RE: reasonable accommodation?

David,
With your example, you had purchased a software PACKAGE (which happened to 
include hard copy documentation).  Kynn's example was just for a textbook 
(which happened to be about software, but that is not really the point).

Publishers are always going to charge the same for diskette as paper. 
 After all, most of the cost for a book (music, video, software, etc.) 
reflects profit and royalty.  A smaller amount is for recovery of 
non-tangible costs (marketing, distribution, etc.).  Very little of the 
price is pay for the media (paper, plastic, magnetic tape, etc.) and actual 
manufacturing costs.

Of course, this same theory holds for the soft drink wars, yet anything 
moderately healthy costs half again as much as the straight sugar water. 
 Cost to manufacture a can of Coca-Cola (TM): 6c
Cost to manufacture a can of apple juice:  9c
So rather than charge less than a nickel more for the fruit juice, they 
mark up the price throughout the distribution chain by 50%!

Oh well. -- Bruce

On Tuesday, October 26, 1999 8:56 PM, David Poehlman 
[SMTP:poehlman@clark.net] wrote:
> kim, the book I'll bet was already on disk.  I had this discussion
> with a software company a few years ago.  Here's how it went.
> me "hi, I am looking for an electronic copy of your manual for
> software which I purchased and with which a print copy of the manual
> came but for me is useless."
> other person: " we have such a thing and it will cost you xx.xx."
> Me: "I have no aversion tobuying, but I already bought the software
> and the manual came with so I actually have already paid for it
> right?
> other person: "good point.  I'll just ship you one out."
> me: "should the need arise, may I refer others to you?"
> other person: "yes, just don't make it public.  if someone wants or
> needs a manual and they have the software, we'll be glad to furnish
> them on a case by case basis.

On Tuesday, October 26, 1999 7:13 PM, David Poehlman 
[SMTP:poehlman@clark.net] wrote:
> I hate to sound a death knell, but charging the same for a disk as for
> a hard copy is not exactly fair.  after all, with the hcopy, you get
> all that paper and stuff.  with a disk, if you need it for access, all
> you really get is the text and no paper to smell and lick and rub
> etc.  Part of this is tongue in cheek.  I propose that a person
> needing an accessible version of a book be required to provide proof
> of purchase of the hcopy and receive the ecopy for free as
> value-added to the book which they could not use in the first place or
> be able to directly purchase the ecopy for a lower cost which is what
> has been don in some instances.

Received on Thursday, 28 October 1999 12:41:55 UTC