a simple film-to-disk transfer, where you're lucky to
>> get the programs on the DVD that the box claims to include, and one
>> that put work into new material, new translations, multiple
>> high-quality audio tracks, etc.
>
> I think you are mistaking the added value that must be included to keep
> people with money rather than extra time from going to the P2P networks or
> bittorrent and downloading the movie for free.  I'm not saying that that's
> right but that is the state of affairs now.  The day is long passed that
> you have to take what is offered without additional incentives.

I think the point is that with blank DVDs selling several for a dollar,
and a DVD burner being included with the average computer sold today,
that $1 public domain DVDs are an obvious open market situation.


>>> I would say that the going price to maximize your profits with DVD movies 
>>> is somewhere between $7and $15 for the U.S. markets.
>>
>> And I would say that you have to look at the whole picture. $7-$15
>> works fine for material that's had a theatrical or TV run and is going
>> to sell in mass markets. If you aren't going to sell to a mass-market,
>> or have significant new material like a translation, it's going to
>> have to cost more.

Given the making of DVDs at home as above, plus the ungodly commissions
taken by the various middlemen and intermediaries, it actually costs less.

[snip]

> I am in the business where I sell libraries of ebooks rather than individual
> ebooks.  And the value that I have added is putting together the largest
> number of ebooks available with no DRM, with text to speech capacity, with the
> ability to format the ebooks for ipod, cell phone. PDA use or print on demand
> I give people thousands of books that they probably will never read but
> someday they might want to read one or two of them.  You get in the
> neighborhood of 50,000 plus and that's more than a ordinary person could
> read in a lifetime.

What would _I_ not give for such a DVD containing ~50,000 eBooks!?!?!?


> And its only going to get worse as we get closer to a million.

Or better, depending on your point of view.


> Each ebook I add the price per book drops.  Now they are
> fractions of a cent.

eBooks that are "too cheap to meter."



> David Reed


Michael

PS

"Electricty too cheap to meter!"

[That's what the governments said about electricity
when they first proposed civilian nuclear electricity.
I can recall when my entire gas and electric bill was
$6-$7, not counting heat in the winter.  And I had LOTS
of electronic devices that used much more electricity
than similar modern products do.  Yet both my electric
and power bills are about double then, even if I don't
use ANY gas or electricty for the month.]