Many books have a notice before the text starts, saying something like “If you have purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that it was returned to the publisher as unsold.” Do bookstores often return books back to the publisher if they can’t sell them? How long does a book have to sit around on the shelves before the bookstore just gives up on it? And if this happens, then why doesn’t the publisher just throw the extra copies in the recycling bin rather than tearing the cover off and getting paranoid that someone might be making money by selling the coverless copies?
If a book is unsold, the bookstore tears off the front cover and return it to the publisher, rather than pay the shipping cost for the entire book (or batch of books). Then the store is supposed to destroy the remainder of the book. Sometimes books which should have been destroyed mysteriously find their way into the black market. That’s why the notice is printed in the front of the book, so that if someone buys a book, at least they know it’s not completely legit.
I can only help with part of your question. “Stripped” books, books without the cover, are reported to the publisher as unsold. The bookstores tear off and return the covers only to the publisher, and receive sales credit for them. Sending just the covers back saves on shipping, for one thing. Thus, the author makes no royalties off those books. So if you BUY a stripped book, someone else IS making money off what is essentially a book they got for free. The rest of the book is supposed to be destroyed, and some places do bin them for recycling. From what I understand, it’s a given in the industry that these stripped books are frequently taken home by employees.
I have no idea how long they sit on the shelf before they’re stripped, but I know when my sister worked at Waldenbooks they did this about once a month. I used to get loads of stripped paperbacks from her, then pass them along to friends. As long as no one was selling them, I believe we were within the letter of the law (we were stretching the spirit of it quite a bit, though.)
From what I remember from my retail days, we would return the covers of paperbacks to our warehouses, where I would assume they were sorted and sent back to the publishers. The actual books themselves were packed in boxes, sealed, and disposed of. The covers would be like a proof of credit. If the company (Borders, for example) didn’t return a cover, they wouldn’t get credit for a return. I imagine this method saved on postage, and kept the disposal issue from localizing.
The warning is probably a deterrent from theft, the same way as the “Do Not Remove This Tag” is, I guess. My guess is it prevents a dumpster hunter from selling it at nearly full price.
In my experience, we would “give up” on a book if it had been around many months with no real sales, and monthly romance novels met the same fate.
We would do the same thing with magazines.
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yes, by the millions. the way the publishing industry generally works is that as long as a book is in print, the sellers can return copies to the publisher for a full refund.
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depends on the shelf life of the book. A topical book might get returned en masse if unsold after three months. Some books might get a spot on the shelf for a year or 18 months. If it doesn’t sell by then, most retailers will give the shelf space to another book.
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as others have said… with mass market paperback books, publishers often allow retailers to get a refund by removing and returning the cover. The retailer then is supposed to destroy the book
From an earlier thread, here is a brief discussion of remainders and “strips” and why bookstores engage in those practices.
I would disagree - doesn’t the copyright legally prevent you from distributing the book? It doesn’t seem any different from sharing music via kazaa. Whether or not you’re selling the book, you’re distributing a copyrighted work without the owners permission.
Comparisons about the legality of actions with regard to copyright that cross the line between print and electronic media are dangerous. I don’t know about stripped books, but if I purchase a book from a bookstore, I then have the right of first sale. I can loan my book out, use it as a door stop, give it away or even sell it and there is nothing that the publisher can do about it. The contents of the book may be another matter, I have no right to give away photocopies of the contents to all my friends. Nor can I borrow liberally from the text for my new book.
U.S. Copyright law, Chapter one, section 109.
The reselling - or even distributing - of stripped books is not at all a copyright issue.
The publisher has sold the books to the bookstore. The bookstore pays provisionally for the number of copies received. If it doesn’t sell the books, it gets its full payment back from the publisher. The bookstore no longer owns the books: the publisher does. The books are no longer the legal property of the bookstore. Using them in any way is the equivalent of using stolen merchandise.
If the books were returned whole to the publisher, and the store employees took them from the warehouse, nobody would argue that this was not theft. Because the publisher allows the bookstore a cheaper way to prove that it has not sold the books than having to ship them physically back to the warehouse makes no legal difference. Once the books are stripped, they are the publisher’s property and by letting anything other than physical destruction happen to the books the bookstore is in violation of contract. At a minimum.
It’s simple contract law. The Copyright law Garfield226 cited doesn’t come into it because neither the bookstore nor the person who acquires the stripped book has legal ownership of it to resell or redistribute.
Excellent point, Mr. Mapcase. I wasn’t sure whether the law applied in that case or not, but I know copyright doesn’t completely limit you from selling or donating or whatever your copy of something, so that’s why I posted it.
If you don’t own it in the first place, as you said, the point is moot.
Back when we handled the bookstripping at the store (I think now the distributor takes them back & handles it), I know we were watched to make sure the stripped books went into the trash compactor.