[Upd-discuss] Publishers want to invalidate

[Michael Hart]

On Sat, 1 Oct 2005, Andy Oram wrote:

> I'll just say, as a book editor, that I won't worry too much
> about the effect of used books on my sales until someone
> figures out how to sell a book used without first buying it new.

I never buy new books, perhaps ONE in the last couple decades,
but I buy and sell plenty of used ones. ..and. . .even worse
for those who want to insist on the exchange of money for them,
I give most of them away.



> (I don't speak for my company, but I think most people
> here feel the way I do.)
>
> I'll make one more general observation, about hysteria over
> Internet file sharing. There are so many publishers (in the
> music industry, etc.) who are saying file-sharing destroys
> their business models. The growth of the used-book and
> record market shows that the Internet has introduced a huge
> variety of (sometimes hard to predict) changes in
> marketplaces that affect lots of industries. It's time to
> get over it and adapt.

Adapt:  just what copyright was invented to avoid, adapting
to new technoloogies that could bring entire libraries to
the homes of the masses.

> Andy Oram  O'Reilly Media                     email: andyo@oreilly.com
> Editor     90 Sherman Street                       voice: 617-499-7479
>           Cambridge, MA 02140-3233                  fax: 617-661-1116
>           USA                         http://www.praxagora.com/andyo/
> Stories at Web site:
> The Bug in the Seven Modules     Code the Obscure     The Disconnected



Michael S. Hart
Founder
Project Gutenberg