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ebooks more than paperbacks?

More on the sometimes crazy pricing of ebooks:

The great ebook price swindle

Publishers are facing an uncertain time in the digital world – but increasing the prices of their ebooks is a retrograde step

Dan Gillmor | guardian.co.uk | Friday 23 December 2011 15.07 GMT

I want to offer a word of thanks to the American book publishing industry, or at least the traditional big companies that have dominated it in recent decades. They've helped me rediscover my local library and the used book stores in neighboring communities. They've achieved this by exhibiting the qualities that come so naturally to corporate media giants: greed and arrogance – in this case, as applied to the way they've dealt with the digital world.

To understand what they've done, you need to understand a bit about how books are sold in America. Publishers have two major distribution methods. One is traditional wholesaling: sell the book to a middleman, who typically adds a mark-up to customers, but sometimes discounts a book below cost as a "loss leader" to attract more business for items that aren't discounted in this way.

The other model is called the "agency" system. In this case, publishers set the price and the bookstore merely handles the sale to the ultimate customer, for a set fee or percentage of the transaction. The "big six" US publishers all sell their physical books via the wholesale model. After years of wholesaling digital editions as well, they moved to the agency model for ebooks, with Random House becoming the final publisher to switch early last year. The publishers had been increasingly angry about Amazon's selling of new bestsellers at the loss-leading price of $10 (actually, $9.99), worrying that the giant online company was setting customer expectations at a too-low price point and undermining the sales of physical books.

Apple played a role in this switch, by essentially telling the publishers it wanted the agency model for its own online bookstore, which services the iPad and iPhone. And Apple co-operated in what was the inevitable result for e-books everywhere: higher prices to consumers.

Not just higher prices, but vastly higher; many ebook bestsellers on Amazon (and in Barnes & Noble's Nook store) jumped 30% to 50%, from about $10 to $13 or $15 or even higher, as publishers imposed higher list prices for the digital versions. And in case after case, the ebook price for a new book was close to, and sometimes even higher than, the Amazon price for a hardcover. Remember, Amazon still has the right to discount from list price for physical books, as it has always done. Meanwhile, publishers have dictated that ebook prices will be the same as they charge for paperbacks (around $10 these days).

It’s one of those strange cases where competition increases prices (there’s another one here).  Apple offered publishers the chance to charge higher prices, and they were happy to do so.

It’s no surprise that Amazon’s original US$9.99 price for newly-published titles was not to the liking of all publishers, but a simple low price for a large range of titles was a great marketing message for the Kindle. No-one can really know how many sales of hardbacks were lost because the Kindle price was lower, but I’d suspect that they were more than made up for by higher overall sales.

An ebook priced like a physical book is a terrible deal for the customer. Among other drawbacks, you can't resell – or even give away – an ebook in most cases. You don't really own an ebook; you're just renting it, even if the company you rent from says you can keep it, because that depends on the life span of the seller. Maybe Amazon will be around for a long time to come (I hope so, as a holder of a small amount of Amazon stock), but why would anyone count on that?

I’m not so worried about Amazon going out of business. In the unlikely event of this happening I am sure that some alternative devices would appear, but it is completely baffling that an ebook should be the same price (or even more expensive than) a hardback book.  It simply makes no sense.

And yet - although it just seems wrong for a Kindle e-book to cost more than the physical book, the prohibitive shipping charges to Asia ($10 for the first item, $5 for additional books in the same shipment) make a huge difference. Even with the totally arbitrary $2 charge for delivering an Amazon e-book to overseas customers (through Wi-Fi) the KIndle version is usually cheaper.

And plenty of books are much cheaper on the Kindle.  For example, last week's SCMP had a review of a book about Walmart in China.   The publisher’s price is $25 for paperback or $65 for hardback, but I purchased it on the Kindle for $9.99 (plus $2 ripoff charge), and I could download it within seconds.  Hard to argue with that - though, strangely, it is now $16.97.

Another recent purchase was the first volume of Margaret Thatcher's memoirs for $3.99 (plus a very slightly less unreasonable $1.60 ripoff charge).  So it’s not a problem finding books for the Kindle at reasonable prices, and easy enough to avoid buying any that are over-priced.  Plus you can always download a sample to check out a book before purchasing.

