Though I was definetly of the camp thinking Kirtsaeng was DoA on this one. In some ways this was the only decision that can hope to hold up in another 5-10 years.
I mean, we are talking about physical books, physical dvds...the idea of local distribution rights is going to get really damn thin as these thing get more and more digital. Ohh no that's the SE Asian region PDF of the book, we sell as a $5 download, you need to buy the American PDF that's $75 dollars.
We'll see if there going to be a knock-on effect with broadcast rights as stuff gets more stream-based too. People were proxing their way into the CBC/BBC streams last Olympics thanks to NBCs idiocy.
Almost certainly not, since pretty much anything that has "with a computer" appended is treated as if it's fucking magic when it comes to the law and precedent.
Meh, I like it. I agree it's going to shake things up a bit, but fuck it. Our copyright law needs to come to grips with globalization and digitization.
Also I don't see this as that big a blow to anyone but textbook manufacturers. Do any other industries have regional price disparities that large?
Yeah, none that I know of. This was honestly bound to happen eventually and I think it's a really sound ruling.
Why was it bound to happen eventually? This ruling fucks over creators who rely on the international market, and for what?
No not really
It fucks over textbook companies and I guess hypothetically studios that sell DVDs that aren't region-locked
Let me tell you how very sorry I feel for those people
Just so everyone's clear. No one here thinks this will actually lower prices for textbooks in the US, right?
This only fucks textbook companies in that they can't sell cheaper copies overseas anymore. Gonging US college students for $1 a page is not going to stop in order to keep sell developing nation college students books at 1/20 that.
This seems more likely to raise prices as publishers stop selling the rights to sell textbooks in nations where the difference in price would allow arbitrage and then need to recoup the loss of the sales.
Personally, I think that textbooks and other educational material should either have a government-mandated price ceiling(significantly below the current prices), or if it is actually economically unfeasible(for realsies, not just because the textbook companies say so) organize some sort of subsidies for keeping their prices down. Education is very much a sort of good/service that is in the nation's best interest to make as widely available as possible.
Then again, apparently the poor have no right to education(see textbook and university costs). This isn't helped by the yearly "revised" edition shenanigans that make used books often obsolete, or highly impractical to use. It seems very much like disgusting profiteering, and little else. Obviously the creators of the books need compensation, but I have a hard time believing the books need to cost as much as they do, when other books(which can feasibly require as much research/effort etc. depending on the book to produce) on the market sell for a fraction of the textbook price.
This seems more likely to raise prices as publishers stop selling the rights to sell textbooks in nations where the difference in price would allow arbitrage and then need to recoup the loss of the sales.
Also an excellent way for some third party to break into textbook publishing by exploiting all these newly untapped markets. Seems a good way to create your own new lean competitor.
Personally, I think that textbooks and other educational material should either have a government-mandated price ceiling(significantly below the current prices), or if it is actually economically unfeasible(for realsies, not just because the textbook companies say so) organize some sort of subsidies for keeping their prices down. Education is very much a sort of good/service that is in the nation's best interest to make as widely available as possible.
Then again, apparently the poor have no right to education(see textbook and university costs). This isn't helped by the yearly "revised" edition shenanigans that make used books often obsolete, or highly impractical to use. It seems very much like disgusting profiteering, and little else. Obviously the creators of the books need compensation, but I have a hard time believing the books need to cost as much as they do, when other books(which can feasibly require as much research/effort etc. depending on the book to produce) on the market sell for a fraction of the textbook price.
Personally, I think that textbooks and other educational material should either have a government-mandated price ceiling(significantly below the current prices), or if it is actually economically unfeasible(for realsies, not just because the textbook companies say so) organize some sort of subsidies for keeping their prices down. Education is very much a sort of good/service that is in the nation's best interest to make as widely available as possible.
Then again, apparently the poor have no right to education(see textbook and university costs). This isn't helped by the yearly "revised" edition shenanigans that make used books often obsolete, or highly impractical to use. It seems very much like disgusting profiteering, and little else. Obviously the creators of the books need compensation, but I have a hard time believing the books need to cost as much as they do, when other books(which can feasibly require as much research/effort etc. depending on the book to produce) on the market sell for a fraction of the textbook price.
This doesn't just affect the textbook market.
Yeah, but what other markets are actually going to be endangered by this decision?
life's a game that you're bound to lose / like using a hammer to pound in screws
fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
Personally, I think that textbooks and other educational material should either have a government-mandated price ceiling(significantly below the current prices), or if it is actually economically unfeasible(for realsies, not just because the textbook companies say so) organize some sort of subsidies for keeping their prices down. Education is very much a sort of good/service that is in the nation's best interest to make as widely available as possible.
