Over the course of the last four weeks in this blog, I have discussed the book and the newspaper businesses’ woes in order to ascertain whether or not present copyright law, which restricts users in ways heretofore unknown, can have any positive influence on the future of these businesses and thereby the future production of ideas. In order to come to any conclusions about this rather broad topic, I have looked at the newspaper business and its “giving away of its product” to see whether or not the “giving away” is what has brought the bleak reality of the dearth of news that plagues and threatens the nation; I have examined the history of the trends in these two business in the last decades for parallels and differences from one another; I have tried to understand what we may expect of a future of e-books. The combination of these three elements of inquiry have led me to conclude that present restrictive copyright not only does not protect the production of ideas, it actually hinders it.
Specifically, after looking carefully at newspapers, we see that the loss of coverage of the news reaches back before the days of the internet. The loss of news has its roots in a profit motive coupled with deregulation has led to monopolies in the news business. Thus, while the internet exacerbated and accelerated a loss of news, it is not the source of the loss.
The trend toward monopolies within the news business were paralleled by a trend in monopolies in the book business. Within the book business, the business model that has predominated over the last thirty years is one that prefers big profits on a few books and a neglect of the historical long tail of publishing. This business model coupled with the consolidation of distribution of books via wholesalers and bookstores and the shrinking public funds for libraries and education have dramatically undermined the book business.
The e-book rather than reversing the monopolies with publishing, either in its distribution or in production, actually will dramatically increase these trends. Meanwhile, the loss of public funding, primarily because of the economic distress of state and local governments during the present recession, continues at an alarming rate.
None of these elements, the true causes of distress in the present business environment, can be offset by more restrictive copyright laws. All these laws will do is limit public access to information, thus worsening the crisis.
In his book, The Great Unraveling, Paul Krugman discusses the unraveling of the social safety network that began with Ronald Reagan. I think that we could make a parallel argument here that a great unraveling of our nation's intellectual safety net has also occurred. This unraveling has consisted of a dismantling funding for libraries and education, a withdrawl of government regulation in the realm of business and monopolies, and finally government's ceding of its interest in keeping information free. These policies have led us to a veritable crisis, not the less a crisis for its relatively small space in the communal pysche.
Since it was the federal government that through negligence allowed this terrible set of circumstances, we must look to the federal government to redress the situation. This may mean a multi-pronged initiative supporting intellectual production: supporting news with a tax like that which funds British Broadcasting and perhaps now the publishing of books; a clear and renewed funding of libraries and a funding of higher education. This is a national priority. An educated populace is central element in true democracy. It is also necesssary for an ability to compete in today's world.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Death of the Book
Elizabeth Sifton wrote an essay entitled "The Long Goodbye" published in The Nation on June 8, 2009 in which she traces the problems of the book industry over the last thirty years. Sifton sees the difficulty of the industry as founded upon several disparate and converging elements. First, the business of books, Sifton tells us, was always based upon a very meagre profit margin. Any one disruption can spell near disaster. In the last twenty-thirty years, publishing has faced the shrinking budgets of both public libraries and libraries associated with institutions of learning, years of excessive advances, not based upon any real world understanding of what books might earn, and certainly not enough to help sustain the long tail, has led to the present situation of layoffs and closings. (Lynn Neary, NPR's All Things Considered, reports that Random hous has frozen acquisitions, salaries and made many layoffs). In addition to these problems, the collapse of print media that once touted books is having a deleterious effect.
In addition, Sifton discusses the consolidation of the publishing industry into megapublishing houses over her career. In the course of the transformations to big business, Sifton argues the literate leaders she knew early in her career who understood the day to day world of good books and the unpredictable nature of a best seller have ceded place publishing houses led by business people only interested in big books and big profits.This consolodation of publishers is also mirrored in the system of distribution. Book stores are less and less frequently independent, more and more frequently mega industry chains--like Borders and Barnes and Noble. These stores too, are primarily interested in the one big thing.
Sifton suggests that these trends are only exacerbated in the present digital age, by people who want content to be free so that they may more easily profit from it. People, she argues, who have little understanding and no love of what books provide a nation. Sifton's essay ends quite pessimistically. She suggests that she doesn't see the business model now in place as being in any way able to resurrect, fix, change the publishing industry and bringing back the world of books.