When new ebooks were $10, I was buying them all the time. In almost all cases, book purchases are impulse buys – something you want to have, right now. I was buying new best-sellers at a rapid rate, and happy to do so. (The books I bought this way tended to be mysteries and thrillers – the kind of book purchases I treated like movie tickets, to be read or seen once and then put aside.)  No more. I still buy some e-books, but only at lower prices.

I think that’s right – at around $10, I would buy new titles that I want to read now, but at $15+ I am likely to wait till the price is reduced (or buy the paperback if it’s cheaper).  And at less than $5 it really is an impulse purchase.  

Sure, I can afford the higher prices. But the greed of the publishers has inspired me to make different plans. Now I reserve bestsellers at my local library – run by people who love books: imagine that! – and read them whenever they are available. What were impulse purchases of books that sent revenue to publishers are now impulse reservations that do not. If I have to wait a few weeks, no big deal. I should have remembered that all along.

I agree that publishers need to think more carefully about pricing.  In the long term it is going to hurt them - piracy is one way, and there are some interesting comments on the Guardian article, such as this one on a radically different approach:

If an author publishes an ebook via a publishing house, of the $9.99 price, they get only $0.60 in royalties at 6%.  If they self-publish the same book and charge just $2.99, they get a royalty of $2.09 - but the customer gets a 70% discount!

And it's not hard to upload - you will find that indie books that have been uploaded by authors are usually formatted correctly - they take the trouble because it's their baby, while the publishing houses do a poor job, but want to take money off the author and customer for the work anyway.

There was a more recent story about how some writers are making a good living through Amazon:

Amanda Hocking, the writer who made millions by self-publishing online

Ed Pilkington | Thursday 12 January 2012 20.00 GMT

When historians come to write about the digital transformation currently engulfing the book-publishing world, they will almost certainly refer to Amanda Hocking, writer of paranormal fiction who in the past 18 months has emerged from obscurity to bestselling status entirely under her own self-published steam. [..]

Over the past 20 months Hocking has sold 1.5m books and made $2.5m. All by her lonesome self. Not a single book agent or publishing house or sales force or marketing manager or bookshop anywhere in sight.

Which is something that ought to make publishers stop and think.

Denial

There have been several letters in the SCMP from expats in response to Sam Wong’s letter last week.  His response is to deny what he wrote and blame it on the sub-editor:

Some deny post-colonial reality of HK

There have been many responses to my letter ("Expats have done little to benefit city", January 3).

The theme of my letter relates to the competitiveness of Hong Kong but your correspondents focused on the contributions of individuals, which is a different matter. This misunderstanding caused an overreaction and harsh language from some letter writers.

I did not suggest a lack of contribution on the part of foreigners and domestic helpers despite the headline (which I did not write). Every citizen contributes to our society one way or another. Even people living on social welfare can claim they contribute to our economy because they are also spenders.

Hong Kong's competitiveness is measured by its infrastructure, modern airport and container port facilities, communications technologies, good social systems, financial services, industries, tourism, medical services, an efficient police force, good governance and a hard- working population, supplemented by the support of the mainland under the "one country, two systems" concept.

Foreigners in Hong Kong share the success of Hong Kong's competitiveness.

As Graham Price pointed out ("Foreigners make a big contribution", January 6) many chose to make Hong Kong their permanent home because of job opportunities and a friendly environment that makes it easy for foreigners to settle.

However, some foreigners who lived through Hong Kong's colonial era still fail to acknowledge that this city has returned to Chinese sovereignty. They suggest that local people's views should be expressed only in the Chinese-language media.

I extend a welcome to all foreigners if they share the view that the competitiveness of this city is not solely due to the presence of a small population of expatriates. And I hope your correspondents will no longer feel offended after my clarification.

Sam Wong, Sha Tin

So what does he really believe?  The headline seems like a fair summary of the following excerpt from his earlier letter:

Expatriates who have come to this city to work do so because they can't get a better job at home.  If these people's talent had anything to do with the competitiveness of Hong Kong, they would have enhanced the competitiveness of their respective home country. The sad state of the economies in the US and Europe is a reflection of the talent of these people.

Does he really believe that he didn’t “suggest a lack of contribution on the part of foreigners and domestic helpers”?