Then again, apparently the poor have no right to education(see textbook and university costs). This isn't helped by the yearly "revised" edition shenanigans that make used books often obsolete, or highly impractical to use. It seems very much like disgusting profiteering, and little else. Obviously the creators of the books need compensation, but I have a hard time believing the books need to cost as much as they do, when other books(which can feasibly require as much research/effort etc. depending on the book to produce) on the market sell for a fraction of the textbook price.
This doesn't just affect the textbook market.
Yeah, but what other markets are actually going to be endangered by this decision?
Any where arbitrage can be exploited? Read the article I posted about what's happening with Australian game retail earlier in the thread.
Why the hell should anyone care about Australian game retail. Why is not letting a couple of chain-stores tack on 10-20 dollars to the price of every game something that should upset people? It's pure rent-seeking.
Were I an Australian, I would presumably benefit from being able to buy my games at effectively half price on US-based Steam. The last time I bought a game at a physical store was 2 years ago. For games that require physical media Online is always cheaper, and I prefer an online game-library to some disks I'll lose/scratch.
Well for one, this ruling doesn't apply to people selling in Australia.
Second, I know it will probably effect some other businesses. But I don't see it causing a real problem to anyone *but* the textbook industry. Who else is selling identical media outside the US for a minor fraction of its US price?
life's a game that you're bound to lose / like using a hammer to pound in screws
fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
Why the hell should anyone care about Australian game retail. Why is not letting a couple of chain-stores tack on 10-20 dollars to the price of every game something that should upset people? It's pure rent-seeking.
Were I an Australian, I would presumably benefit from being able to buy my games at effectively half price on US-based Steam. The last time I bought a game at a physical store was 2 years ago. For games that require physical media Online is always cheaper, and I prefer an online game-library to some disks I'll lose/scratch.
Publishers, usually the larger ones, price games on Steam for Australia at parity with local brick and mortar stores.
This seems more likely to raise prices as publishers stop selling the rights to sell textbooks in nations where the difference in price would allow arbitrage and then need to recoup the loss of the sales.
Also an excellent way for some third party to break into textbook publishing by exploiting all these newly untapped markets. Seems a good way to create your own new lean competitor.
That ... what?
I don't think you get the textbook market at all. This shit? This will not happen.
Ok, well, maybe Indians and the like will start buying from different textbook companies and the end result will be higher prices all around.
This seems more likely to raise prices as publishers stop selling the rights to sell textbooks in nations where the difference in price would allow arbitrage and then need to recoup the loss of the sales.
Also an excellent way for some third party to break into textbook publishing by exploiting all these newly untapped markets. Seems a good way to create your own new lean competitor.
That ... what?
I don't think you get the textbook market at all. This shit? This will not happen.
Ok, well, maybe Indians and the like will start buying from different textbook companies and the end result will be higher prices all around.
The point is that India will not, under any circumstances, pay US textbook prices. It just isn't possible. Since textbooks are sold in the US with extreme profit margins. These textbooks could be produced and sold for much lower prices but right now nobody in the textbook market has incentive to start lowering prices. They compete by other means because the people they are competing for (the professors) don't pay the market prices.
If a new comer shows up to service India without that extreme mark up they don't have any reason to not offer this shit in America. Those teachers who give a shit about their students now have an alternative to old textbooks.
I think something like this would happen out in the rest of the world. I don't know about penetration into the US market though. It'd take a big shakeup of the shitty market conditions we have right now. With the way student loan debt has been going the inevitable shakeup over that might do it. *shrug*
This seems more likely to raise prices as publishers stop selling the rights to sell textbooks in nations where the difference in price would allow arbitrage and then need to recoup the loss of the sales.
Also an excellent way for some third party to break into textbook publishing by exploiting all these newly untapped markets. Seems a good way to create your own new lean competitor.
That ... what?
I don't think you get the textbook market at all. This shit? This will not happen.
Ok, well, maybe Indians and the like will start buying from different textbook companies and the end result will be higher prices all around.
The point is that India will not, under any circumstances, pay US textbook prices. It just isn't possible. Since textbooks are sold in the US with extreme profit margins. These textbooks could be produced and sold for much lower prices but right now nobody in the textbook market has incentive to start lowering prices. They compete by other means because the people they are competing for (the professors) don't pay the market prices.
If a new comer shows up to service India without that extreme mark up they don't have any reason to not offer this shit in America. Those teachers who give a shit about their students now have an alternative to old textbooks.