See: Neary, Lynn. "Book Industry Enters Shaky Chapter"
All Things Considered December 5, 2008
Sifton, Elizabeth. "The Long Goodbye: The Book Industry and Its Woes" The Nation June 8, 2009.
In addition, Sifton discusses the consolidation of the publishing industry into megapublishing houses over her career. In the course of the transformations to big business, Sifton argues the literate leaders she knew early in her career who understood the day to day world of good books and the unpredictable nature of a best seller have ceded place publishing houses led by business people only interested in big books and big profits.This consolodation of publishers is also mirrored in the system of distribution. Book stores are less and less frequently independent, more and more frequently mega industry chains--like Borders and Barnes and Noble. These stores too, are primarily interested in the one big thing.
Sifton suggests that these trends are only exacerbated in the present digital age, by people who want content to be free so that they may more easily profit from it. People, she argues, who have little understanding and no love of what books provide a nation. Sifton's essay ends quite pessimistically. She suggests that she doesn't see the business model now in place as being in any way able to resurrect, fix, change the publishing industry and bringing back the world of books.
See: Neary, Lynn. "Book Industry Enters Shaky Chapter"
All Things Considered December 5, 2008
Sifton, Elizabeth. "The Long Goodbye: The Book Industry and Its Woes" The Nation June 8, 2009.
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Review of materials on newspapers
Newspapers are an immediate to concern as across the nation newspapers are closing, limiting publication to once a week or a few times a week, and declaring bankruptcy. National newspapers like The Christian Science Monitor and USA Today are in the same boat. There are many theories about why this is happening. Generally everyone agrees the dire straits of the newspaper industry is closely tied to the rise of the internet and the economic recession. But beyond that there is little agreement.
For many, including Kurtz and McIntyre, the problem was top management's failure in vision about the future. Management, they say, was so busy looking at postal rates and unions, they could not see that the publishing industry was being transformed. Because they lacked this vision, newspapers missed opportunities to remake themselves and create a viable business model.
Others, including David Simon, creator of HBO's Wire, and David Sirota argue that newspapers have lost readership because the leaders of the industry took their eye off the real business of papers--that is true blue reporting. Sirota suggests that rather than spending money and doing local reporting that gains a loyal local audience, newspapers wanted to make more money. They dramatically cut local reporting to fill their papers with national news that they could fill pages for fewer dollars. Then this material became less and less about news and more and more about celebraties. Newspapers lost readership. Either of these positions is compatible with what Nicholson and McChesney say was the main problem, i.e., the profit motive.
Others, including Issacson, Steve Brill and Rupert Murdoch, do not see the profit motive itself as the problem. Indeed they see the profit motive as central to a remaking of the newspaper. The problem as they see it is that when the internet started, news began to be free. With that free access, those who used to pay for the news ceased to do so. If we could just restore those funds to the papers, all would be well. And so, they have devised a way to have people make micropayments for the bits of news they want. Unfortunately, this model seems flawed as many have argued, including, David Ignatius of the Post, Michael Kinsley and Jack Shafer of Slate and the Pew Research Center per Stephey in Time. The problems are multiple. First it has been tried and people do not want to pay for news on the web. In part because there is so much on the web, but also because the web feels more like TV or radio, media that have long provided news free of cost. Now Nicholson and McChesney, along with Swensen, and even Sen. Cardin of Maryland, would like to see news organizations function as non-profits, perhaps with some government subsidies, although not with direct government support. These alternatives are rejected by those Etheridge calls future positivists, Clay Shirky and Steven Berlin Johnson as well as Kinsley, Shafer, Huffington and Ignatious, all of whom believe that the answer lies in the web itself. They argue that the web has made publishing houses basically irrelevant. The web will find enough advertising to support itself and that will be enough. Further, we will continue to add citizen journalists.
The Pew Research Center's report of the media is less-sanguine. It suggests that there has been a decoupling of news and advertising that is severe. While Stephey in his article does not mention it, it would seem that Pew Research Center does not see the fund to publish the real crux of the matter. It seems Pew sees the loss of indepth high end news reporting that advertising once subsidized as the true source of the decline of news. They suggest that this high end reporting has been on a continual decline for the last thirty years. They cite the fact that only half the states have reporters in Congress. Similarly, Belinda Luscombe from Time points out that the number of people who are covering the State Houses in the United States is down to 355 from 524 six years ago. At those State House there exist very few citizen reporters.