Of course what this is really about (as with many similar letters published by the SCMP) is the section I have highlighted above:  “this city has returned to Chinese sovereignty” and “some foreigners who lived through Hong Kong's colonial era still fail to acknowledge that”.  So, we foreigners should keep quiet and learn Chinese.

Foreigners go home

More enlightened views brought to us by the letters page of the SCMP:

Expats have done little to benefit city

Recently the concept of Hong Kong's competitiveness or the competitive edge of Hong Kong has again been quoted in your editorials, for example ("ESF  debate merits a conclusion soon", December 28).

In all these cases, the South China Morning Post related the concept to the presence of expatriates in this city. Is our competitiveness due to the presence of expatriate businesspeople or individuals?

I am sure most local people know the answer. Expatriates who have come to this city to work do so because they can't get a better job at home.

If these people's talent had anything to do with the competitiveness of Hong Kong, they would have enhanced the competitiveness of their respective home country.

The sad state of the economies in the US and Europe is a reflection of the talent of these people.

Expatriates who are making a living in Hong Kong are no different from domestic helpers earning their livelihood here, except that no domestic helper is claiming that he or she has enhanced the competitiveness of this city.

Hong Kong returned to Chinese sovereignty on July 1, 1997. Misleading statements which were never challenged during the colonial era will no longer enjoy the same privilege.

Sam Wong, Sha Tin

What a load of old nonsense.  I won’t even dignify this with a response.

Gotta love that last sentence, though:  “Misleading statements which were never challenged during the colonial era will no longer enjoy the same privilege.”  Eh?

Illegitimate expectations based on false memories

Oh dear.  The SCMP is still publishing these ridiculous Pierce Lam letters:

Migrants in HK need a wake-up call

Thasbeeh Mohamed's letter ("Cantonese-medium local system is unsuitable for expatriate students", December 19) is rife with errors and biased generalisations.

Cantonese has always been most local schools' medium of instruction. If there has been any change since our reunion with China, there are now more English-medium schools. Expatriates who choose to come to work in Hong Kong should not entertain illegitimate expectations based on false memories of what it was like in the colonial age.

This is marvellous stuff: “illegitimate expectations based on false memories of what it was like in the colonial age”.  Yes indeed.

When Hong Kong people take up jobs in Beijing or Berlin, they won't expect the host city's government to provide Cantonese or English-medium education. Those who send their children to public schools accept that they have to study in the host city's local language.

There is the inconvenient fact that English is an official language of Hong Kong, which is not the case in Beijing or Berlin, but do carry on.

To overcome the language problem and assimilate into schools abroad, migrant students from Hong Kong attend language tutorials after public school classes. Expatriate students who have problems assimilating into Hong Kong's local schools should do the same.

Those who find local schools unsuitable for their children should either pay for private education or find work in places where their children could adapt.

Getting admission to a good school is never easy anywhere in the world. Students not of the right calibre for good schools shouldn't expect special admission simply because their parents are migrant workers.

It is naive to ask for special treatment.

It is ridiculous that expatriates who find neither good jobs nor good schools back home should demand privileges as migrant workers in Hong Kong.

Contrary to your correspondent's claim, Hong Kong parents tend to over-schedule out-of-classroom activities for their children. My own children's outstanding academic results alone won't have won them admission to the world's top universities without their achievements in various co-curricular activities.

Every body politic must give first priority to its own people. Hong Kong's education priorities are to further improve the quality of local schools, to popularise the indisputable fact of its schools' high standard for international recognition, and to abolish the remnant of a colonial arrangement whereby our public education is segregated into local and expatriate schools.

Pierce Lam, Central

Ho hum.  He starts by complaining about “errors and biased generalisations” and then gives us all this nonsense about “colonial arrangement[s]”.  Has he been anywhere near an ESF school in the last few years?  Or perhaps he doesn’t want to see an example of local and expat children studying happily together.   

Please wait at home for 4-6 weeks

The SCMP may have been late on to this story, but they do seem to be running with it, albeit with a somewhat sensationalist headline.  