I think something like this would happen out in the rest of the world. I don't know about penetration into the US market though. It'd take a big shakeup of the shitty market conditions we have right now. With the way student loan debt has been going the inevitable shakeup over that might do it. *shrug*
Yes they do. The fact that there's no reason for them to switch and textbook choice is not a free decision by a prof, nor is it based on cost. Nor is there any reason for Indian textbook makers to not try and price differentiate anyway when shipping to the US.
The most likely outcome here seems to me that we end up with regional markets trying to be enforced by content rather then contracts.
This seems more likely to raise prices as publishers stop selling the rights to sell textbooks in nations where the difference in price would allow arbitrage and then need to recoup the loss of the sales.
Also an excellent way for some third party to break into textbook publishing by exploiting all these newly untapped markets. Seems a good way to create your own new lean competitor.
That ... what?
I don't think you get the textbook market at all. This shit? This will not happen.
Ok, well, maybe Indians and the like will start buying from different textbook companies and the end result will be higher prices all around.
The point is that India will not, under any circumstances, pay US textbook prices. It just isn't possible. Since textbooks are sold in the US with extreme profit margins. These textbooks could be produced and sold for much lower prices but right now nobody in the textbook market has incentive to start lowering prices. They compete by other means because the people they are competing for (the professors) don't pay the market prices.
If a new comer shows up to service India without that extreme mark up they don't have any reason to not offer this shit in America. Those teachers who give a shit about their students now have an alternative to old textbooks.
I think something like this would happen out in the rest of the world. I don't know about penetration into the US market though. It'd take a big shakeup of the shitty market conditions we have right now. With the way student loan debt has been going the inevitable shakeup over that might do it. *shrug*
Yes they do. The fact that there's no reason for them to switch and textbook choice is not a free decision by a prof, nor is it based on cost. Nor is there any reason for Indian textbook makers to not try and price differentiate anyway when shipping to the US.
The most likely outcome here seems to me that we end up with regional markets trying to be enforced by content rather then contracts.
I acknowledged that the US decision makers don't have much incentive to switch, but what is the downside for the India textbook maker to offer this stuff stateside?
This seems more likely to raise prices as publishers stop selling the rights to sell textbooks in nations where the difference in price would allow arbitrage and then need to recoup the loss of the sales.
Also an excellent way for some third party to break into textbook publishing by exploiting all these newly untapped markets. Seems a good way to create your own new lean competitor.
That ... what?
I don't think you get the textbook market at all. This shit? This will not happen.
Ok, well, maybe Indians and the like will start buying from different textbook companies and the end result will be higher prices all around.
The point is that India will not, under any circumstances, pay US textbook prices. It just isn't possible. Since textbooks are sold in the US with extreme profit margins. These textbooks could be produced and sold for much lower prices but right now nobody in the textbook market has incentive to start lowering prices. They compete by other means because the people they are competing for (the professors) don't pay the market prices.
If a new comer shows up to service India without that extreme mark up they don't have any reason to not offer this shit in America. Those teachers who give a shit about their students now have an alternative to old textbooks.
I think something like this would happen out in the rest of the world. I don't know about penetration into the US market though. It'd take a big shakeup of the shitty market conditions we have right now. With the way student loan debt has been going the inevitable shakeup over that might do it. *shrug*
Yes they do. The fact that there's no reason for them to switch and textbook choice is not a free decision by a prof, nor is it based on cost. Nor is there any reason for Indian textbook makers to not try and price differentiate anyway when shipping to the US.
The most likely outcome here seems to me that we end up with regional markets trying to be enforced by content rather then contracts.
I acknowledged that the US decision makers don't have much incentive to switch, but what is the downside for the India textbook maker to offer this stuff stateside?
Who is going to buy it if the US decision makers choose not to switch? It seems a pretty safe assumption that the vast majority of text books are sold because a class requires them.
This seems more likely to raise prices as publishers stop selling the rights to sell textbooks in nations where the difference in price would allow arbitrage and then need to recoup the loss of the sales.
Also an excellent way for some third party to break into textbook publishing by exploiting all these newly untapped markets. Seems a good way to create your own new lean competitor.
That ... what?
I don't think you get the textbook market at all. This shit? This will not happen.
Ok, well, maybe Indians and the like will start buying from different textbook companies and the end result will be higher prices all around.
The point is that India will not, under any circumstances, pay US textbook prices. It just isn't possible. Since textbooks are sold in the US with extreme profit margins. These textbooks could be produced and sold for much lower prices but right now nobody in the textbook market has incentive to start lowering prices. They compete by other means because the people they are competing for (the professors) don't pay the market prices.
If a new comer shows up to service India without that extreme mark up they don't have any reason to not offer this shit in America. Those teachers who give a shit about their students now have an alternative to old textbooks.