Thus, while the web provides some benefits and some cost cutting in terms of the nuts and bolts of publishing, it is inadequate to fix this other problem, this central intellectual void. Intellectual labor is time-consuming and expensive and must be paid for. The Pew Center seemed stymied by how to pay for it, as just about everyone has been. They suggest that endowments for news programs, as suggested by Swensen and Swensen, would be too limited to pay for adequate reporting. What it suggests, though in Stephey’s article it seems almost an afterthought, is a cable fee model for the internet as there has been nothing in this way yet imposed, what business could impose it? In many ways, one wonders if this isn't a tax by another name. For an internet fee seems destined to be collected by the government and then doled out. Therefore, it seems to me that Nichols and McChesney and the Senator are trying to find government sponsored ways to pay for the news while keeping government control under control. Pew almost seems to be proposing a tax that looks like the BBC tax on TV collected in England.
For many, including Kurtz and McIntyre, the problem was top management's failure in vision about the future. Management, they say, was so busy looking at postal rates and unions, they could not see that the publishing industry was being transformed. Because they lacked this vision, newspapers missed opportunities to remake themselves and create a viable business model.
Others, including David Simon, creator of HBO's Wire, and David Sirota argue that newspapers have lost readership because the leaders of the industry took their eye off the real business of papers--that is true blue reporting. Sirota suggests that rather than spending money and doing local reporting that gains a loyal local audience, newspapers wanted to make more money. They dramatically cut local reporting to fill their papers with national news that they could fill pages for fewer dollars. Then this material became less and less about news and more and more about celebraties. Newspapers lost readership. Either of these positions is compatible with what Nicholson and McChesney say was the main problem, i.e., the profit motive.
Others, including Issacson, Steve Brill and Rupert Murdoch, do not see the profit motive itself as the problem. Indeed they see the profit motive as central to a remaking of the newspaper. The problem as they see it is that when the internet started, news began to be free. With that free access, those who used to pay for the news ceased to do so. If we could just restore those funds to the papers, all would be well. And so, they have devised a way to have people make micropayments for the bits of news they want. Unfortunately, this model seems flawed as many have argued, including, David Ignatius of the Post, Michael Kinsley and Jack Shafer of Slate and the Pew Research Center per Stephey in Time. The problems are multiple. First it has been tried and people do not want to pay for news on the web. In part because there is so much on the web, but also because the web feels more like TV or radio, media that have long provided news free of cost. Now Nicholson and McChesney, along with Swensen, and even Sen. Cardin of Maryland, would like to see news organizations function as non-profits, perhaps with some government subsidies, although not with direct government support. These alternatives are rejected by those Etheridge calls future positivists, Clay Shirky and Steven Berlin Johnson as well as Kinsley, Shafer, Huffington and Ignatious, all of whom believe that the answer lies in the web itself. They argue that the web has made publishing houses basically irrelevant. The web will find enough advertising to support itself and that will be enough. Further, we will continue to add citizen journalists.
The Pew Research Center's report of the media is less-sanguine. It suggests that there has been a decoupling of news and advertising that is severe. While Stephey in his article does not mention it, it would seem that Pew Research Center does not see the fund to publish the real crux of the matter. It seems Pew sees the loss of indepth high end news reporting that advertising once subsidized as the true source of the decline of news. They suggest that this high end reporting has been on a continual decline for the last thirty years. They cite the fact that only half the states have reporters in Congress. Similarly, Belinda Luscombe from Time points out that the number of people who are covering the State Houses in the United States is down to 355 from 524 six years ago. At those State House there exist very few citizen reporters.
Thus, while the web provides some benefits and some cost cutting in terms of the nuts and bolts of publishing, it is inadequate to fix this other problem, this central intellectual void. Intellectual labor is time-consuming and expensive and must be paid for. The Pew Center seemed stymied by how to pay for it, as just about everyone has been. They suggest that endowments for news programs, as suggested by Swensen and Swensen, would be too limited to pay for adequate reporting. What it suggests, though in Stephey’s article it seems almost an afterthought, is a cable fee model for the internet as there has been nothing in this way yet imposed, what business could impose it? In many ways, one wonders if this isn't a tax by another name. For an internet fee seems destined to be collected by the government and then doled out. Therefore, it seems to me that Nichols and McChesney and the Senator are trying to find government sponsored ways to pay for the news while keeping government control under control. Pew almost seems to be proposing a tax that looks like the BBC tax on TV collected in England.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Here is set of articles about newspapers over the spring, the ones that have frightened me so
Newspapers Articles
This set of articles, that I collected for another class, are really the backdrop for this project. I am afraid that what has just happened to newspapers will happen to books.
