How Dare you Re-Sell Your Book!

Or so is the implicit concern of many quoted in Online Battle of Low-Cost Books. Publishers and author activists are getting concerned that “Amazon.com [may be] becoming the Napster of the book business”, with its growing sales of used books. When you find a book on Amazon, used books–very cheap–are often listed next to the new book. And the author (and publisher) make no additional royalty or revenues from sale of the used book. One publishing consultant frets,

Used books are to consumer books as Napster was to the music industry …. The question becomes, “How does the book industry address its used-book problem?” There aren’t any easy answers, especially as no one is breaking any laws here.

Well, we’ll just have to do something about that! After all, laws are easy to make, just pass ’em! Can’t have authors not getting a royalty when someone buys a copy of their book, it might reduce authors’ incentives to write. My prediction: the libertarian Cato Institute will soon come out in favor of a federal law (2), based on the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the 14th Amendment (2, 3), that outlaws the re-sale of a used book unless the author gets a cut. JUST kidding.

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4:39 pm on July 12, 2004