

One big way that book publishing startups can succeed now - tiberiade
https://gigaom.com/2015/03/07/one-big-way-that-book-publishing-startups-can-succeed-now/

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cstross
Once again: article by tech sector guy who has no fscking idea how the
publishing sector works, or even what it sells.

Clue: if you ever wondered why publishing seems so staid and static, it's
because it's not about books, it's about _contracts_. Author/publisher
contracts have the same effect on publishing industry innovation that patent
trolls have on the tech sector -- only much worse and, weirdly, _much better_.
Worse, because just about every published author out there is licensing their
IP with strings attached, rather than doing work-for-hire: this makes it hard
to develop new sales channels or explore new pricing structures. Better,
because this ensures that _the folks who produce the content get paid_ , as
opposed to being milked like cows.

If I was going to disrupt publishing, I'd start by hiring lawyers, pointing
them at the existing shitpile of contract boilerplate the industry runs on,
and telling them, "redesign this mess, it's not fit for purpose". And you
should use that as an acid test whenever you stumble across one of these bien-
pensant "publishing is ripe for disruption" think-pieces. If they don't
realize the IP contracts underpinning publishing -- and the sales accounting
and royalty systems that implement the contracts in code -- are at the root of
the industry's inertia, they don't know nuthin'.