And while I love Lawrence Lessig, so admire his work, I heard him speak on Fresh Air, Terry Gross's NPR program earlier this year.(Fresh Air from WHYY, December 22, 2008) He seemed unconcerned about the newspapers that were failing as he spoke.
So, while he may be right in the broad sense about monopolies, what do we do in the moment. What if book publishing goes the way of newspapers? And as quickly?
1Abell, John C. "Top 25 Newspapers Lose 1 Million Readers Since last March" WIRED April 2009 <> published April 27, 2009 accessed May 1, 2009.
Readership of print newspapers was down nearly 10% overall since March 2008. Some fared worse, USA Today and New York Post. Loss was smallest among Washington Post, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, and Chigago Tribune. Their good reports were attributed to having big stories in their areas. Only Wall Street Journal added readership.
This underscores the general understanding that newspapers are in trouble. What it means for librarians may be that at some point, people may no longer want or be able to look at the hard copy. Librarians, however, must be concerned that news is still available to patrons no matter what happens.
2Etheridge, Eric. "Why Newspapers Can't Be Saved, but the News Can" The New York Times March 16, 2009. Accessed March 16, 2009.
This is one of The Times collections of ideas across the blogosphere about the press that was provoked by the terrible news coming out across the country about newspapers. This includes loss of Rocky Mountain News and The Seattle Post, while the Minneapolis Star Tribune, Philadelphia Daily News, and Philadelphia Inquirer are all declaring bankruptcy. Etheridge discusses the news' future by repeating the vision of what he calls "future positivists" Clay Shirky and Steven Berlin Johnson. Shirky believes that while what we are witnessing is tough, everything is new and needs to be experimented with. Good stuff can come out of it all.Shirky doesn't believe we need to worry about the publishing industry because the difficulty of making ideas available to the public has been solved by the web. Johnson does not believe that we have lost the democratic intellectual function of newspapers. He believes the web will do it and do it better.
If the role of publisher disappears, then the only ones left to be gatekeepers and knowledgeable about quality and reliability, are going to be librarians.
3Ignatius, David. "Figuring Out our News Future" The Washington Post May 10, 2009.
Ignatius argues that the hand-wringing over newspapers may be a bit overblown. He argues that as readership of news is way up, at The Post online readership is three times larger than the hard copy circulation, that revenue streams are sure to follow, that the only problem is finding a way to do it. The only thing he sees as difficult is the desire of readers today to find particular information, not to be generally informed.
I think Ignatius may be right, though his vision seems to ignore some other information about the three supports of news--advertising, subscriptions, and individual sales. Without subscriptions, all one has is advertising. Unless there is a move to pay by the slice proposed elsewhere. For librarians, the question of the desire of readers that Ignatius suggests, to find particular bits of information rather than to be generally informed, may signal a change in user behavior. If this is the case, should librarians be trying to counter this vision or move with it?
4Issacson, Walter. "How to Save Your Newspaper" Time February 5, 2009. <> accessed May 3, 2009.
In this essay, Issacson argues that the three legs supporting journalism have been advertising, subscriptions and newsstand sales. Today, though readership is way up, the number of people buying the paper, either through subscriptions or through newsstand sales is way down. The solution, therefore, is to replace the consumer driven money through micropayments to the papers online.
There is some sense in what Issacson says here, that people should expect to pay for the fruits of intellectual labor. I am not sure now that it can be done. So much is now online for free, I am not sure how one puts the genie back in the bottle. For librarians, collections would have a problem. Would the hard copy be replaced by the electronic?
5Kinsley, Michael. "You Can't Sell News by the Slice" New York Times February 10, 2009. <>
As a direct response to Issacson, Kinsley argues that trying to get people to pay for access to material on the internet does not work. He argues that there is too much competition for anyone to pay for access to the news now. He argues that people paid for the paper, the physical object, not the content. Furthermore, he argues that the news shouldn't use of the resources in terms of paper that it once did. He suggests that advertising will finally end up covering the costs of making news. More competition is good. So what if we lose most of the nation's papers? The web is at our finger tips.
