[9292] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Pollution-Free!: Proof Before You Post
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (laura fillmore)
Mon Dec 27 23:23:12 1993
In-Reply-To: <2966124664.17.p00997@psilink.com>
Date: Tue, 28 Dec 93 00:11:16 -0400
To: "Editorial Inc." <wk00367@worldlink.com>
From: "laura fillmore" <pl0142@psilink.com>
>DATE: Mon, 27 Dec 93 21:34:42 -0400
>FROM: David Rothman <rothman@netcom.com>
>
>>DATE: Mon, 27 Dec 93 11:07:38 -0800
>>FROM: Craig Partridge <craig@aland.bbn.com>
>>
>> Lingua franca reports a snag -- folks are realizing that it is hard for
>>Elsevier (which makes big $$s from its journals) to make the same kind of
>>money by selling articles piecemeal. As a result, the pay-per-piece portion
>>of TULIP has been delayed.
> Sooner or later, smart electronic publishers will catch on to the fact
>that pay-per-read could be a very good way to lose money in many cases.
Selling books on a per-copy basis works when in the tangible world, but
doesn't seem to be the ticket online. Our Online BookStore (OBS) has
tried this strategy with a Pulitzer Prize winning poet, John Ashbery,
and with Stephen King, among other titles, and the experience has proven
to my satisfaction that this business model does not make optimal use of
the medium and is in fact positive anathema to the publishing
opportunities a distributed network offers. I don't think it's just
because people don't want to spend money on online books when so much
is available for free. It's a question of connectedness and the way
people think online. People don't generally think in discrete units with
price tags affixed, cogitating privately, solo on their individual machines,
without sharing the results.
[stuff deleted]
> So is encyrption the answer for information providers? Not quite.
[stuff deleted]
Encryption just enhances the isolation of the elite who have access to
the information in question, and hobbles this nascent communications
medium. It might be more instructive to devise a business model which
enables free participation for the reader/users, the more creative
thinkers among whom might themselves become part of, contribute to the
online information or literature they think about by virtue of links.
The future of publishing might lie in this direction.
[stuff deleted]
> Under the present system publishers and writers are *not* getting their
>fair share of the GDP, and the online confusion between "free" and "for sale"
>might just end up hurting them further. The fact that video services
>will be competing more and more for the public's money could only make
>things worse for text-oriented providers.
For now, text, abstract thought in the form of words, the stuff of our
literate culture, is accessible to the lowliest email address behind a
300 baud modem. Making text universally accessible, searchable, usable,
commercially viable -- these problems can be addressed today.
[stuff deleted]
> The best approach, then, is to make e-books free or almost free to the
>public--while building in provisions for fair compensation for
>publishers, writers, etc.
OK, Mr. Rothman, the brass ring goes to the guy who figures out how to do
this, soon.
Laura Fillmore
President
Online BookStore (OBS)
Whistlestop Mall
Rockport, Mass. 01966
508-546-7346
"See the ingenuity of Truth, who, when she gets a free and willing
hand, opens herself faster than the pace and method of discourse can
overtake her."
John Milton, "Areopagitica"