I think something like this would happen out in the rest of the world. I don't know about penetration into the US market though. It'd take a big shakeup of the shitty market conditions we have right now. With the way student loan debt has been going the inevitable shakeup over that might do it. *shrug*
Yes they do. The fact that there's no reason for them to switch and textbook choice is not a free decision by a prof, nor is it based on cost. Nor is there any reason for Indian textbook makers to not try and price differentiate anyway when shipping to the US.
The most likely outcome here seems to me that we end up with regional markets trying to be enforced by content rather then contracts.
I acknowledged that the US decision makers don't have much incentive to switch, but what is the downside for the India textbook maker to offer this stuff stateside?
Who is going to buy it if the US decision makers choose not to switch? It seems a pretty safe assumption that the vast majority of text books are sold because a class requires them.
I know the decision makers are not a uniform block. Large schools have other things going on, local schools that are more cost conscious would find these enticing. I know for a couple of my courses the professor and I looked at several texts and decided which one we liked best. Though my school is very non-traditional. When I went to a more normal school the professors made decisions weighted towards cost but they were a very small department that the administration kind of ignored.
I think there are places to start. Certainly not enough to justify a business but possibly enough to justify a website and shipping arrangements if you have the product anyway.
You're assuming U.S. professors wouldn't switch. Some genuinely care about their students, there simply aren't quality lower-cost options available in many fields.
If an Indian publisher were to develop a quality English-language textbook at significant less cost? Yes, some would definitely switch.
Other professors would continue not giving a fuck, but that doesn't mean there'd be no market for it.
One of my professors was informed that he could not suggest alternatives to the book, nor could he direct students to cheaper older editions by the university licensing department. If your school is big enough, it can be a big problem.
This seems more likely to raise prices as publishers stop selling the rights to sell textbooks in nations where the difference in price would allow arbitrage and then need to recoup the loss of the sales.
Also an excellent way for some third party to break into textbook publishing by exploiting all these newly untapped markets. Seems a good way to create your own new lean competitor.
That ... what?
I don't think you get the textbook market at all. This shit? This will not happen.
Ok, well, maybe Indians and the like will start buying from different textbook companies and the end result will be higher prices all around.
The point is that India will not, under any circumstances, pay US textbook prices. It just isn't possible. Since textbooks are sold in the US with extreme profit margins. These textbooks could be produced and sold for much lower prices but right now nobody in the textbook market has incentive to start lowering prices. They compete by other means because the people they are competing for (the professors) don't pay the market prices.
If a new comer shows up to service India without that extreme mark up they don't have any reason to not offer this shit in America. Those teachers who give a shit about their students now have an alternative to old textbooks.
I think something like this would happen out in the rest of the world. I don't know about penetration into the US market though. It'd take a big shakeup of the shitty market conditions we have right now. With the way student loan debt has been going the inevitable shakeup over that might do it. *shrug*
Yes they do. The fact that there's no reason for them to switch and textbook choice is not a free decision by a prof, nor is it based on cost. Nor is there any reason for Indian textbook makers to not try and price differentiate anyway when shipping to the US.
The most likely outcome here seems to me that we end up with regional markets trying to be enforced by content rather then contracts.
I acknowledged that the US decision makers don't have much incentive to switch, but what is the downside for the India textbook maker to offer this stuff stateside?
They will likely offer it stateside. At the same price as the rest of the textbooks on the market.
One of my professors was informed that he could not suggest alternatives to the book, nor could he direct students to cheaper older editions by the university licensing department. If your school is big enough, it can be a big problem.
And this was why I was mentioning a lack of choice. Textbook choice can be extremely constrained.
This seems more likely to raise prices as publishers stop selling the rights to sell textbooks in nations where the difference in price would allow arbitrage and then need to recoup the loss of the sales.
Also an excellent way for some third party to break into textbook publishing by exploiting all these newly untapped markets. Seems a good way to create your own new lean competitor.
That ... what?
I don't think you get the textbook market at all. This shit? This will not happen.
Ok, well, maybe Indians and the like will start buying from different textbook companies and the end result will be higher prices all around.
The point is that India will not, under any circumstances, pay US textbook prices. It just isn't possible. Since textbooks are sold in the US with extreme profit margins. These textbooks could be produced and sold for much lower prices but right now nobody in the textbook market has incentive to start lowering prices. They compete by other means because the people they are competing for (the professors) don't pay the market prices.
If a new comer shows up to service India without that extreme mark up they don't have any reason to not offer this shit in America. Those teachers who give a shit about their students now have an alternative to old textbooks.
