Lessig names Amazon.com an internet success story for a few reasons. First, they brought the convenience of web-based shopping to consumers seemingly fed up with shopping in superstores (that internet companies displaced these big-box superstores is very interesting, by the way, and could be a whole blog post in itself, but I'll refrain...) via archiving, shipping to consumers' doorsteps, and offering competitive prices. Second, they host a pseudo-opensource interface, allowing consumers to develop on their platform, in many ways securing free/cheap labor while simultaneously making consumers feel empowered and a part of the opensource/hacking community. What Lessig doesn't mention (at least up until the point I stopped reading to post this) is something that Paul Heald recently discovered in his research. You can find the article on the Atlantic's website.
Heald's research reveals that Amazon.com sells more new books that have passed into the public domain than those that are still protected by copyright.
Yes, you read this correctly.
Amazon sells twice as many books published in the 1850s than the 1950s, despite conventional beliefs and scare tactics perpetuated by media publishers worldwide. Heald's findings speak for themselves: copyright protection, at least in book sales, has no impact on sales. In fact, data seems to indicate that the opposite is true. I suspect a range of reasons exist for data, because surely we should not assume that copyright law has a direct and causal impact on consumers' choices. Yet we might be able to tease this apart, at least speculatively. Among a range of probable factors likely include a) the perceived importance or "classic" status of books before a certain point in time, and b) a reduced price to the consumer of works published from the public domain. The latter of these is most likely in my estimation, and echoes Lessig's observations regarding the "business of business," which in this case might remind us of the big-box superstores displaced by Amazon. That is, selling high volumes at "low, low prices" is a model that has put a Wal-Mart in most communities in the United States.
What is most interesting to me is that Amazon (and booksellers worldwide) has found a way to change the industry's business model significantly. Not only are they seemingly unplagued by piracy, but they have found a way to dupe consumers into paying for free information. I can just as easily go online and print my own legal copy of Shakespeare's work as order a costly volume on Amazon. It's quite fascinating, actually. They've really done an outstanding job of hiding the notion of the public domain from consumers.
What, then, are we left with? What questions might we ask as scholars concerned with copyright and intellectual property? Here are my questions:
1. How can we frame the "war on piracy" based on this new information from Heald?
2. Are Heald's findings more revealing of copyright law or simple economics?
3. How do you think this data would hold up across various media, especially music and film?
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