I am less sanguine about this than Kinsley, though I tend to agree about the paying business. I wonder if his vision of the future is correct? I wonder if it is true that people pay for objects and not for intellectual content? If this is so, will people cease to want to pay for libraries? I remember your discussion last semester saying that people like to fund buildings but not librarians or books to fill them. What would this mean for us?
6Kramer, Staci D. "paidContent.org-Dallas Morning News to Senate: Amazon Kindle Is Not a Business Model for Newspapers" Washington Post <> accessed May 9, 2009.
According to Kramer James Moroney of Dallas Morning News argued that Amazon will serve newspapers through their Kindle reader only if it acquires extensive licensing and large revenues. These agreements would not save the newspaper industry.
I tend to agree from other materials that I have read that through the Kindle, Amazon is trying to position itself as the Microsoft of the book world. I do see monopoly as a problem.
7Kurtz, Howard. "Lack of Vision to Blame for Newspaper Woes" The Washington Post May 11, 2009 <>
Kurtz suggests that he had been optimistic about the future of newspapers until recently. Now he acknowledges that perhaps papers were too conservative in terms of methods of delivery and in style of content. What he says is that without them, there will be no organizations that can allow a journalist to investigate a story for weeks or months before writing. He argues that without the newspaper we will lose a sense of community. He posits that internet news readers don't look at the whole paper, but only individual bits and so learn less. He discusses alternatives to the newspaper funding structure: the pay by slice, the not for profit model. He seems resigned nothing will work and is deeply nostalgic.
If he is right, that newspapers will no longer exist, that we will have lost the only method we have of true investigative reporting, I am not sure what to do. For librarians, we will need to make known what has been lost. Because the elements he suggests we are losing are vital to democracy.
8Lavoie, Denise. "Agreement keeps Boston Globe alive, but what next?" The Washington Post May 6, 2009 <>
This article details the losses The Globe's employees have had to take as The Globe's new owner, The New York Times, threatened to close down the 137 year old paper. It puts their plights within the context of similar drastic cuts throughout the nation's major newspapers.
The uncertainty of the future of newspapers is indeed dire, even newspapers with long standing places in their communities. This is evidence of the revolution of communications that we are going through.
9Luscombe, Belinda. "As Newrooms Cut Back, Who Covers the Statehouse?" Time May 7, 2009. <> accessed May 3, 2009.
Luscombe discusses the future dearth of state and local reporting given the state of newspapers finances. She argues that the few web journalists who try to take up this task (1 of 11 journalists in Connecticut) are not funded and do the work as a labor of love and not as a profession. She reports that David Simon, creator of The Wire and former newspaper man, made this point at Congressional hearings last week. Simon also argued that corruption is sure to rise as the coverage drops.
This article stresses that another of the real costs of the loss of reporting and publishing as we have known, beyond whether people in general know what is going on or whether or not we feel like a community, is that we are losing watchdogs. The newspaper reporters are a kind of security guard against corruption. That first line of defense is being lost. To provide information, information must be produced. I can't help but believe that lobbying for the production of knowledge becomes a kind of sign of a nation's intellectual freedom.
10McIntyre, Douglas A. "Blaming Newspaper Management for Newspaper Problems" Time March 27, 2009. <>
McIntyre suggests that the newspaper CEO's whose job it is to be thinking about what might come up in ten years that might bring a company thought only about postage and unions. Not a single major newspaper thought about the internet. In short, McIntyre says, the CEOs failed at their major responsibility. So, we better not count on the market and CEOs to safeguard intellectual production.
11Miga, Andrew. "Senate hears a dim forecast for newspapers' future." The Washington Post May 06, 2009 <>
The article mentions three visions of the future of newspapers: Sen Cardin of Maryland argues that small papers should, could become non-profits; David Simon, creator of The WIre, argues that somehow high end journalism needs a new economic model; Ariana Huffington says that hand-wringing doesn't take into account what a good time it is for news consumers.