Britons may be fined, held under new passport rules

Citizens on mainland face penalties if stopped while their documents are in HK for renewal

Keith Wallis
Dec 22, 2011

Britons and other foreign nationals living on the mainland are legally required to keep their passports with them. But under new British rules, citizens needing to renew their travel documents must send them to the regional passport processing centre in Hong Kong.  If they comply with those rules, Britons risk being fined or detained by mainland authorities, diplomats said, although the potential penalties are vague.

Jo McPhail, head of the overseas passport management unit at Britain's Foreign Office, said China and South Korea were among eight or nine countries where it was a legal requirement for people to have their passports available for inspection. She said these restrictions were recognised by passport processing centres, which would accept a complete photocopy of the passport being renewed rather than the original document. McPhail said that although a photocopied passport renewal was allowed, officials wanted to keep the number being processed to a minimum.

Britons sending a photocopied passport may also have to wait up to six weeks for a new passport to be couriered from Britain rather than the maximum processing time of four weeks when the original document is submitted for renewal.

This makes no sense at all.  Why should it take longer to process?  What is different? 

The Foreign Office changed procedures earlier this year so that Britons in Asia must apply to the Hong Kong regional passport production centre for new passports.  British citizens making passport renewal applications in jurisdictions including Hong Kong have to surrender their passports, which are automatically retained, marooning them until the new passport is delivered. One option for frequent travellers, including those travelling between Hong Kong and the mainland on a regular basis, is to apply for a second passport, although applications are only considered for business reasons and on a case-by-case basis, British officials say.

When I complained about the impact of these new rules (months before the SCMP stumbled upon the story) I was told that one possible solution was to apply for a second passport.  As it wasn’t me having the problem I didn’t follow up, but it is a decidedly odd solution when it would simpler and cheaper to just let people keep their old passport for a few weeks whilst the application is processed.  If the objective of these changes is to improve security then how does it help if some people have two passports?

Paula Corrans, manager of the Asia passport production centre at the British consulate in Hong Kong, said: "For all applications, other than for second passports, the old passport is automatically cancelled by the system part-way through the processing. We cannot guarantee when this will be, as processing times differ depending on the complexity of the application and during peak and quiet periods."

Changes in the way passport applications are made and processed were introduced in August for cost and security reasons, albeit with little publicity.

Does the SCMP think that if they keep repeating this August date people will believe it’s true?  It’s not.

They also prevent Britons from travelling, except for urgent trips when an emergency travel document can be issued.  Other countries - including France, the United States and Canada - continue to allow their nationals to travel on an existing passport after an application for a replacement has been made.

A spokesman for the US consulate said that, except for applications for emergency passports, "All applications are processed locally, the data is transferred electronically to the US and the passport hard book is manufactured there."  He said new passports, which are issued in five to 10 working days, are also issued locally.

"The old passport must be presented for cancellation before the new passport can be given to the applicant. At this point, the cancelled passport booklet no longer serves as a valid travel document but does retain value as proof of identity and US citizenship," he said.

Passport Canada spokeswoman Beatrice Fenelon said that while applications are made locally, passports are issued in Canada. But citizens applying outside Canada can retain their passport until the new one is issued or collected from the local consulate or embassy, whereupon the old document is cancelled.

A spokeswoman at the French consulate said new passport applications are made locally and citizens can continue to use their existing passport until they collect their new one.

So every other country allows people to retain their old passport, but Britain thinks it’s OK to take them away, and only offer expensive “solutions” in exceptional cases.  Who on earth thought that was a good idea?

Pierce Lam (again)

I know I’m very late on this, and in fact I can no longer find this letter on the splendid SCMP website so I have resorted to copying it from Spike’s blog (Breaking News: Pierce Lam Still Hates White People)

The American Chamber of Commerce claims that Hong Kong’s status as a “world class” city depends on its meeting the demand from expatriates for international school places (“AmCham warns of schools ‘crisis’”, December 5).

This assertion is misleading, tendentious and absurd. It misleads with the weasel words “world class”, which refer to various qualities of questionable desirability.  If international school places were a measure of a city’s world-class status, Hong Kong is undoubtedly No1 among world-class cities.

There are much more public resources for a much greater variety of foreign schools with a much larger number of international school places in Hong Kong than the combined offers of New York City and Geneva, where the United Nations’ headquarters are located. But New York and Geneva are world-class cities in their own right, with local institutions that command foreigners’ respect.