I think something like this would happen out in the rest of the world. I don't know about penetration into the US market though. It'd take a big shakeup of the shitty market conditions we have right now. With the way student loan debt has been going the inevitable shakeup over that might do it. *shrug*
Yes they do. The fact that there's no reason for them to switch and textbook choice is not a free decision by a prof, nor is it based on cost. Nor is there any reason for Indian textbook makers to not try and price differentiate anyway when shipping to the US.
The most likely outcome here seems to me that we end up with regional markets trying to be enforced by content rather then contracts.
I acknowledged that the US decision makers don't have much incentive to switch, but what is the downside for the India textbook maker to offer this stuff stateside?
They will likely offer it stateside. At the same price as the rest of the textbooks on the market.
Why wouldn't they?
...because they would have zero competitive advantage? That would make it not worth running the website and shipping depot.
They could sell at a higher price than India, likely with shipping included, make more profit than normal and still significantly undercut US prices with minimal effort. Some of the decision makers care about price and right now they don't have any real options. Removing your only virtue to these people because you want to sell for 10x your normal price instead of 5x doesn't make much sense.
Personally, I think that textbooks and other educational material should either have a government-mandated price ceiling(significantly below the current prices), or if it is actually economically unfeasible(for realsies, not just because the textbook companies say so) organize some sort of subsidies for keeping their prices down. Education is very much a sort of good/service that is in the nation's best interest to make as widely available as possible.
Then again, apparently the poor have no right to education(see textbook and university costs). This isn't helped by the yearly "revised" edition shenanigans that make used books often obsolete, or highly impractical to use. It seems very much like disgusting profiteering, and little else. Obviously the creators of the books need compensation, but I have a hard time believing the books need to cost as much as they do, when other books(which can feasibly require as much research/effort etc. depending on the book to produce) on the market sell for a fraction of the textbook price.
This doesn't just affect the textbook market.
Yeah, but what other markets are actually going to be endangered by this decision?
Any where arbitrage can be exploited? Read the article I posted about what's happening with Australian game retail earlier in the thread.
Having lived and gamed in Australia for years, I'm not sure what is so noble about Australian game retailers that they require legal protection against importation (such as the surcharge that they've been constantly clamoring for).
But the reality is that Australia is a unique case where geography and population play a large role, and that most Australians are (and should be) happy that they can easily acquire products cheaper than they used to.
The textbook market is also its own beast, but really this is only going to get "worse" as it becomes easier to share information. Information is not a loaf of bread - it moves around easily. Guess what, if you don't sell access to that info at a reasonable price in a market, they can and will easily "steal" it. Make it cheap enough to sell in one place, and you should be prepared that people will find a way to buy it from outside.
I'm honestly surprised that anyone still thinks using the law to artificially protect domestic prices in a world market is such a great idea - it's simply a handout to the industry in question borne on the backs of other taxpayers. I'm doubly so surprised when the product in question isn't even remotely different between markets!
This seems more likely to raise prices as publishers stop selling the rights to sell textbooks in nations where the difference in price would allow arbitrage and then need to recoup the loss of the sales.
Also an excellent way for some third party to break into textbook publishing by exploiting all these newly untapped markets. Seems a good way to create your own new lean competitor.
That ... what?
I don't think you get the textbook market at all. This shit? This will not happen.
Ok, well, maybe Indians and the like will start buying from different textbook companies and the end result will be higher prices all around.
The point is that India will not, under any circumstances, pay US textbook prices. It just isn't possible. Since textbooks are sold in the US with extreme profit margins. These textbooks could be produced and sold for much lower prices but right now nobody in the textbook market has incentive to start lowering prices. They compete by other means because the people they are competing for (the professors) don't pay the market prices.
If a new comer shows up to service India without that extreme mark up they don't have any reason to not offer this shit in America. Those teachers who give a shit about their students now have an alternative to old textbooks.
I think something like this would happen out in the rest of the world. I don't know about penetration into the US market though. It'd take a big shakeup of the shitty market conditions we have right now. With the way student loan debt has been going the inevitable shakeup over that might do it. *shrug*
Yes they do. The fact that there's no reason for them to switch and textbook choice is not a free decision by a prof, nor is it based on cost. Nor is there any reason for Indian textbook makers to not try and price differentiate anyway when shipping to the US.
The most likely outcome here seems to me that we end up with regional markets trying to be enforced by content rather then contracts.
I acknowledged that the US decision makers don't have much incentive to switch, but what is the downside for the India textbook maker to offer this stuff stateside?
They will likely offer it stateside. At the same price as the rest of the textbooks on the market.
Why wouldn't they?
...because they would have zero competitive advantage? That would make it not worth running the website and shipping depot.
