Re: Paul Krugman holds forth on the future of publishing

From: "Jon Jermey" Sent: Monday, June 09, 2008 10:43 PM


> Because that money has to be obtained from someone else,
> either voluntarily or by force. And the only way to obtain
> money voluntarily is to provide a product that a person is
> willing to pay for in the economic environment that prevails
> at the time.

???   That is exactly what the present market, supported by 
copyright law does!

 But if you support taking money from people by
> force (eg grants from taxation) to support writers, then you
> should explain -- why just writers,

But this is *your* suggestion Jon.   Look at your first post on 
this.   You want writers to be paid by the hour.   You can only 
do this if someone is in charge of paying them, totally detached 
from any market considerations.

 and why not buggy-whip
> makers, typesetters, typewriter repairers and all the other
> professions that have found themselves being left behind by
> progress?

Er...   Alternatively, WHY???   In what way does their work 
compare by price, product or usage?

>
> If you like to write, that's your privilege. If I don't want
> to fund you, that should be mine.

Precisely.   Get out of the way of my customers and stop making 
much ado about nothing while my prospectives are perusing.

A genuinely free market
> remains the most efficient way of getting people paid for
> providing value.
>
> Jon.

ROTHFLMAO (again).   What exactly is a 'genuinely free market'? 
No market in modern life is 'free' in any way except as shorthand 
for 'levelled playing field'.   Trying agreeing a price with a 
greengrocer if no laws exist over weights and measures. 
Experience the price of real supply and demand when you need a 
plumber urgently.

And what is the difference between a free market and a 
'genuinely' free market.   Or are we back with Disney again?

From: "Jon Jermey"Sent: Tuesday, June 10, 2008 12:12 AM


> This is why I stipulated that the person should have an
> alternate form of income.

Why, thank 'ee kindly zur.   I touch my forelock to 'ee;   'twill 
be the Christmas Dinner at the castle again, will it, My Lord?

That income could be from
> government welfare, flipping hamburgers, or whatever. In the
> real world, nobody _has_ to write to make a living.

Well, surely, nobody has to do any particular thing to make a 
living.   an argument without breadth or depth.

There
> are always other income-producing things they could be
> doing. If they choose to write, that's great. If not, that's
> great too. But there's no reason why I should subsidise
> people who choose to write when they could be doing
> something else, any more than I should subsidise people who
> choose to play video games.

Or perhaps you don't want to subsidise people who stock WalMart 
shelves - after all they could do something else for a living.

>
> I have no problem at all with people getting paid what
> others are willing to pay them. But it irritates the heck
> out of me when 'creative' people claim special exemption
> from the laws of economics that apply to everyone else, and
> particularly when legislators back them up.
>
> Jon.

Ah, the LAWS of economics!   Like statute laws mienn Herr?   Ve 
must be obeyed?

The laws of economics are basically guesswork based on historical 
experience and very often lacking the reality to chart the way 
ahead.   The basic TENET of economics is the tension of supply 
and demand, recognised in two fundamental forms, elastic and 
inelastic.

All the rest, as I have seen written somewhere, is 
interpretation - which is why two economists will offer five 
forecasts [and usually all of them wrong].

And in so far as economics is in any way relevant to the argument 
writers are probably the people most subject to the tensions of 
supply and demand.   I doubt if you can subject them to any more 
stringent version of this.

From: "Jon Jermey"Sent: Tuesday, June 10, 2008 12:20 AM

> Well put, Lee.
>
> But let's add to that the remainder system, which actively
> removes books from shops when they could be competing on
> price with a new batch of books.

HUH??!!??    Books are like sacks of coal then.   It may surprise 
you to know that readers are discriminating and looking for books 
they have not already read.   Do you know *anything* about books 
and writing?

What would the fruit
> business look like, do you suppose, if fruit wholesalers
> were willing to buy back at full price anything that the
> grocer hadn't been able to sell? How much would you be
> paying for your oranges and apples?

???   Fruit deteriorates more surely than books - which can 
certainly have remainder value - and sometimes might be worth 
holding for the tail.   But what is this about full price 
repurchase?   I know some booksellers who would like to do 
business with this publisher...

>
> Every market distortion ultimately hurts the consumer.

But far from establishing a distortion [and  I would like you to 
define market distortion, and then prove it hurts consumers] all 
you have done is make me question your understanding of the 
market, free or otherwise, and of writing and books.

Since
> the vast majority of the population spend more money on
> books than they make from writing them, removing market
> distortions like copyright and the remainder system must
> provide a net benefit.

Ummm...   Basic (101 do you call it?) text book 'interpretation' 
that I was talking of above.    The vast majority of the 
population also spend more on washing machines than making 
them...   Or bedsheets...   Or vegetables...   Or practically all 
their purchases.   Perhaps we should remove all the market 
distortions here too, like consumer law - what do you think?

Copyright and the remainder system provide a net benefit - many 
in fact.   And POD reduces the cost of the remainder system, 
without causing any other real problems for it.

And every profession has a long
> history of defending those market restrictions which act to
> their benefit and criticising those that hurt them; but
> hopefully the public and the politicians who are meant to
> serve them know better.
>
> Jon.

Jon,

Start defining your terms instead of throwing fairly meaningless 
terms about as though they had some merit in the argument you are 
attempting to make.

You have not established in any way the copyright is a market 
restriction any greater than any market restriction that is part 
of the laws of a civilised community.   It is merely a matter of 
the tensions between different desireables.   The job of 
politicians is to find the best balance between those tensions. 
Whether there are improvement to current copyright and other 
Intellectual Property laws and agreements to be made is a matter 
of informed discussion.   But since this goes on almost 
perpetually in international fora as well as national I think the 
combined weight of all that should be considered as producing 
pretty good compromises.

As to remainders - your comments are simply rather ignorant of 
the process of bookselling.

'The public', in a sense, doesn't exist;  but the many markets 
for different things make their own demands as each individual 
decides where, among their wants, needs and desires, to spend 
their money.

And copyright material is often the choice - so often in fact 
that print book sales and ebook sales are rising.

Joseph Harris 


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