In Hong Kong, our universities are world-class, and our pre-college pupils are famous for their outstanding performance in international scholastic assessments. But the city’s expatriates shun local education for their children and show no respect for local institutions.

As has been pointed out many times, it’s actually the case that local schools shun expatriates.  Even if parents would like their children to attend local schools they find that they are not welcome.  There is no incentive for local schools to welcome families who don’t speak Chinese and they find it much easier to deal with local families. 

They have no qualms making what is absurd sound serious, alleging that the city’s international standing depends on their presence so it had better invest more public resources to satisfy their children’s need for privileged education in effectively segregated “international” schools.

Again, this is nonsense.  Local schools are far more segregated than ESF schools, several of which have large majorities of local Cantonese-speaking students.  Other international schools are also very popular with local parents, who feel that they offer a better education than local schools. 

Ironically, the demand of this community of privileged minorities for unfair advantages is blindly and forcefully promoted by the city’s self-styled democrats, who supposedly should represent the majority’s interest and fight for equality.

As Alex Lo observes, there is neither economic nor moral justification for granting public resources to expat children’s international schools (“No place for apartheid in our schools”, December 3). That’s why the city’s foreign residents have to resort to the silly idea of world-class status, which they claim is what Hong Kong should pursue.

Expatriates who have come for economic reasons should thank the city for the opportunities available here and learn to engage in fair competition with the indigenous majority. They must learn to respect local institutions and not to expect the unrealistic privileges of the bygone colonial era.

Pierce Lam, Central

The last paragraph strikes me as the most absurd.  Not all expats are here “for economic reasons”, and all that the American Chamber of Commerce is asking  is for the government to allocate land for international schools – which will then (almost certainly) be overwhelmed with applications from local parents. 

Alex Lo was arguing that the government should focus its efforts on local schools to make them a more attractive option both for local parents (who currently choose ESF & International schools) and non-Chinese speakers.  But Pierce Lam is reluctant to admit that there is anything wrong with local schools, and therefore tries to argue that it’s those pesky foreigners who are being difficult.

British passports - slower and less convenient

Having finally caught up with the story about changes to the way British passports are being issued, the SCMP are not letting go.

Local jobs to go as Britain closes passport operation

Keith Wallis
Dec 07, 2011

Up to 24 staff working at the British consulate in Hong Kong will be made redundant when all passport operations move back to Britain in a revamp of how passports are handled.  They are among 166 people working in the seven regional passport processing centres around the world, who are likely to lose their jobs when the centres close.

No date for the redundancies has been announced, but Britain's Identity & Passport Service is aiming to have all applications handled in Britain by 2014.

Jo McPhail, head of the overseas passport management unit at Britain's Foreign Office, said: "The centres will close and most will lose their jobs. Almost all are locally employed staff." During a visit to Hong Kong last week, she said people were fully aware they would face the sack. "We have been honest with them," McPhail said, adding people would be "treated fairly" and helped with future employment.

Those affected are involved in checking and verifying applications for new and replacement passports and sending documents to Britain.

Since August, new British passports have been issued in Britain and sent to Hong Kong by courier, although applications can still be made in person at the consulate. Because passports are cancelled as soon as the new application is made, and new passports can take up to four weeks to arrive, the change - highlighted by the Sunday Morning Post - is leaving British citizens marooned in Hong Kong.

Well, yes, but this change was introduced early last year.  The dozy journalists appear to have become aware of the story by reading a letter in their own paper last Monday:

Renewing UK passport a costly chore

Beware the new and improved efficient passport renewal process at the British consulate.

Expect to spend about two hours waiting to be told that your photographs are rejected (two teeth showing in my case), renewal will take four weeks (it used to be one week), and the cost, at GBP200 (HK$2,420), is more than double the previous price.

The good news is that if you have to travel during the processing period, you can obtain an emergency travel document valid for one trip only and costing GBP100 each time. Of course, you are again required to queue up for this privilege and not earlier than one day before you need to travel.

This system is inefficient and not user-friendly.

Bryan Carter, Pok Fu Lam

On Sunday came this:

Danger of hold-ups on British passports

Thousands may be left in limbo after rule changes on renewals mean applicants are waiting up to four weeks, prompting calls for 'express service' in HK

Keith Wallis
Dec 04, 2011

Thousands of British passport holders in Hong Kong and on the mainland face being marooned because of little-known changes in renewal procedures.  Regulations introduced last August mean that the applications are dealt with in Hong Kong but the passports are issued from Britain.