They could sell at a higher price than India, likely with shipping included, make more profit than normal and still significantly undercut US prices with minimal effort. Some of the decision makers care about price and right now they don't have any real options. Removing your only virtue to these people because you want to sell for 10x your normal price instead of 5x doesn't make much sense.
Except they have no reason to do that to any degree that actually matters.
Personally, I think that textbooks and other educational material should either have a government-mandated price ceiling(significantly below the current prices), or if it is actually economically unfeasible(for realsies, not just because the textbook companies say so) organize some sort of subsidies for keeping their prices down. Education is very much a sort of good/service that is in the nation's best interest to make as widely available as possible.
Then again, apparently the poor have no right to education(see textbook and university costs). This isn't helped by the yearly "revised" edition shenanigans that make used books often obsolete, or highly impractical to use. It seems very much like disgusting profiteering, and little else. Obviously the creators of the books need compensation, but I have a hard time believing the books need to cost as much as they do, when other books(which can feasibly require as much research/effort etc. depending on the book to produce) on the market sell for a fraction of the textbook price.
This doesn't just affect the textbook market.
Yeah, but what other markets are actually going to be endangered by this decision?
Any where arbitrage can be exploited? Read the article I posted about what's happening with Australian game retail earlier in the thread.
Having lived and gamed in Australia for years, I'm not sure what is so noble about Australian game retailers that they require legal protection against importation (such as the surcharge that they've been constantly clamoring for).
But the reality is that Australia is a unique case where geography and population play a large role, and that most Australians are (and should be) happy that they can easily acquire products cheaper than they used to.
The textbook market is also its own beast, but really this is only going to get "worse" as it becomes easier to share information. Information is not a loaf of bread - it moves around easily. Guess what, if you don't sell access to that info at a reasonable price in a market, they can and will easily "steal" it. Make it cheap enough to sell in one place, and you should be prepared that people will find a way to buy it from outside.
I'm honestly surprised that anyone still thinks using the law to artificially protect domestic prices in a world market is such a great idea - it's simply a handout to the industry in question borne on the backs of other taxpayers. I'm doubly so surprised when the product in question isn't even remotely different between markets!
I'm sorry, but a race to the bottom doesn't really interest me. Content creators are already getting fucked every which way - I don't see why we need to massively expand first sale (and yes, that's what happened today) and fuck them some more.
Eh, its less about content creators and more about letting poor people in India have textbooks.
Between nations where there does not exist large price differences its not really an issue since you can't arbitrage anyway. Between nations where there are large price differences the maximum single price will likely be to ignore the low price nation in favor of the high price nation. The difference in profit to content creators is likely very low
Eh, its less about content creators and more about letting poor people in India have textbooks.
Between nations where there does not exist large price differences its not really an issue since you can't arbitrage anyway. Between nations where there are large price differences the maximum single price will likely be to ignore the low price nation in favor of the high price nation. The difference in profit to content creators is likely very low
The Supreme Court just legalized parallel importation. Again, this goes beyond textbooks.
While I agree that the likely response will be to just go back to ignoring those markets, textbooks publishers don't often have the benefit of different tastes and culture to keep regionally-produced content appealing.
In other words, Americans will always want American music, but as long as it's in English, a textbook written in the US will have the same basic utility as one written in India.
In other other words, India can probably afford to write their own textbooks at this point (and if they were cheaper, I really would be asking why I can't use them for my class here).
If it's charity that drives publishers here, then call it that and eat the losses that arise.
As far as the textbooks go, the international editions will be soft cover, be printed on lower quality paper, be in black and white instead of color and often have cheap glue bindings that fail after a couple of years. They generally have the same chapter and page layout, and the same sample problems and exercises. This only goes part of the way towards explaining the price difference, of course.
In other other words, India can probably afford to write their own textbooks at this point (and if they were cheaper, I really would be asking why I can't use them for my class here)..
They always could. But now they might not have an incentive to sell in India because selling to the U.S would be more profitable
I mean, this problem is largely intractable in the long run.
Textbooks generally don't get the benefit of having limited cultural appeal, which is basically the only natural impediment to content going global in a world where it is trivially easy to share it.
Unless things get remarkably more draconian (and I do expect a relatively rapid reaction by our otherwise-do-nothing Congress to amend this new "hole" in the law), the trend here is toward cheaper, global content.
Eh, its less about content creators and more about letting poor people in India have textbooks.
Between nations where there does not exist large price differences its not really an issue since you can't arbitrage anyway. Between nations where there are large price differences the maximum single price will likely be to ignore the low price nation in favor of the high price nation. The difference in profit to content creators is likely very low
The Supreme Court just legalized parallel importation. Again, this goes beyond textbooks.
You keep saying this, but I'm not seeing any examples on how people are going to get fucked.