I find the three ideas not exactly in competition, but not fully synchronous either. Yes, it may be that news consumers can find and hold information in ways never before possible. But unless information is produced in significant ways, we will none of us find what we need. And while I like the idea of non-profits, as Simon suggests, high-end journalism is dying. I have seen very few high-end non profits. I worry that there will not be enough feet on the ground. Is there some technology that makes the production of knowledge easier that we need to supply people with? I cannot believe we can do good news on the cheap. How will librarians address a dearth of news? We will need to be watching media more carefully. But at the same time, the plethora of blogs could finally be a distraction. We have to have librarians' response to this.
12Nichols, John and Robert W. McChesney. “The Death and Life of Great American Newspapers” The Nation 288:13 April 6, 2009 11-19.
Nichols and McChesney open this essay listing the failure of many large newspapers that have already taken place, the possible closure of several others, and the general dismantling of many, many more due to budget cuts. They then suggest that the dismantling of our greatest news gathering entity is a commercial failure and that the for profit motive of most news organizations has failed news gathering. The authors further argue that the commercial model not only cannot sustain the media financially, it has failed in terms of quality reporting. It argues that this being the case, that we need government involved because the media is a public good and like other public goods cannot be allowed to disappear due to market place irresponsibility. They make the case that the media are fundamental to the continuation of democracy. They do not argue that government should step in and take over news organizations, but the authors suggest several indirect government subsidies including subscription subsidies, postal reforms, youth media and investment in public broadcasting.
The troubled state of the newspaper, even such flagship papers as the New York Times, The Boston, Globe, and Washington Post among others is troubling indeed. For librarians, the question is in part how we can possibly assure that our users can remain current with news if the daily disappears. What alternatives to the usual papers do we have? Without the complex and large bureaus that once covered the globe, how will our nation know what is taking place across the world? We certainly need more information than that which is available from government sources. I cannot help but think that this is a concern of the ALA, an intellectual freedom issue that should be addressed creatively from that point of view. Another concern is certainly about the form of the paper. Of course, most papers are now available online and many young people especially prefer to read the paper in this format. Finally, the loss of the local newspaper would require that librarians do everything in their power to find replacement sources for the news to make available to the public.
13Shafer, Jack. "Hello, Steve Brill, Get Me Rewrite" Slate April 17, 2009. <>
Shafer argues that the micropayment idea developed by Steve Brill is unworkable on a number of counts. First it is highly unlikely that the enough news organizations that presently publish for free online are likely to go back to a pay per view way of doing business. Furthermore, in the unlikely event that they did, Shafer suggests that a rival business would be able to repackage their work without breaking any copyright laws and earn all the advertising revenue on a free site. Finally, Shafer argues that the free news model has a tradition in radio and television. We are accustomed to this.
This model of news distribution proposed by Shafer is what we have today. But it does not address the failure of our newspapers nor what should be done to save them. This concerns me. I don't believe that libraries can do this themselves, but libraries do have an obligation to engage in this debate.
14Sirota, David. "All the news that's fit to be birdcage liner" Salon March 28, 2009 <>
Sirota argues that while the internet and dwindling advertising hurt newspapers, what really did papers were their own policies: namely, using cheap national news instead of creating local news and at the national level writing of national figures in a sensationalist rather than news worthy way. Thus we are not losing much local reporting according to Sirota at all.
This is all well and good. But we still need local news. How does a librarian
collect it? Where do we find it? How do we nourish its manufacture?
15Stephey, M.J. "The State of the Media: Not Good" Time March 16, 2009. <>
Stepney summarizes the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism in four points: 1.) The major problem is the failure of advertisement to continue to pay for journalism; the micropayment option has already been tried and has failed; the non-profit idea looks too small; perhaps the internet should adopt a cable model; 2.) Media coverage of presidential campaign was worse, controlled by candidates, not by reporting. 3.) Citizens acting as journalists cannot replace reporters; 4.) The industry is shrinking, has shrunk by 20%. This is bad news.
This Pew report makes clear where the real difficulty lies in terms of funding. And yet, it does seem as if the quality of news has been disintegrating longer than the funding crisis has existed.
16Swensen, David and Michael Schmidt. "News You Can Endow" The New York Times January 28, 2009. <> Accessed February 10, 2009.
Swensen argues that we must endow newspapers to save them because their business model is no longer workable and because they are fundamental to democracy. "If Jefferson was right that a well-informed citizenry is the foundation of our democracy, then newspapers must be saved."
