Comments on: Book Publishers Growing Wary of Online Used Book Sales http://www.robhyndman.com/2005/09/29/book-publishers-growing-wary-of-online-used-book-sales/ any technology distinguishable from magic is not sufficiently advanced Thu, 12 Apr 2012 14:32:35 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.2 By: Tad McIlwraith http://www.robhyndman.com/2005/09/29/book-publishers-growing-wary-of-online-used-book-sales/comment-page-1/#comment-286 Tad McIlwraith Fri, 30 Sep 2005 18:56:21 +0000 http://www.robhyndman.com/2005/09/29/book-publishers-growing-wary-of-online-used-book-sales/#comment-286 I suppose there are connections here (or analogies) with music? CDs, records, etc. have been sold in used record shops for years -- like books, music can be quickly consumed and remain reusable. Anyone who has wondered what to do with those dozens (100s?) of Columbia House CDs they got for 1 cent knows what I mean. Music has become easy, however, to share over the internet in part because it is so easily reproducable. Is this where books are going? E-books and scanned versions of the physical tomes are more and more easily acquired. Journal articles the same way. Visiting google scholar and google print (along with research portals that often require subscriptions) makes this abundantly clear. Control over distribution and royalties becomes tighter too. I expect we are heading away from print books towards e-books and the used book store may suffer the way used record stores have. As to non-IP types of similar products? What about cars? Do we see a day when Honda will want a cut of my re-sold CR-V? What about the market for home furnishings, or renovation items at places like Re-Store? I suppose there are connections here (or analogies) with music? CDs, records, etc. have been sold in used record shops for years — like books, music can be quickly consumed and remain reusable. Anyone who has wondered what to do with those dozens (100s?) of Columbia House CDs they got for 1 cent knows what I mean.

Music has become easy, however, to share over the internet in part because it is so easily reproducable. Is this where books are going? E-books and scanned versions of the physical tomes are more and more easily acquired. Journal articles the same way. Visiting google scholar and google print (along with research portals that often require subscriptions) makes this abundantly clear. Control over distribution and royalties becomes tighter too. I expect we are heading away from print books towards e-books and the used book store may suffer the way used record stores have.

As to non-IP types of similar products? What about cars? Do we see a day when Honda will want a cut of my re-sold CR-V?

What about the market for home furnishings, or renovation items at places like Re-Store?

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