Tell me, what other industries are operating by selling media very cheap abroad and very expensive domestically?
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fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
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bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
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JuliusCaptain of Serenityon my shipRegistered Userregular
The point is that India will not, under any circumstances, pay US textbook prices. It just isn't possible. Since textbooks are sold in the US with extreme profit margins.
Are they though? I haven't yet seen anyone actually provide evidence of the obscene profits textbook makers get.
Eh, its less about content creators and more about letting poor people in India have textbooks.
Between nations where there does not exist large price differences its not really an issue since you can't arbitrage anyway. Between nations where there are large price differences the maximum single price will likely be to ignore the low price nation in favor of the high price nation. The difference in profit to content creators is likely very low
The Supreme Court just legalized parallel importation. Again, this goes beyond textbooks.
You keep saying this, but I'm not seeing any examples on how people are going to get fucked.
Tell me, what other industries are operating by selling media very cheap abroad and very expensive domestically?
Well, games do it to some extent - I can go buy Russian CD Keys for some PC games at anywhere between 30% and 75% of what they typically cost here in the US.
The difference is that those keys may or may not work to my satisfaction depending on whether the publisher limits their use remotely. All aspects of that situation have also always been legal (minus some tricky laws in the EU which might not play in the publisher's favor, but I'm not European so I'll ignore that for now).
Textbooks are physical though, so there's no way to limit access after purchase other than through legal policy.
Eh, its less about content creators and more about letting poor people in India have textbooks.
Between nations where there does not exist large price differences its not really an issue since you can't arbitrage anyway. Between nations where there are large price differences the maximum single price will likely be to ignore the low price nation in favor of the high price nation. The difference in profit to content creators is likely very low
The Supreme Court just legalized parallel importation. Again, this goes beyond textbooks.
You keep saying this, but I'm not seeing any examples on how people are going to get fucked.
Tell me, what other industries are operating by selling media very cheap abroad and very expensive domestically?
Any industry that runs on copyright operates by having it's roughly similar products sold in different markets by potentially different companies.
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Almost certainly not, since pretty much anything that has "with a computer" appended is treated as if it's fucking magic when it comes to the law and precedent.
Just so everyone's clear. No one here thinks this will actually lower prices for textbooks in the US, right?
This only fucks textbook companies in that they can't sell cheaper copies overseas anymore. Gonging US college students for $1 a page is not going to stop in order to keep sell developing nation college students books at 1/20 that.
Then again, apparently the poor have no right to education(see textbook and university costs). This isn't helped by the yearly "revised" edition shenanigans that make used books often obsolete, or highly impractical to use. It seems very much like disgusting profiteering, and little else. Obviously the creators of the books need compensation, but I have a hard time believing the books need to cost as much as they do, when other books(which can feasibly require as much research/effort etc. depending on the book to produce) on the market sell for a fraction of the textbook price.
Also an excellent way for some third party to break into textbook publishing by exploiting all these newly untapped markets. Seems a good way to create your own new lean competitor.
This doesn't just affect the textbook market.
Yeah, but what other markets are actually going to be endangered by this decision?
fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
Any where arbitrage can be exploited? Read the article I posted about what's happening with Australian game retail earlier in the thread.
Were I an Australian, I would presumably benefit from being able to buy my games at effectively half price on US-based Steam. The last time I bought a game at a physical store was 2 years ago. For games that require physical media Online is always cheaper, and I prefer an online game-library to some disks I'll lose/scratch.
Second, I know it will probably effect some other businesses. But I don't see it causing a real problem to anyone *but* the textbook industry. Who else is selling identical media outside the US for a minor fraction of its US price?
fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
Publishers, usually the larger ones, price games on Steam for Australia at parity with local brick and mortar stores.
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That ... what?
I don't think you get the textbook market at all. This shit? This will not happen.
Ok, well, maybe Indians and the like will start buying from different textbook companies and the end result will be higher prices all around.
The point is that India will not, under any circumstances, pay US textbook prices. It just isn't possible. Since textbooks are sold in the US with extreme profit margins. These textbooks could be produced and sold for much lower prices but right now nobody in the textbook market has incentive to start lowering prices. They compete by other means because the people they are competing for (the professors) don't pay the market prices.
If a new comer shows up to service India without that extreme mark up they don't have any reason to not offer this shit in America. Those teachers who give a shit about their students now have an alternative to old textbooks.
I think something like this would happen out in the rest of the world. I don't know about penetration into the US market though. It'd take a big shakeup of the shitty market conditions we have right now. With the way student loan debt has been going the inevitable shakeup over that might do it. *shrug*
Yes they do. The fact that there's no reason for them to switch and textbook choice is not a free decision by a prof, nor is it based on cost. Nor is there any reason for Indian textbook makers to not try and price differentiate anyway when shipping to the US.
