[no subject]

[Jean-Claude Guedon <jean.claude.guedon@umontreal.ca>]

Responding here to several messages in this thread:

And undermining the economic production of textbooks as we know 
it would generally be a good thing IMHO. That is why the whole 
"open educational resource" movement is picking up speed at this 
very moment. People, particularly students, are becoming tired, 
indignant and rebellious for good reasons.

As for the multinationals and their taxes, it appears to me that 
they do a darn good job at avoiding paying as many taxes as 
possible. Is this not the whole point of going multinational? 
And, in any case, multinationals represent only a fraction of 
taxes collected. Citizens like myself pay their fair (and 
important) share of taxes. I am always amused when I see the 
function of companies being presented as being tax payers. Don't 
they make profits too?

This reminds me of an Elsevier employee telling me once that my 
pension plan depended on Elsevier doing well in the stock market 
. . .  I was quite amused by the Jesuitic quality of the 
argument.

Market mechanisms are fine for some kinds of objects. When it 
comes to education, health and research, I believe the situation 
is quite different. Even housing and transportation are 
subsidized in many parts of the world, including NYC, the capital 
of capitalism...

As I am not one of these people who blindly think that market 
mechanisms always and necessarily ensure the best allocation of 
resources (to whom, incidentally? The producers? probably), I 
have no qualms with the idea of limiting market activities where 
they can really justify themselves. Textbooks are simply not part 
of that territory in my book (so to speak), especially when 
education too is subsidized (which is the case in Canada).

Jean-Claude Guedon

Le vendredi 25 septembre 2009 a 16:49 -0400, John Cox a ecrit :

>Jean-Claude Guedon assumes that the motive for market
> segmentation is simply the greed of multi-national capitalists
> (on whose taxes higher education in Canada and elsewhere is
> hugely dependent).  But there is another explanation, which is
> based on my own experience as a publisher of over 40 years'
> experience.
>
> Most textbooks have traditionally been developed for and
> published in the developed world.  Their prices were usually set
> in direct relationship to the total cost of publication and
> distribution, including royalties payable to the author(s) and
> the publisher's overheads.  It was found in the 1950s and 1960s
> that students in less developed countries were unable to afford
> these prices.  So publishers either licensed the publication
> rights to a local publisher that could sell into its local
> territory at a locally acceptable price, or republished the
> textbook as a low cost edition for less well-endowed markets,
> having recovered much of the cost of publication on the original
> edition.  These were often referred to as "International Student
> Editions" or something similar.  Their sale was limited to
> specified countries - that was the point, because their price was
> related to the marginal cost of republication, rather than the
> full cost of original publication.  Many of the publishers that I
> knew - and know - have done this out of wholly altruistic
> reasons.
>
> It has always been important for restrict the sale of such
> international student editions to the countries for which they
> were intended.  To allow importation back into the developed
> world would undermine the economics of textbook publishing as we know it.
>
> John Cox
>
> Managing Director
> John Cox Associates Ltd
>

  So, are you going to tell up front to US students that they are 
generously subsidizing the rest of the world? I am sure they are 
going to be thrilled discovering their unknown role. I move that 
US college students be collectively named as candidates for the 
next Nobel Peace Prize. They certainly deserve it with all that 
money they are throwing away.

  Is it not true that, once the costs have been recouped on the US 
market, then one can start selling at lower (dumping?) prices 
abroad, thus making it more difficult for foreign publishers to 
produce their own textbooks at lower prices? I am sure many 
Indian publishers are delighted by this.

Thank God for the variety of languages in the world. At least, it 
provides a small rampart against this invasion in many countries, 
at least in the lower university classes where numbers are 
greatest.

Incidentally, my reaction to Esposito's posting was triggered by 
his using copyright law to justify the segmenting of markets. I 
see with pleasure that he has now given up on this claim, and 
moved to an economic argument. Alas, it is not much better as an 
argument.

Oh well...

Jean-Claude Guedon



Le vendredi 25 septembre 2009 a 16:50 -0400, Joseph Esposito a 
ecrit :

> This is simply not true and it should not be allowed to stand.
> Differential pricing and market segmentation make materials
> available to people who otherwise could not afford it.  I won't
> get into a debate about what copyright law says, which we will
> leave to lawyers, but let's focus just on the economics.
>
<snip>
>
> When someone takes a book from China and sells it in San Diego,
> he or she is not lowering the cost in San Diego; rather the cost
> is being raised in China.  If you are looking for the greedy,
> look for the arbitrageurs.
>
> Joe Esposito
>
>




I do not understand Ms. Soules' message below. For example, I 
subscribe to the New York Review of Books from New York, and I 
receive it through the mail and through the border. I suspect 
they do things the right way, and Ms. Soules does not.

But all this is beside the point. I am not trying to defend 
Canadian customs and their rules. I was writing about the general 
principle of market segmentation and its perverse consequences.

Jean-Claude Guedon

Le vendredi 25 septembre 2009 a 16:50 -0400, Aline Soules a ecrit

> As an addendum to the issue of bringing books from one country to
> another, I can attest to the fact that if you are sending a book
> to Canada from the United States, it may not get there.  I'm not
> talking about anything that might be constituted "obscene" or
> controversial in some other way, but I can't even have the New
> Yorker send a desk diary to a friend in Canada (my annual present
> to her).  It's sent back as not acceptable by customs.  As a
> result, I have to find a "work-around" to get it to her.
>
> I've also had other experiences of sending perfectly innocuous
> books to Canada and having them rejected by customs as "not
> acceptable" books.
>
> I find this ironic in light of the exchange of drugs between the
> countries.
>
> There must be some bureaucratic rationales behind these
> decisions/behaviors, but I've never been able to figure them out.
>
> Aline Soules
> Cal State East Bay
> Aline.soules@csueastbay.edu
>