The problem here is that the content industry wants to have their cake and eat it too (quelle surprise).
Take ebooks as a much simpler example. The distribution costs of a single ebook are essentially zero. Even if you, as a publisher, pay Apple/Amazon 30% you're better off than retail and retail typically has a higher markup, means printing books, storing them in warehouses, shipping them across the country/world, etc.
On top of this ebooks are basically nontransferable whereas paper books can of course been sold secondhand. The latter is such a "problem" that the textbook industry, as just one example, will keep changing editions each year or two just to kill the secondhand market.
It should come as no surprise that ebooks are nontransferable either.
Given all these restrictions and lower costs of production it seems logical that ebooks should be cheaper than their dead tree equivalents. But oh no, they're typically the same price or even more expensive. This is nothing but greed. What's more, publishers are shooting themselves in the foot (long term) here because they should be encouraging a system whereby you can buy a given textbook, it can't be sold secondhand and the original owner keeps getting updates (people don't typically rebuy later editions of the same textbook I would guess).
Music isn't really that different. CDs, which are transferable, have the same costs of printing, storage, distribution and retail markup, even against the 30% (is this confirmed for music?) margin Apple/Amazon take yet I don't think you'll be saving any money by buying whole MP3 albums vs CDs (more often than not).
If electronic media were cheaper like it should be I think consumers would have an easier time accepting the nontransferability aspect. People, on the whole, have an innate sense of fairness (IMHO).
As far as iTunes accounts and the like go, on a practical level you can simply take over the account. Apple has a facility to change the Apple ID. I can't see any barriers to this.
EDIT: From [1]:
Traditional publishing has a traditional formula for calculating the retail list price, the price printed on the book. That list price is typically about eight times the cost of manufacturing. In clothing retail terms, that translates into a markup of about 88% between publisher and reader.
There are several reasons for the big percentage. Not only does the actual bookseller require a markup, but often there are two “middlemen” between the publisher and the bookstore: a distributor and a wholesaler who must each get a piece of the action. And of course the publisher wants to make a profit and better not sell merely for the cost of manufacturing.
which basically confirms the 12% figure. But I was referring to the retail markup and costs of distribution (distributor/wholesaler).
I think you overestimate the physical cost of books. From http://michaelhyatt.com/why-do-ebooks-cost-so-much.html, "Second, physical manufacturing and distribution expenses cost less than you think. Some people assume that these two items represent the bulk of a book’s costs. They don’t. Together, they account for about 12% of a physical book’s retail price."
Aye. I'm publishing a book soon. By using Lightning Source to list on Barnes and Noble, I can make amazon discount my book, which doesn't affect my createspace royalty. I should be able to have the book sell at $26, and keep $21.
Aaron Shepherd's Plan B (an update to POD for profit).
Selling to B and N with a 55% discount from lightning source should make the books appear with a 40% discount off the list price. Amazon generally matches those discounts.
The list price will be $44. 44 * 0.6 = 26.4
Using the Createspace royalty calculator, $44 with a 300 page book produces a royalty of ~$22.
Amazon discount don't reduce Createspace royalties. I may be overlooking something, or some part of the plan might fail of course.
Strangely, that's not what the publishing industry says when they raise the prices of physical books. Then, the primary determiner of prices is the cost of paper.
Varies based upon selling price, type of book, etc. Wide variation on quality and scale vs size. page count. etc. printing something != something quality. and copy 1 = not equal 1/4000 or 4000 copies. So, sell thru rate matters (how much of the run you sell). The costs are borne by someone.
Too bad they don't have a source of any kind. So many of these kind of articles are written by someone with a position in the fight, and then they just cite "stuff they know".
> But oh no, they're typically the same price or even more expensive. This is nothing but greed.
I don't understand why this is greed. If I grow an apple, is it greedy for me to sell it in a way that maximises my revenue? And if I write a book or record a song, is it greedy for me to licence it in a way that maximises my revenue?