Little known?  Maybe to SCMP newshounds.  And some of the change came in long before August.

Previous passports are cancelled as soon as the person applies for renewal, and the new passports are taking up to four weeks to arrive.

That means business people across Asia can be stranded and unable to travel while they wait.

One Hong Kong businessman was forced to spend HK$15,000 travelling to London to renew his passport or risk losing key deals in China and India because the Hong Kong processing centre could not guarantee the new passport would arrive before he travelled.

The regulations are also severely affecting British passport holders who commute between Hong Kong and the mainland on an almost daily basis. They have to renew their 10-year passports as often as every 10 months because they are full.

Officials in London say the move was prompted by security concerns and the need to save money.

Maybe more of the latter than the former.

A colonial legacy?

In today’s ESF, Alex Lo provides a reasonable summary of the issues but seems to have missed the point.

No easy options for the ESF dilemma

MY TAKE
Alex Lo
Nov 26, 2011

Negotiations between the government and the English Schools Foundation are going nowhere. The government wants to let go of the ESF, if not now then eventually. The ESF, however, wants to stay with increased public funding.

Either outcome is acceptable. In the first case, ESF institutions would become fully-fledged independent international schools. In the second, they would come under the government's direct subsidy scheme, much like many elite local schools, which enjoy a good deal of autonomy but not full independence.

The ESF will prosper one way or another. Of course, as at international schools, families who cannot afford non-subsidised fees will be forced out, but these places will be filled given the demand for such school places.

What is not tenable, however, is the status quo. ESF schools currently receive public funding well below what is given, on average, to schools under the direct subsidy scheme. This means the ESF has had to raise fees regularly, antagonising parents in the process. Despite the current subsidy, ESF fees are approaching those of some international schools. Without adequate funding, the foundation cannot properly budget for future expansion and development.

But it is difficult for the government to justify increased funding for the ESF - widely regarded as a colonial legacy - if the foundation continues giving admission priority to non-Chinese speaking families. Unfortunately, few local schools have the facilities to accept non-Chinese speaking students, so schools such as the ESF's are essential for the expatriate community.

A rational and humane solution is for more local schools to develop the capability to take foreign students. The ESF could then drop preferential admissions in exchange for higher funding. But this calls for long-term commitment, and the government may instead be tempted to take the easier way out and let the ESF go.

Well, yes, but what is the chance of the government adopting this “rational and humane solution”?  The reason that the ESF was established was because the government wanted another body to run its English schools.   For the next 30 years the ESF received the same funding as government schools, but since the handover this has been steadily reduced and now stands at about half of what it used to be (in real terms).  So any new solution will cost the government more than they spend today on the ESF subvention.

I don’t see why it is “difficult for the government to justify increased funding for the ESF .. if the foundation continues giving admission priority to non-Chinese speaking families”.  Isn’t what it was set up to do?  Ah, but it’s “widely regarded as a colonial legacy”.  There’s the problem. 

Online madness

Interesting article in the Guardian about the high prices for downloading movies. 

Movie fans turn to piracy when the online cupboard is bare

Downloaded movie prices are about 30% to 50% higher than buying an actual DVD. That's if you can find the film online

Ask anyone who's studied copyright policy – scholars of music and literature, economists, sociologists, law professors – and they'll tell you that the No 1 problem with copyright is that it is enacted without recourse to evidence.

Professor Ian Hargreaves, the latest eminent scholar commissioned by government to review Britain's copyright policy, lamented that his advice echoed many of his predecessors', none of which had been heeded.

Policymakers are unabashed about the lack of evidence in copyright policy — the EC's 2011 Single Market for Intellectual Property Rights report declares "The case does not need to be made anymore: IPR in their different forms and shapes are key assets of the EU economy." Of course, "the case does not need to be made" is another way of saying, "the case has not been made".

[..]

The UK Open Rights Group (disclosure: I co-founded this group and serve as a volunteer on its advisory board) recently contributed some more evidence to the debate – and its very timely indeed.

