[9371] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
money, commercialization & publishing [attn: Ron Brown]
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (David Rothman)
Fri Dec 31 01:06:59 1993
In-Reply-To: <2966320351.0.pl0142@psilink.com>
Date: Fri, 31 Dec 93 00:58:08 -0400
To: "laura fillmore" <pl0142@psilink.com>
Cc: com-priv@psi.com, inet-pub@lists.ans.net,
From: "David Rothman" <rothman@netcom.com>
Reply-To: rothman@netcom.com
Thanks for your post on e-books and e-libraries, Ms. Fillmore. I agree
with your worry that encryption would "artificially muck things up" when
people wanted to share knowledge.
Encryption barons, or would-be barons, are Andrew Carnegies in reverse.
Yes, there is a place for encryption; I myself am a big booster of its
use to protect privacy. However, I fear that encryption-fixated people
in Silicon Valley and DC may kill off intellectual curiosity and
sharing. We're talking about e-books and the like--not tax records.
Especially I'm horrified by Peter Sprague's plan to charge information
providers 35 percent of their sales for encryption services (Dec. 13th
PC Week). Everyone would pay more in the end, including libraries.
Subsidies could go only so far. And of course the poor would suffer the
most. Will someone please sentence Mr. Sprague to a month of service
inside an inner-city library before he can commit his crimes?
>If you send me his email address, I'd be glad to [write Commerce
>Secretary Ron Brown against the misuse of encryption]
He's chair of the Information Infrastructure Task Force. His fax is
202-482-4576, according to an NII report. *Supposedly* his 'Net address
is nii@ntia.doc.gov. You might use the fax number to be on the safe
side. The 'Net adr. doesn't exactly seem like a personal one. But what
the devil? I'll have a little fun and cc: nii@ntia.doc.gov. Yoo-hoo, Mr.
Brown, do you read your e-mail? The inquiring minds of com-priv (and a
few other lists) want to know.
[For the benefit of lurkers tuning it late, let me emphasize that I
myself want intellectual property protected. And presumably, as
president of the Online Book Store, Laura Fillmore feels the same way.
If Washington showed a little imagination, we could protect property
rights *and* spread knowledge. Bystanders may e-mail me at
rothman@netcom.com for the latest teleread.txt (170K) and read the
specifics.]
>>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.
>The links would be more than nice, they're *it*.
I'd certainly want them to be "it" for people demanding them. In my
opinion there is no such thing as too flexible an e-library. A library
should be *anything* people want it to be--at least in terms of
organization.
> But then you get into
>the problem of weighting chunks and putting up toll booths for
>links. As I understand it, Primis has an egalitarian approach to
>assigning fees due for access: a page is a page. What's fundamentally
>at issue is the quality of thought, though, and the mental ends the
>user assigns to the accessed thought. Kind of abstruse, OK, but
>consider this: is a page of Joe's Plumbing Guide equal to a page of
>Joan Didion? Depends on what you, the user, are interested in: the
>underpinnings of your bathroom sink or the aqueous politics in LA.
>There's the third point to the triangle: the user. The frequency of
>access should determine relative worth. But wait! That assumes people
>know what they want to know; where would we be if that were true?
>
The best system would be a mix of librarians and mechanisms for
bypassing them. That way we'd have both quality control and easy access.
People interested in following the librarians' judgment could restrict
their searches to such material. But the rest of us? We'd see a far, far
greater range of material than we do today--when publishers tend to be
obsessed with the NYT list or with the requirements of academic
specialities. No snobbery, mind you. Here's to Joe and Joan alike, as
long as they do their jobs well.
>> As a matter of fact, I mentioned Stephen King in teleread.txt and said
>>I understood why OBS charged what it did.
>
>What charges are you referring to?
>
As I recall, in the past at least, the charges have been five dollars or
so for downloading a King short story. That might not seem much to many,
but would to a schoolchild from a low-income family. Mr. King might be
just the author who got him or her interested in books; even a
particular story might make the difference. Again, however, I understand
the need to charge the five dollars. That's life under the present
copyright and distribution system. I'm delighted OBS is around!
> >>I'm >>just sorry that the rewards aren't as great as you might
>>have hoped. >
>Don't know what you mean by rewards.
Perhaps I'm wrong, but somehow I've picked up the impression that while
you're making enough to continue the OBS, you're exactly not growing
rich off it. If you're doing better than I expected, then more power to
you.
Of course rewards can be spiritual as well. I take it you'll go past
the Pearly Gates.
>>
>>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?
>
>OK, I'll bite. Tell us about TeleRead.
The three main elements:
1) A federal program to buy those book-friendly computers for schools
and libraries to lend out. This would be just a core market for the
manufacturers to go after. By far, most TeleReaders would be privately
owned.
2) A national library online, funded mainly through general revenue.
Subscriptions would be free or extra-affordable, and based on family
income. The poorest people could subscribe without paying a penny.
3) Cost-justification of the above through multiple apps. The same
tablet-style machines used to read books could be used for e-forms.
The cost of government isn't just in taxes. It's in paperwork. We spend
hundreds of billions a year on federal, state and local paperwork. If
TeleRead reduced this by just a fraction, we could cost-justify the
rest of the TeleRead program. As I keep saying, the NII and NPR are
more intertwined than even the Clinton folks would dare think.
>>Quite rightly, Carol is scared of the economics of online publishing.
