The Seven Types Of Pirate

From: "Brenna Lyons" 
> I do think here you are guilty of trying to apply specific sector
> techniques to the wider industry. All of us must remember that our own
> experience will not be common to all.
>
>
>

Too bad, since Harlequin is the only conglomerate smart enough to realize it
can work in larger markets and are testing it. Joseph, just because
something has been done for that long doesn't mean it's the best way. If
more conglomerates were willing to test it, they might learn the same.

Brenna

Brenna,

If I may coin a phrase, you're not getting it. ;-)

Your experience is one thing. Your decisions suit *your* business model. Your decisions may just be plain wrong for a different business with a different model.

The internet is very young. In practical plain business terms and for many reasons, the internet is effectively a decade old. Prior to that it was a limited experience and business opportunity for those with the money and technical skill needed to utilise it. Over 20 years ago it was a highly specialised set of systems that had gradually coalesced. The argument over whether it is wiser to be all new, all old, or mixed in terms of business models is ongoing and unlikely to be resolved in any useful way for decades to come, if ever.

Apart from the question of what models the biggest publishers believe are right for them, is the reality that a very large part of their back list, catalogue or tail - depending your preferred term - is tied to the systems that developed over a few centuries. They are tried and tested systems.

The basis of your argument on this is that the technology changes the rules of business. I see no evidence this is so. As a new delivery and contact system it changes many terms within business, and it has brought a mass of new people into areas their parents and grandparents knew little of, and were even less interested in. 

As with new technologies through time, what it has done is to offer more people opportunity, most particularly in writing and publishing. There is a far greater interaction, and one that is faster, but inevitably with a downside - here of shallowness. Relationships lack the depth and face to face contact  that make them solid and truly interactive.

POD and the ebook (both of which have wider and more complex definitions than usually thought of) are the really new players in arts. But they are still merely new ways of copying entertainment and instruction. There are countless instances where country and regional limitations can be and are applied to web presentations. Far from the idea of limitations on rights and licences being out of date, there is no less opportunity and reason for applying them.

Their justification, which is your point I think, depends not on the technology, but on the purpose related to that particular book. And possibly on market differences, which may be many and varied. The value to the publisher will, and should, relate to their ability to operate in various jurisdictions. Thus a publisher may have the means to push an item in one or two countries, but be happy to deal with others who have the organisation in other places. 

I think you are assuming a simplicity where I cannot see it. Marketing, which this aspect of copyright is mostly about, has no simplicity that I have noticed.

Joseph 





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