<<Amazon's practice does damage to the publishing industry, decreasing royalty payments to authors and profits to publishers.>>

Try looking up some of your favorite authors via Amazon.com, and -- just for kicks -- try looking up that author's first book. Try George R.R. Martin's _Dying of the Light_ (just to throw out one I've got experience looking for). Can you find a new copy? No. You'll probably be told it's out of print. Too bad for you? No. With a quick click, Amazon links you up to a used bookstore that carries it, and 5-7 days later, a book which you would not otherwise have been able to get your hands on arrives on your doorstep. Another example, try looking up author "Geoff Ryman" and you'll get the "new" book you're looking for -- and several more you don't have, including one that's OP. More than likely, I wouldn't have known about the OP title unless I did an Amazon search that included new/used. Without that system, I'm denied a broader range of an author's works, works that I would not have known existed and may not have gotten a hold of without Amazon's easy-to-use new/used system.

Should OP titles be blacklisted because they "deny" a writer the 10% royalty (which the writer already got when the book was initially published)? Anyone who absolutely adores a particular book is probably going to go out and buy a first-rate copy of it if possible (I do)-- the issue is about denying the general public access to public works (this is why India frowns on copyright laws in general -- forcing everyone to pay exorbitant prices reserves that knowledge for a select few. Case in point, try searching Amazon for Cheryl Walker's _Women and Resistance in South Africa_, the only book soley on that subject, by the most respected Africanist on the subject, and you won't be able to get it new *or* used -- you'll have to go to the library. Or South Africa). I'm sure as hell not advocating the free dessimation of every work ever produced by anybody -- at least not until the day the government decides to support artists (ha ha), but let's be realistic. If you can't sell used books online next to new books, you shouldn't be allowed to sell them in bookshops next to one another, and if you can't sell new/used books together, well, you shouldn't be able to sell new/used CDs together, or new/used clothes, or new/used DVDs, or new/used tupperware. Following the logic of this argument, the "company", whether it be one individual or many, is then somehow "cheated" out of a profit. One has to be careful trying to start a precedence like this. Once the ball gets rolling, it becomes more and more difficult to discern the cut-off point.

<<In time, as we pointed out to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos when it first began this practice over a year ago, the financial loss to the industry could affect the quality and diversity of literature made available through booksellers.>>

On the contrary. Having all of these books available Vastly *Improves* the quality and diversity of literature made available through booksellers. As Cory said, one only has to take a quick excursion through Powell's bookstore (preferably accompanied by a guide so as not to become lost) to realize the massive amount of diverse literature a new/used bookstore can potentially make available.

<<If profits suffer, publishers will cut their investments in new works, and authors facing reduced advances and royalties will have to find other ways to earn income.>>

This is the same argument used when discussing e-publishing, internet plagarism, and audio books (not to mention the squall the book industry put up against other forms of media when they were first introduced. Compare it to the squall movie theatres put up against the advent of television -- the movie industry spun tales of gloom and doom for the feature film and said the industry would die out within ten years of television's introduction. How much money did the Harry Potter movie gross last year? Titanic? Jurassic Park? Star Wars [don't forget to add in figures from the rereleased versions -- oh, wait, no one went to see the rereleased versions, obviously, because everyone had already seen it and had a copy at home by their VCR, right?]?)

The Authors' Guild hasn't done its homework (which I loathe saying, as it could potentially do such wonderful things for authors, and certainly has: I'm not up on AG). This is the Napster debate all over again: the authors who would hurt the most from new/used pairing are probably the Big Names whose books come out two or three times a year, like candy, easily read and tossed on. Who's going to want a copy of the latest Oprah's book club book three months after their reading group and Oprah's show and Oprah's magazine have already discussed it? (OK, that's not fair, there are some fine books on the list [some], but Oprah's stamp is beginning to become the authorial mark on these books, not the author's, which is a discussion for another time). Suffice to say, these are the sorts of books you'll want to read your friend's copy of, or pick up used.

I'm going to stop here.