ORG and partner Consumer Focus undertook some empirical research on the state of the lawful market for downloadable movies in the UK. This is important because whenever our government or courts undertake to increase penalties for copyright violations – measures such as our nascent national censorship regime for sites that offend the entertainment industry – it is always with a kind of sad head-shake and the lament that despite the healthy, burgeoning lawful market for downloadable material, stubborn pirates continue to take copyrighted works without permission.

ORG's study Can't look now: finding film online investigated the lawful availability of downloads for "recent bestsellers and catalogues of critically acclaimed films, including the top 50 British films" and what they found was that the claims of the lawful market for movies are as evidence-free as the piracy claims they accompany.

Here's what ORG found: though close to 100% of their sample were available as DVDs, more than half of the top 50 UK films of all time were not available as downloads. The numbers are only slightly better for Bafta winners: just 58% of Bafta best film winners since 1960 can be bought or rented as digital downloads (the bulk of these are through iTunes – take away the iTunes marketplace, which isn't available unless you use Mac or Windows, and only 27% of the Bafta winners can be had legally).

And while recent blockbusters fare better, it's still a patchwork, requiring the public to open accounts with several services to access the whole catalogue (which still has many important omissions).

But even in those marketplaces, movies are a bad deal – movie prices are about 30% to 50% higher when downloaded over the internet versus buying the same movies on DVDs. Some entertainment industry insiders argue that DVDs, boxes and so forth add negligible expense to their bottom line, but it's hard to see how movie could cost less on physical DVDs than as ethereal bits, unless the explanation is price-gouging. To add insult to injury, the high-priced online versions are often sold at lower resolutions than the same movies on cheap DVDs.

I have previously complained about the absurd prices of many books on the Kindle and the price of music downloads, but apparently it costs Apple a lot of money to store the file online and deliver it to me.  Perhaps the same explanation applies here - though I am still not totally convinced…

ESF vs EDB round 27

The negotiations over the future of the ESF continue, but there seems to be some progress: 

Deadlock over future ESF subsidies

Rather than losing government funds, foundation wants amounts matching Direct Subsidy Scheme

Dennis Chong
Nov 23, 2011

Negotiations between the English Schools Foundation and the government over whether ESF schools should continue to receive government funding are deadlocked, with the clock ticking on an earlier goal of finalising reform details by the end of this year.

The government is considering whether funding should cease in the long term, while the ESF wants an increase to a level equal to the subsidies received by Direct Subsidy Scheme schools in the government system. The government has yet to set out conditions for the funding to stay and the two sides have yet to reach agreement on how schools should be better regulated if it does remain, ESF officials say. The uncertainty may hamper drafting of a plan for development of the foundation's schools for the next three years.

"We will continue our discussions with [the Education Bureau] and negotiate for a sustainable and recurrent subvention," ESF chief executive Heather Du Quesnay, who has strongly objected to removal of the subsidies, said yesterday.  Du Quesnay said that instead of accepting the loss of the government money, the school operator was demanding an increase to a level on a par with schools under the Direct Subsidy Scheme - now about double the amount received by the ESF.

She said the foundation was willing to accept more monitoring and supervision if its own control over curriculum and the pay, recruitment and professional development of staff could be maintained. In this academic year, DSS schools receive HK$35,200 for each primary pupil and HK$43,890 for each secondary pupil. The ESF got HK$17,757 and HK$23,659 respectively, an ESF spokeswoman said.

In a letter received by parents this week, Du Quesnay wrote that the board had been at pains to put forward its case to retain and increase the subsidy.

Earlier this year, the government proposed reviewing the future of ESF schools, raising the possibility that the foundation should ultimately become self-financing. This poses questions on how the city will be able to maintain adequate opportunities for non-Chinese-speaking pupils, who now go to ESF schools, to receive a quality education.

The authorities also proposed in July that under planned reform, ESF schools would have to sign time-definite service agreements with the government in order to improve accountability. The government said this should take place in the next academic year.

Du Quesnay said yesterday that the ESF was willing to sign service agreements setting out programmes of activities and financial monitoring arrangements. The Education Bureau declined to comment.

