Date: Fri, 06 Dec 2002 17:59:36 -0500
From: "Michael Walsh" <MJW at mail.press.jhu.edu>
To: <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Book Prices
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>

>bnewton at ashcomp.com 12/06/02 09:20AM
>>Interestingly, ronkean at juno.com said:
>>That is an interesting discussion of the economics of book pricing.  I
>>have a much simpler (probably overly simple) model to explain the retail
>>pricing of new books.  That is that books are usually priced to sell at
>>retail at about the same as what it would cost a consumer to photocopy
>>the book.  Then, given that it is clearly better in terms of quality and
>>convenience for the consumer to pay $15 for a 200 page factory bound =
book
>>than to pay $15 to xerox the same book borrowed from a library or from a
>>friend, the publisher is assured that practically no consumer will try =
to
>>make a bootleg copy by photocopying.
>
>Two thoughts on photocopying:  firstly, your case is even stronger =
because
>most commercial shops want at least a dime a page for copies, where =
it's
>not $0.15.

No commercial shop will photocopy a copyrighted book.  There have been =
legal actions against copyshops who have copied copyrighted material. =
Serious legal action.

If it's *your* work you photocopying, that's another story.

> So the 200 page book would be at least $20.00 to copy.  On the
>other hand, most people copying something that large for personal use =
tend
>to steal the service from their employers, making the cost to them $0.

This is great if you want to read a few hundred loose pages of copy.  Hope =
it isn't a windy day when that office copied novel is being read outside . =
. .

mjw