If you are a capitalist - buy used books
Sometimes the Author's Guild just don't know where to put their limits...
I was reading the bellow article
written by Beth Cox, and I was wondering to my self - is this America of the 21st century or is
it Russia of the mid 70s?!
In the article Beth shows the dialog going on, between the Author's Guild, trying to prevent
Amazon from giving people a place to sell used books, and Amazon, trying to explain that
if someone owns a property, one of the things he can do with it, is sell it.
I don't have any Amazon stocks, and I don't think Amazon need someone like me to help them defend
themselves, but when an average american like me, see people trying to stop capitalism, I just
ask myself, where this is going to end?
Will tomorrow be an Auto Guild that will tell me not to sell my car?
Will they force to close the car dealers and I will need to sell my car by myself? After all,
there is no such difference between used cars and used books...
This is the reason I encourage you to buy used books. It doesn't matter if you buy them
on Amazon, Barnes & Nobles,
FetchBook used books,
or on the used books store next corner, as long as you for the used area.
Besides, why pay more when you don't need too?
If you agree with me, I encourage you to exchange links with me in order to promote this idea.
Simply send me an email to junino@yahoo.com
See other used books resources I have.
The original article by Beth Cox
Amazon.com first pooh-poohed complaints from the Author's Guild about used books sales on the e-tail site, but now the company is taking them seriously enough to warrant a response from the boss.
Seattle-based Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos has responded by defending the company's practice of allowing the sale of used books -- and oh-by-the way mentioning that the complaining group is the "same organization that from time to time has advocated charging public libraries royalties on books they loan out."
The New York City-based Author's Guild is urging its members to eliminate links to Amazon on their Web sites, claiming that used books sales do "damage to the publishing industry, decreasing royalty payments to authors and profits to publishers."
Bezos said simply that the group's assertion "is not correct ... We've found that our used books business does not take business away from the sale of new books."
"...when someone buys a book, they are also buying the right to resell that book, to loan it out, or to even give it away if they want. Everyone understands this," he said in an e-mail distributed to sellers of used books on the Amazon site.
He also said that offering used books "is simply good for customers. It makes out-of-print books available and other books more affordable. Making books affordable is a fundamental good (as are libraries)."
He concludes by urging Amazon users to send e-mail to the executive director of the Author's Guild "explaining how the sale of used books actually helps the entire book industry."
The guild, which calls itself the nation's largest society of published authors, griped about the sales practice when Amazon first allowed used books sales by its users two years ago.
Amazon is not actually in the used books business itself; rather, customers may sell their used books through the online retailer. Amazon collects a 99-cent fee for each sale, plus 15 percent of the purchase price. No royalties are paid on used books sales.
