michael said:
>   I should add that Barnes and Noble also reports
>   more eBooks sold than paper books. . .but I THINK
>   that is just from online sales, not sure, but
>   sounds like it doesn't include over the counter.

what's interesting about amazon's announcement is that
the boo-birds -- who used to attack _every_ p.r. release
from amazon with the charge that it was "not specific" --
have now largely disappeared into "the silence of wrong".

it's as if they know that they no longer make any sense.
but, as usual, they don't have the balls to just admit that
they were on the wrong side of the big trend all along.

the march toward electronic-books is unstoppable...

of course, it still serves us well to examine the specifics
of what amazon is saying in each press release, because
it helps us to grasp the nuances of the current situation.

in this one, amazon focused on the number of units sold.

but this ain't all that surprising, because of the immense
number of e-books that are moving at _very_ low prices.

when we consider the vast number of e-books which are
being sold for $2.99 -- and even $.99 -- it's no wonder
that e-books are "out-selling" p-books, quantity-wise...
those $.99 e-books are bought in bulk, as impulse items.

so an apologist for print can maintain -- correctly -- that
p-books still pull in more total dollars.  for now, anyway.

one of the future announcements, of course, will be that
e-books are bringing in more _total_cash_ than p-books.

so that's how we realize exactly where we are, right now:
e-books outdo p-books number-wise, but not dollar-wise.

now, some people (i.e., profit-hungry corporate types)
will take that as a sign that p-books still have some life.

a much-smarter take, however, is that this is precisely
what a long-tail approach would predict, for this time.
corporations still have a lock on "the hits in the head",
but the tail is exerting itself.  and, given sufficient time,
the tail will outdo the head even in total dollars pulled.

the problem for the corporations is that _they_ won't
be the entities who are pulling in those bigger dollars.
even if they have the hits in the head, and thus a larger
profit-per-book, they'll be dwarfed by the tail's quantity.

and given the fact that authors are beginning to realize
there is no need to give a publisher a cut of the action,
it won't be long before corporations lose even the "hits".
and they'll have to profit by selling some other widgets.

moreover, this current situation reflects the fact that
physical goods are so much more expensive to bring
to market than digital goods.  so even though the gross
take from p-books still remains larger than from e-books,
it's not unreasonable to think e-books return more profit.

finally, this is yet another indication that the corporate
publishing houses priced their product out of its market.
they kept raising the price of p-books, until they broke
the rubber-band of elasticity, so people stopped buying.
cheap e-books brought bulk-buyers back to the market.
but the corporate guys can't compete at this price-point.

***

still, i made another point in my last post, which is that
we mighta won the battle for e-books, but lost the war...

if we traded the universal library for a universal bookstore,
then i would be of the strong opinion that we lost the war.

i'm completely in favor of writers (and all other artists)
getting paid.  but writer-greed isn't any more appealing
than corporate-greed, if we boil them down to the bone.

so no, writers should _not_ get rich at the public trough.

if you wanna be part of our communal cultural legacy
-- a legacy which has benefited _you_ as an artist and
_you_ as a member of society at large, like everyone --
you'll need to take your hand out of the cash-register.

(of course, in a world where everybody else has their
hands in the cash-register, the rule must apply to all.)

in this regard, perhaps some people take heart in the
recent developments where we're being given some
rather broad access to cultural legacy at low prices...

for instance, netflix (even with its recent price-raise
to $16 a month for _both_ streaming and hard-copy,
while each of those things alone is just $8 per month),
is still a fair deal for access to our film history legacy.

and spotify, which just made its u.s. entry this week,
promises access to our musical culture for $10/month.
since the greed-boys in the music corporations have
been some of the _stupidest_ in this whole revolution,
the fact that even _they_ came around is encouraging.

so perhaps there is hope the publishing corporations
will get smarter too, and offer us some library access.

but many of you smart people here will undoubtedly
notice that these options are for _streaming_access_.

thus, we're simply "renting" an ability to _play_ media,
and giving up any claim of "ownership" of that media.

so, again, you're smart enough to realize this may be
a dirty trick.  after all, if we don't "own" that material,
our "access" can be revoked any time, for any reason...

or -- more likely -- the "rent" can be continually raised.
(which is why the recent action by netflix is troubling.)

now, maybe you're one of the half-smart people here,
who will "counter" with the argument that any media
which can be _played_ on your machine is something
that you can copy.  well, yes, that's true, in large part.

but if you copy material you do not _own_, you are
technically a criminal.  and there might be a way for
the authorities to detect your "criminal" activity, and
delete the material, or drag you into court or prison.

if you think that is far-fetched, you need to wake up.

they keep lobbying to get the means to do just that.

also, just this week, authorities charged aaron swartz
with federal crimes for "hacking" into jstor machines.

(jstor, in case you're unfamiliar, is a private company
that administers digital copies of academic journals.)

aaron -- in what is clearly civil disobedience aimed at
shedding light on the question of private ownership of
research that was almost-completely public-funded) --
had a right to access the material, since he is a "fellow"
at harvard.  but he downloaded a large number of files,
and evaded jstor's attempts to thwart his downloading,
and that's enough for the feds to come after him hard...
(the maximum penalty for his "crimes" runs to 30 years.)

jstor stated it didn't ask for or want criminal charges,
and said it's satisfied how the situation was "resolved"
-- saying aaron "returned" the files he'd downloaded --
as it probably just doesn't desire to be in the spotlight,
since it is likely to become the target of significant ire.

nonetheless, the feds are continuing to pursue the case,
since, as one attorney proclaimed, "stealing is stealing".

the feds also lodged charges against a handful of people
accused of being part of "anonymous" -- the big online
tech-savvy collective which has caused lots of ruckus --
trying to paint them with the tired brush of "terrorists".
this is because anonymous took action against paypal
when paypal washed its hands of any wikileaks dealings.

in total, all of these developments are very worrisome...

so yes, let us celebrate that we've won the e-book battle.

but let us not fail to notice that there is also a bigger war.

-bowerbird