An apple isn't the best analogy since the apple market is competitive. The market for "Principles of Economics: Global Financial Crisis Edition, 6th Edition" (or any other book or ebook) is a government-granted monopoly, so the two situations aren't completely comparable
This is my own personal belief, but my main objection to ebook pricing is the apparent price collusion that is going on in the publishing market (here's a link to a news story about one DOJ case: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0412/75028.html). This isn't the first time that a format change prompted increased prices: when the CD was introduced, music labels charged much higher prices for CDs than prior formats -- notably, all of the labels also seemed to converge on a single, higher price. Arguably, the higher price was justifed due to better audio fidelity; maybe the same could be said for ebooks' features vs dead tree books. For at least a decade $20 CDs were the norm despite much lower music prices in the cassette era and much lower prices now. Check out Knopper's 'Appetite for Self-Destruction' or Kernfeld's 'Pop Song Piracy' if you're interested in the music industry specifically.
To cut it short: in a government-granted monopolized market, it seems a bit fishy when the entire market lurches in the (same) higher priced direction simultaneously.
You are completely wrong about CD prices. They were cheaper than tapes and records to make up for the "relatively" high cost of CD players. Back then an entry level CD player cost about 250 USD but a tape player could be had for about ten dollars. The cost of printing CD's was therefore subsidized to encourage adoption of the format.
I've been saying for years now that subscription models are the future of digital content distribution. A generation or two from now the idea that you "own" digital content is going to seem quaint and people will just pay a monthly fee for a la carte access to content and all these problems will disappear.
It wouldn't surprise me if meta-content like user reviews and histories become more interesting as targets for preservation. Who knows, maybe my grandkids in 2064 will be interested to know what I read and watched in 2012 and what I thought of it?
> subscription models are the future of digital content distribution
Yeah, in theory, but do not forget who you are dealing with. Majors and related industries depend on unit-by-unit sales model currently, and they will trying to avoid that conversion as much as they can. While I agree with you it makes sense.
I wonder if the case of the OP - someone leaving behind a very large digital library and a heir that demands to use it - could lead to more court rulings here.
eBook DRM is my biggest digital problem right now. It seems I will only have O'Reilly books to pass on :(
If electronic media were cheaper like it should be I think consumers would have an easier time accepting the nontransferability aspect.
I think people accepting nontransferability would be a bad thing. A very bad. Revocability is the next step after nontransferability and that is a truly ugly thing.
Take ebooks as a much simpler example. The distribution costs of a single ebook are essentially zero. Even if you, as a publisher, pay Apple/Amazon 30% you're better off than retail and retail typically has a higher markup, means printing books, storing them in warehouses, shipping them across the country/world, etc.
On top of this ebooks are basically nontransferable whereas paper books can of course been sold secondhand. The latter is such a "problem" that the textbook industry, as just one example, will keep changing editions each year or two just to kill the secondhand market.
It should come as no surprise that ebooks are nontransferable either.
Given all these restrictions and lower costs of production it seems logical that ebooks should be cheaper than their dead tree equivalents. But oh no, they're typically the same price or even more expensive. This is nothing but greed. What's more, publishers are shooting themselves in the foot (long term) here because they should be encouraging a system whereby you can buy a given textbook, it can't be sold secondhand and the original owner keeps getting updates (people don't typically rebuy later editions of the same textbook I would guess).
Music isn't really that different. CDs, which are transferable, have the same costs of printing, storage, distribution and retail markup, even against the 30% (is this confirmed for music?) margin Apple/Amazon take yet I don't think you'll be saving any money by buying whole MP3 albums vs CDs (more often than not).
If electronic media were cheaper like it should be I think consumers would have an easier time accepting the nontransferability aspect. People, on the whole, have an innate sense of fairness (IMHO).
As far as iTunes accounts and the like go, on a practical level you can simply take over the account. Apple has a facility to change the Apple ID. I can't see any barriers to this.
EDIT: From [1]:
Traditional publishing has a traditional formula for calculating the retail list price, the price printed on the book. That list price is typically about eight times the cost of manufacturing. In clothing retail terms, that translates into a markup of about 88% between publisher and reader.
There are several reasons for the big percentage. Not only does the actual bookseller require a markup, but often there are two “middlemen” between the publisher and the bookstore: a distributor and a wholesaler who must each get a piece of the action. And of course the publisher wants to make a profit and better not sell merely for the cost of manufacturing.
which basically confirms the 12% figure. But I was referring to the retail markup and costs of distribution (distributor/wholesaler).
[1]: http://bookmakingblog.blogspot.com/2009/03/prices-discounts-...