The most likely outcome here seems to me that we end up with regional markets trying to be enforced by content rather then contracts.
I acknowledged that the US decision makers don't have much incentive to switch, but what is the downside for the India textbook maker to offer this stuff stateside?
Who is going to buy it if the US decision makers choose not to switch? It seems a pretty safe assumption that the vast majority of text books are sold because a class requires them.
I know the decision makers are not a uniform block. Large schools have other things going on, local schools that are more cost conscious would find these enticing. I know for a couple of my courses the professor and I looked at several texts and decided which one we liked best. Though my school is very non-traditional. When I went to a more normal school the professors made decisions weighted towards cost but they were a very small department that the administration kind of ignored.
I think there are places to start. Certainly not enough to justify a business but possibly enough to justify a website and shipping arrangements if you have the product anyway.
If an Indian publisher were to develop a quality English-language textbook at significant less cost? Yes, some would definitely switch.
Other professors would continue not giving a fuck, but that doesn't mean there'd be no market for it.
They will likely offer it stateside. At the same price as the rest of the textbooks on the market.
Why wouldn't they?
And this was why I was mentioning a lack of choice. Textbook choice can be extremely constrained.
...because they would have zero competitive advantage? That would make it not worth running the website and shipping depot.
They could sell at a higher price than India, likely with shipping included, make more profit than normal and still significantly undercut US prices with minimal effort. Some of the decision makers care about price and right now they don't have any real options. Removing your only virtue to these people because you want to sell for 10x your normal price instead of 5x doesn't make much sense.
Having lived and gamed in Australia for years, I'm not sure what is so noble about Australian game retailers that they require legal protection against importation (such as the surcharge that they've been constantly clamoring for).
But the reality is that Australia is a unique case where geography and population play a large role, and that most Australians are (and should be) happy that they can easily acquire products cheaper than they used to.
The textbook market is also its own beast, but really this is only going to get "worse" as it becomes easier to share information. Information is not a loaf of bread - it moves around easily. Guess what, if you don't sell access to that info at a reasonable price in a market, they can and will easily "steal" it. Make it cheap enough to sell in one place, and you should be prepared that people will find a way to buy it from outside.
I'm honestly surprised that anyone still thinks using the law to artificially protect domestic prices in a world market is such a great idea - it's simply a handout to the industry in question borne on the backs of other taxpayers. I'm doubly so surprised when the product in question isn't even remotely different between markets!
Except they have no reason to do that to any degree that actually matters.
I'm sorry, but a race to the bottom doesn't really interest me. Content creators are already getting fucked every which way - I don't see why we need to massively expand first sale (and yes, that's what happened today) and fuck them some more.
Between nations where there does not exist large price differences its not really an issue since you can't arbitrage anyway. Between nations where there are large price differences the maximum single price will likely be to ignore the low price nation in favor of the high price nation. The difference in profit to content creators is likely very low
The Supreme Court just legalized parallel importation. Again, this goes beyond textbooks.
In other words, Americans will always want American music, but as long as it's in English, a textbook written in the US will have the same basic utility as one written in India.
In other other words, India can probably afford to write their own textbooks at this point (and if they were cheaper, I really would be asking why I can't use them for my class here).
If it's charity that drives publishers here, then call it that and eat the losses that arise.
They always could. But now they might not have an incentive to sell in India because selling to the U.S would be more profitable
Textbooks generally don't get the benefit of having limited cultural appeal, which is basically the only natural impediment to content going global in a world where it is trivially easy to share it.
Unless things get remarkably more draconian (and I do expect a relatively rapid reaction by our otherwise-do-nothing Congress to amend this new "hole" in the law), the trend here is toward cheaper, global content.
You keep saying this, but I'm not seeing any examples on how people are going to get fucked.
Tell me, what other industries are operating by selling media very cheap abroad and very expensive domestically?
fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
Are they though? I haven't yet seen anyone actually provide evidence of the obscene profits textbook makers get.
Well, games do it to some extent - I can go buy Russian CD Keys for some PC games at anywhere between 30% and 75% of what they typically cost here in the US.
The difference is that those keys may or may not work to my satisfaction depending on whether the publisher limits their use remotely. All aspects of that situation have also always been legal (minus some tricky laws in the EU which might not play in the publisher's favor, but I'm not European so I'll ignore that for now).
Textbooks are physical though, so there's no way to limit access after purchase other than through legal policy.
Any industry that runs on copyright operates by having it's roughly similar products sold in different markets by potentially different companies.