I don't like throwing this word around lightly, but this is such a scam, man

aside from the absolutely bonkers numbers on display here, as far as I know, getting ISBNs in literally any other country than the US costs you nothing. which is fantastic when you're considering print options, where every single variation needs its own ISBN. I could easily use ten on a single book

@kit @fluffy makes me wonder if ISBN reselling is a thing. Buy a 1000 block and resell them at a literal fraction of the cost.

@vikxin@beach.city I don't think there's much, if any, direct ISBN reselling going on, but this is certainly one of the ways vanity presses scam people out of money for nothing. they're probably buying the package of a thousand at once, then when a poor sap signs on to get "published", they charge $30 or something for the ISBN that they got for $1.50

this would also be how the various US-based book distributors like draft2digital and lulu operate, maybe that could kind of be considered reselling

@kit @vikxin yeah similarly CDBaby had a pretty good racket going with UPC sales

Kunaki also used to but they discontinued that

@fluffy@plush.city @vikxin@beach.city oh, bowker sells UPC codes too on the same site, and it's similarly exorbitant

I was never unfortunate enough to work with a music distributor that charged for a UPC (or ISRC for that matter) but I'm sure it used to be much worse. making all that free just makes sense and is so much fairer for everybody, the industry still gets its money regardless

do I... do I have to give the music industry credit for something? I might be sick

@kit @vikxin CDBaby mostly charged for UPCs back when they were the very first digital distributor. I think they later rolled it into the (still exorbitant) cost of distribution, at least.

And that's what most distributors do, they just treat the UPC as a free value-add for their rent seeking.

@fluffy@plush.city @vikxin@beach.city we should kill them with hammers maybe

in minecraft, of course