I have never fully understood why the ESF couldn’t be part of the DSS scheme.  It seems like the obvious answer to the problem, but it would require some changes to the DSS scheme given that the ESF gives priority to students who are not Cantonese speakers.  Given that the whole point of the ESF is to fill that gap in the local school system, you’d think that the government would be able to do that.

Letter of the week

They must be desperate at the SCMP to publish letters like this. 

Serious implications for schools

Alex Lo demonstrates an inability to handle the intrusion into management of religious schools ("God-awful fears freeze school reform", November 8).

Without a firm foundation, he assumes the high ground in the conflict between religious schools and their forced compliance with a dramatic shift in the structure of their governing bodies.

Lo proposes that religious schools would despair of teaching Darwin as if Darwin's theories have no flaws. Lo suggests that Mao Zedong is not taught in these schools, a dictator who was responsible for millions of deaths.

I think we’re starting to get an idea where you’re coming from…

At the very least, there will be more conflict on religious school governing boards, with clashes over values and principles.

Will we see some non-Christian members wanting to see a very liberal view of sex education put on the curriculum? Other new board members might wish to have abortion taught as a value. Some could debate that the Ten Commandments or similar basic texts are a waste of time.

Abortion taught as a value?  Really?  Is that common in non-faith schools?

I am sorry that people want to water down religious schools and say this is fair, for this introduces a skewed value system.

A what?

Everyone chooses some god or belief, but forcing people who have adopted one standard to bow down to any system at all is discriminatory. Evidently this has been lost on many people.

Rosa Chan, Lai Chi Kok

Don’t drink the water

Dilbert – 27 October 2011

Today’s news

Japan MP Yasuhiro Sonoda drinks Fukushima water

A Japanese official has drunk water collected from the quake-hit Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, after reporters challenged him to prove it was safe.

Yasuhiro Sonoda appeared nervous and his hands shook as he downed a glass during a televised news conference.

The water he drank was taken from puddles under two reactor buildings. It is decontaminated before being used for tasks such as watering plants.

Journalists have repeatedly queried the safety of the procedure.

Mr Sonoda, who serves as the cabinet office's parliamentary spokesman, told the news conference: "Just drinking [decontaminated water] doesn't mean safety has been confirmed. Presenting data to the public is the best way."

Long overdue

I finally got round to cleaning up the links in Hong Kong and Asia blogs. I've removed all broken links and any blogs with no recent postings. It's possible that I may have missed one or two that have moved to new places, so feel free to let me know if that is the case.

I'm happy to add new links.

Next question is whether anyone actually visits this website or whether RSS readers have completely taken over.

Banyan

Tropical storm Banyan is heading for Hong Kong….it’s heading to Vietnam…oh no, it isn’t…and now it’s a low pressure area.

Amazon wants to buy The Book Depository

The Book Depository is a UK-based website that offers a decent alternative to Amazon for international customers.  Anyone who has ordered books from Amazon will know that international delivery charges are prohibitive, with the possible exception of expensive books that are reduced by 50% (or more).  The Book Depository don’t charge extra for delivery, and although they do charge customers outside the UK more, their prices are still normally quite reasonable (typically a discount of around 10% on cover prices), especially compared to the 20% markup that usually applies in Hong Kong.

The question is whether that will change if Amazon are allowed to acquire The Book Depository.  They made an offer, which has been accepted by the company, but it has been referred to the Office of Fair Trading.

From The Bookseller:

The Office of Fair Trading has said it now expects to announce its decision on the Amazon takeover of The Book Depository by late October.

On a notice posted on its website this morning (19th September), the OFT said the expected decision date on the merger is 24th October. The decision was originally due on 2nd September. An OFT spokesman gave no specific reason for the delay but added: "In general it can be because some cases are more complex than others, some require more information from the parties or the OFT needs time to analyse the data . . . No inference should be made about the likely outcome of the case."

Amazon announced the deal with The Book Depository in July. The Booksellers and Publishers Associations, the Independent Publishers Guild and the Bookseller Group all oppose the merger.

Given that company appears to be doing well (Book Depository's sales rise 20%) and Amazon is already so dominant, one might think that there would be grounds for blocking the deal on competition grounds.

If it does go through, will Book Depository continue to operate independently and offer a better deal to overseas customers than Amazon?  I guess we just have to wait to find out.

UPDATE: OFT clears Amazon acquisition of the Book Depository