While I agree with Swensen that endowments are a beginning, I don't know if they are enough. And I am not sure what librarians should be doing.
This set of articles, that I collected for another class, are really the backdrop for this project. I am afraid that what has just happened to newspapers will happen to books.
And while I love Lawrence Lessig, so admire his work, I heard him speak on Fresh Air, Terry Gross's NPR program earlier this year.(Fresh Air from WHYY, December 22, 2008) He seemed unconcerned about the newspapers that were failing as he spoke.
So, while he may be right in the broad sense about monopolies, what do we do in the moment. What if book publishing goes the way of newspapers? And as quickly?
1Abell, John C. "Top 25 Newspapers Lose 1 Million Readers Since last March" WIRED April 2009 <
Readership of print newspapers was down nearly 10% overall since March 2008. Some fared worse, USA Today and New York Post. Loss was smallest among Washington Post, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, and Chigago Tribune. Their good reports were attributed to having big stories in their areas. Only Wall Street Journal added readership.
This underscores the general understanding that newspapers are in trouble. What it means for librarians may be that at some point, people may no longer want or be able to look at the hard copy. Librarians, however, must be concerned that news is still available to patrons no matter what happens.
2Etheridge, Eric. "Why Newspapers Can't Be Saved, but the News Can" The New York Times March 16, 2009. Accessed March 16, 2009.
This is one of The Times collections of ideas across the blogosphere about the press that was provoked by the terrible news coming out across the country about newspapers. This includes loss of Rocky Mountain News and The Seattle Post, while the Minneapolis Star Tribune, Philadelphia Daily News, and Philadelphia Inquirer are all declaring bankruptcy. Etheridge discusses the news' future by repeating the vision of what he calls "future positivists" Clay Shirky and Steven Berlin Johnson. Shirky believes that while what we are witnessing is tough, everything is new and needs to be experimented with. Good stuff can come out of it all.Shirky doesn't believe we need to worry about the publishing industry because the difficulty of making ideas available to the public has been solved by the web. Johnson does not believe that we have lost the democratic intellectual function of newspapers. He believes the web will do it and do it better.
If the role of publisher disappears, then the only ones left to be gatekeepers and knowledgeable about quality and reliability, are going to be librarians.
3Ignatius, David. "Figuring Out our News Future" The Washington Post May 10, 2009.
Ignatius argues that the hand-wringing over newspapers may be a bit overblown. He argues that as readership of news is way up, at The Post online readership is three times larger than the hard copy circulation, that revenue streams are sure to follow, that the only problem is finding a way to do it. The only thing he sees as difficult is the desire of readers today to find particular information, not to be generally informed.
I think Ignatius may be right, though his vision seems to ignore some other information about the three supports of news--advertising, subscriptions, and individual sales. Without subscriptions, all one has is advertising. Unless there is a move to pay by the slice proposed elsewhere. For librarians, the question of the desire of readers that Ignatius suggests, to find particular bits of information rather than to be generally informed, may signal a change in user behavior. If this is the case, should librarians be trying to counter this vision or move with it?
4Issacson, Walter. "How to Save Your Newspaper" Time February 5, 2009. <
In this essay, Issacson argues that the three legs supporting journalism have been advertising, subscriptions and newsstand sales. Today, though readership is way up, the number of people buying the paper, either through subscriptions or through newsstand sales is way down. The solution, therefore, is to replace the consumer driven money through micropayments to the papers online.
There is some sense in what Issacson says here, that people should expect to pay for the fruits of intellectual labor. I am not sure now that it can be done. So much is now online for free, I am not sure how one puts the genie back in the bottle. For librarians, collections would have a problem. Would the hard copy be replaced by the electronic?
5Kinsley, Michael. "You Can't Sell News by the Slice" New York Times February 10, 2009. <
As a direct response to Issacson, Kinsley argues that trying to get people to pay for access to material on the internet does not work. He argues that there is too much competition for anyone to pay for access to the news now. He argues that people paid for the paper, the physical object, not the content. Furthermore, he argues that the news shouldn't use of the resources in terms of paper that it once did. He suggests that advertising will finally end up covering the costs of making news. More competition is good. So what if we lose most of the nation's papers? The web is at our finger tips.
