Re: Snooze/lose (Was: Academics and coursepacks)

On 31 Aug 1998 Daniel J. Schaeffer <daniel_schaeffer[_at_]kirkland.com> wrote:
>
> There is, however, a functional limit to competition among publishers,
> based on the cost of printing. I don't have numbers, but I would
> suspect that publishers spend more on printing and marketing costs than
> on royalties to authors. To be sure, the larger the print run, the
> lower the per-book cost of printing -- but if material becomes PD, then
> publishers have to estimate their sales lower due to competition from
> other publishers, hence smaller print runs, hence higher per-book costs.
> Factor in increased marketing expenses -- gotta make my edition of this
> work stand out from all the other guys' editions -- and the savings in
> royalties is almost certainly negated, at little savings to the
> consumer. The only people who "win" in this situation are the ones who
> -- since the material is PD -- can legally make photocopies for a dime a
> page and distribute them at a fraction of publishers' costs.

Very few people will "make photocopies at a dime a page and distribute them", if this refers to entire or substantial portions of books! The vast preponderance of photocopying from books (per the Hebert study in 1986 in Canada - already cited in an earlier posting of mine) is for a small portion of the books. Almost all people want a *bound* copy of a book for aesthetic and practical reasons - who wants to cope with hundreds  of loose pages? Publishers of PD works view with each other for the market for these works by bringing out books that are more readable (ie. they are well designed and printed) and have good scholarly apparati and or introductions, etc. The latter items are, of course, protected under new copyrights. And there is competition to hold prices down as this too is a factor in capturing market share for a PD work. As I see it, there is very very little if any impact from photocopying and no reason on the score of providing the public with such works to extend the protection of copyright for yet another 20 years.

Cheers,

Bernard Katz, Head, Special Collections and Library Development McLaughlin Library, University of Guelph, Guelph ON Canada N1G 2W1

   and Chair, Ontario Library Association Copyright Action Committee bkatz[_at_]uoguelph.ca // (519) 824-4120 X2089 // FAX: (519) 824-6931 Received on Fri Sep 04 1998 - 23:11:35 GMT