[9316] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: money, commercialization, and publishing
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (David Rothman)
Tue Dec 28 23:04:20 1993
In-Reply-To: <2966137198.2.pl0142@psilink.com>
Date: Tue, 28 Dec 93 22:55:00 -0400
To: "laura fillmore" <pl0142@psilink.com>
Cc: com-priv@psi.com
From: "David Rothman" <rothman@netcom.com>
Reply-To: rothman@netcom.com
>FROM: laura fillmore <pl0142@psilink.com>
>
>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.
>
True!
>Encryption just enhances the isolation of the elite who have access to
>the information in question, and hobbles this nascent communications
>medium.
Wish you'd been with me at last month's NII hearing on intellectual
property. ;-) Care to write the same message to Ron Brown?
>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. >
I think it lies in a number of directions. The one you suggest is
excellent. My hope is that readers will have many alternatives.
>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.
>
Well, it helps that much faster modems are becoming the norm here on the
'Net, even for us lowly dialup types. More abstract thought in less time :-)
The challenge is to bring *copyrighted* material to the masses.
I wouldn't mind better search capabilities, either. And those links you
mention would be nice. I've already proposed hypertext-style features
for TeleRead, and what you have in mind is entirely consistent with my
philosophy.
>[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 s/he who figures out how to do
>this, soon.
>
>Laura Fillmore
>President
>Online BookStore (OBS)
>Whistlestop Mall
>Rockport, Mass. 01966
>508-546-7346
>
Well, it's good to hear you're on my side on major issues. As a matter
of fact, I mentioned Stephen King in teleread.txt and said I understood
why OBS charged what it did. Obviously you're in e-publishing for much
more than the bucks and must work with the present net environment. I'm
just sorry that the rewards aren't as great as you might have hoped.
Under TeleRead, you'd be way ahead, and not just because of better
distribution. The feds would promote the manufacture of affordable,
sharp-screened computers designed for reading, writing, networking and
the rest. Publishers would actually stand a chance of making money
online. Why the devil can't Washington care as much about book-friendly
computers as about HDTV?
Coincidentally I talked today to a common acquaintance of ours, Carol
Risher at AAP. I'd love it if you shared with her your feelings about
encryption and the need to make e-books affordable to all.
Quite rightly, Carol is scared of the economics of online publishing. I
don't blame her. As I say in the proposal itself, TeleRead would start
slowly so publishers and other would know dial-up patterns.
We could limit the first dialups to narrow subjects and to public domain
material. Or, as someone has suggested to me, we could also go by the
age of the book (perhaps a combination of age and subject would be best
if we really wanted to be cautious). What's now on the brink of being
remaindered could be fodder for the online library. Publishers and
writers could earn extra money, and if a certain title proved popular
again, then it could go back into old-fashioned print.
As it happens, Al Gore is once again talking about a little child in
Tennessee dialing up the Library of Congress. But how to do this in a
way that's fair to the book biz as well as the child? That's what
TeleRead is all about.
I will say--as a former poverty beat reporter--that "knowledge stamps"
are not the answer. They invite abuse and deceit. It's far better, far
more efficient, to drive down the cost of knowledge for everyone and
have the poor benefit along with the rest of society. How to
cost-justify this? The proposal gives the grubby details.
-David Rothman
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Reminder to innocent and not-so-innocent bystanders: the latest
teleread.txt (170K) is available by e-mailing me at rothman@netcom.com.
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David H. Rothman "So we beat on, boats against
rothman@netcom.com the current...."
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