>
>And what are these economics? It means restructuring access, from the
>distribution model of scattering many like copies of something around
>the world, to the structured access model, customized for the user.
>The latter model offers more opportunity for doing business than the
>former, which is insufficient in the face of the global online market.
Many in publishing still see a threat here. I myself view this as an
international opportunity, with or without customized mateial. When I
last mentioned teleread.txt in com-priv this week, I heard from as far
off as Brazil. From Sweden, from S.E. Asia, whatever, people tell me
they want to read our best-sellers.
By the way, people outside the U.S. would themselves have more
opportunities here. Certainly the links would be one way to particpate.
But they could in other ways, too. As you know, the market for most
translations is rather small. Under TeleRead, however, the cost of
access would be minor enough for more publishers to gamble on
translations. Good trade policies treat everyone fairly. I'd have *lots*
of faith in the ability of the American book biz to compete.
>>
>>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.
>>
>Sure, this approach minimizes the risk, and if you're creative, the old
>books could become veritable flowers in the desert.
Now to alert AAP and the Clinton folks to the potential here! This kind
of e-book could only result in new opportunties. And along the way, we
could learn dial up patterns and plan ahead for the new age, rather
than throwing billions away without planning. Here's to starting *small*!
>Let's think about "the book biz". Does it mean publishers, foresters,
>printers, truck drivers, bookstore owners, marketeers? Don't forget to
>put into the mix what might be fair for the yet unnamed workers who
>will benefit from online incarnation of Library of Congress books. The
>programmers, link editors, acquisitions editors, proofreaders,
>educators, marketeers, distributors, the keepers.
The book biz is many people--of course--but editors, writers,
publishers, librarians and booksellers are key here. Some of the other
folks such as foresters and truck drivers can move into other activities
much more easily than people like us can. Yes, I have thought of bookstore
owners. Under TeleRead they would be able to sell booklike printouts
from the national library and pay very, very low fees. Moreover, I
doubt that paper books are going to vanish overnight. There'll be
plenty of work for the truckdrivers for a long time to come.
>>
>>I will say--as a former poverty beat reporter--that "knowledge stamps"
>>are not the answer.
>
>And what might these be? How does one earn them?
Knowledge stamps are credits to spend on the usual info services
(lacking, probably, the all-important search powers and sophisticated
links of a TeleRead-style approach).
If we distibuted the stamps to all American, then the rich would use
good old-fashioned money to augment the stamps and could dial up many
more e-books than the poor would enjoy.
And of course, if we used income to determine eligibility, people would
try to lie. Moreover, like many forms of welfare, an income-based plan
would discourage initiative.
At any rate, the very word "stamp" suggests quotas on knowledge. Why
bother? Let's get e-books online for free or at very little costs--and
have rich and poor use the same e-library for books, so the rich will
have an incentive to care about the database. *Everyone* will come out
ahead. The more people participating, the greater the economies; this
isn't the paper book era. Above all, let's be grown ups and, gasp, use
tax revenue--just so we can cost-justify this (as I've shown we could
do).
Yes, *tax* revenue! Here's advice from the grave for Messrs. Clinton, Gore
and Brown--and for Walter Annenberg, too:
"I think that an institution has not taken root, and is scarcely worth
maintaining unless the community appreciates it sufficiently to tax
itself for maintenance."
That's Mr. Carnegie writing about his *free* public libraries (quoted on
page 816, of "Andrew Carnegie," the biography by Joseph Frazier Wall).
Notice the T word?
Of course today an innovator like Mr. Carnegie would be pushing for a
national library that people everywhere could dial up from home, but the
same idea holds true: the need for tax support for books if we're to
remain a democracy. Imagine how I felt when a lead in the Washington
Post suggested that Mr. Annenberg had single-handedly funded e-libraries
for all of Appalachia and beyond. Ideally the White House won't use the
Annenberg plans as an excuse to stint on affordable or free libraries
online. I won't blame the government for the Post's mistake, but ideally
the White House won't repeat it and won't make us feel smugger than we
deserve to be.
>Sounds like you're talking about food stamps. Same idea? Why not have
>knowledge stamps for everyone, not just the economically disadvantaged,
>on the principle that the more you take, the more you must give back.
I've already addressed the "everybody" aspect. As for the "give back"
idea, many Americans would lack the desire or skills to contribute in a
major way to the national library online. That's one problem I have with
Ted Nelson's Xanadu approach.
Anyway, thanks for your thoughts. Maybe if enough people like you speak
out, the Spragues of this world will realize that more money is to be
made by spreading knowledge than by limiting it to the well-off.
**************************************************************************
David H. Rothman "So we beat on, boats against
rothman@netcom.com the current...."
805 N. Howard St., #240
Alexandria, Va. 22304
703-370-6540(o)(h)
NOTE TO PEOPLE REPLYING *PRIVATELY* TO MY LIST POSTINGS: PLEASE DIRECT YOUR
RESPONSES ONLY TO ME (ROTHMAN@NETCOM.COM) RATHER THAN
TO THE ENTIRE LIST. BE CAREFUL THAT YOUR SOFTWARE DOES NOT AUTOMATICALLY
SEND YOUR NOTE TO EVERYONE ELSE, TOO.
I *encourage* online, noncommercial reproduction of my public postings.
Permission hereby granted--implicit, explicit, whatever. Down
with unnecessary restrictions on the flow of knowledge!
**************************************************************************
