Royalties & copyright (WAS: Lot 49)

[Kevin Troy]

On Fri, Aug 28, 2009 at 7:30 AM, Mark Kohut<markekohut at yahoo.com> wrote:
> I'm sorry, simply wrong.
>
> Authors do not get royalties on used copy sales.

I never said that they did.  I said that the receive _indirect_
compensation for the secondary market sales, through higher cover
prices on the original sale.

How much would you pay for a good bottle of wine that you may or may
not drink within the next year?  Now, how much would you pay for the
same bottle if you knew it would be good for a year, but then
instantly turn to vinegar?

The expectation of re-sale value factors into any valuation of
property, both on the part of the seller and the part of the buyer.

> There is NO market where
> books can not be resold.

Yes, there is:  Kindle.  Here's another:  college textbooks that have
been made obsolete by the issuance of a new edition.  (In this case,
the textbook can be resold, but the demand for the product is much
lower, greatly reducing the resale price.)

But even if there weren't any such markets, publishers and book buyers
would still consider re-sale value in their pricing & purchase
decisions, so _imagining_ such a market is a useful thought
experiment.

> Authors' contracts do not change because of the possiblity of used copy sales.

This has nothing to do with the author's contract.  It has to do with
the market price of the book that the contract is for.

--K.

> --- On Thu, 8/27/09, Kevin Troy <kevin.troy at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> From: Kevin Troy <kevin.troy at gmail.com>
>> Subject: Royalties & copyright (WAS: Lot 49)
>> To: pynchon-l at waste.org
>> Date: Thursday, August 27, 2009, 10:17 PM
>> Authors don't _directly_ receive
>> royalties from sales of used copies.
>> But they _indirectly_ get a royalty from them, b/c the
>> cover price on
>> the original copy (which is the basis for the royalty) is
>> higher in a
>> market where books can be re-sold than it would be in a
>> market where
>> books couldn't be resold.  Or in other words, part of
>> the price the
>> original purchaser pays is for the ability to re-sell the
>> book -- both
>> for the IP right to do so, but also for a durable product
>> (acid-free
>> paper, a binding that won't fall apart, etc.) -- and a
>> portion of that
>> "markup" is passed on to the author in royalties.
>>
>> So don't feel too bad for all the authors out there when
>> you buy or
>> sell a used book.
>>
>> Incidentally, on the subject of copyright, here's a funny
>> coincidence:
>> http://www.amazon.com/Inherent-Vice-Histories-Videotape-Copyright/dp/0822343762/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1251424873&sr=1-2
>>
>> Considering that this "other IV" came out only in June, I'm
>> trying to
>> imagine the conversations the author must have had w/ his
>> editors @
>> Duke UP when he heard about P's IV....
>>
>>
>> ****ORIGINAL MESSAGE FOLLOWS****
>> From: Dave Monroe <against.the.dave at gmail.com>
>> Subject: Re: The Crying of Lot 49
>>
>> Me, I'm always happy to find something online when I need a
>> quick
>> citation, am not up to typing entire paragraphs, and so on,
>> but I do
>> tend to have/get hardcopies of most eveything I post from
>> here, so ...
>>
>> .. though keep in mind, it's not as if anyone's getting
>> royalties from
>> used copies ...
>>
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