I am less sanguine about this than Kinsley, though I tend to agree about the paying business. I wonder if his vision of the future is correct? I wonder if it is true that people pay for objects and not for intellectual content? If this is so, will people cease to want to pay for libraries? I remember your discussion last semester saying that people like to fund buildings but not librarians or books to fill them. What would this mean for us?
6Kramer, Staci D. "paidContent.org-Dallas Morning News to Senate: Amazon Kindle Is Not a Business Model for Newspapers" Washington Post <
According to Kramer James Moroney of Dallas Morning News argued that Amazon will serve newspapers through their Kindle reader only if it acquires extensive licensing and large revenues. These agreements would not save the newspaper industry.
I tend to agree from other materials that I have read that through the Kindle, Amazon is trying to position itself as the Microsoft of the book world. I do see monopoly as a problem.
7Kurtz, Howard. "Lack of Vision to Blame for Newspaper Woes" The Washington Post May 11, 2009 <
Kurtz suggests that he had been optimistic about the future of newspapers until recently. Now he acknowledges that perhaps papers were too conservative in terms of methods of delivery and in style of content. What he says is that without them, there will be no organizations that can allow a journalist to investigate a story for weeks or months before writing. He argues that without the newspaper we will lose a sense of community. He posits that internet news readers don't look at the whole paper, but only individual bits and so learn less. He discusses alternatives to the newspaper funding structure: the pay by slice, the not for profit model. He seems resigned nothing will work and is deeply nostalgic.
If he is right, that newspapers will no longer exist, that we will have lost the only method we have of true investigative reporting, I am not sure what to do. For librarians, we will need to make known what has been lost. Because the elements he suggests we are losing are vital to democracy.
8Lavoie, Denise. "Agreement keeps Boston Globe alive, but what next?" The Washington Post May 6, 2009 <
This article details the losses The Globe's employees have had to take as The Globe's new owner, The New York Times, threatened to close down the 137 year old paper. It puts their plights within the context of similar drastic cuts throughout the nation's major newspapers.
The uncertainty of the future of newspapers is indeed dire, even newspapers with long standing places in their communities. This is evidence of the revolution of communications that we are going through.
9Luscombe, Belinda. "As Newrooms Cut Back, Who Covers the Statehouse?" Time May 7, 2009. <
Luscombe discusses the future dearth of state and local reporting given the state of newspapers finances. She argues that the few web journalists who try to take up this task (1 of 11 journalists in Connecticut) are not funded and do the work as a labor of love and not as a profession. She reports that David Simon, creator of The Wire and former newspaper man, made this point at Congressional hearings last week. Simon also argued that corruption is sure to rise as the coverage drops.
This article stresses that another of the real costs of the loss of reporting and publishing as we have known, beyond whether people in general know what is going on or whether or not we feel like a community, is that we are losing watchdogs. The newspaper reporters are a kind of security guard against corruption. That first line of defense is being lost. To provide information, information must be produced. I can't help but believe that lobbying for the production of knowledge becomes a kind of sign of a nation's intellectual freedom.
10McIntyre, Douglas A. "Blaming Newspaper Management for Newspaper Problems" Time March 27, 2009. <
McIntyre suggests that the newspaper CEO's whose job it is to be thinking about what might come up in ten years that might bring a company thought only about postage and unions. Not a single major newspaper thought about the internet. In short, McIntyre says, the CEOs failed at their major responsibility. So, we better not count on the market and CEOs to safeguard intellectual production.
11Miga, Andrew. "Senate hears a dim forecast for newspapers' future." The Washington Post May 06, 2009 <
The article mentions three visions of the future of newspapers: Sen Cardin of Maryland argues that small papers should, could become non-profits; David Simon, creator of The WIre, argues that somehow high end journalism needs a new economic model; Ariana Huffington says that hand-wringing doesn't take into account what a good time it is for news consumers.
I find the three ideas not exactly in competition, but not fully synchronous either. Yes, it may be that news consumers can find and hold information in ways never before possible. But unless information is produced in significant ways, we will none of us find what we need. And while I like the idea of non-profits, as Simon suggests, high-end journalism is dying. I have seen very few high-end non profits. I worry that there will not be enough feet on the ground. Is there some technology that makes the production of knowledge easier that we need to supply people with? I cannot believe we can do good news on the cheap. How will librarians address a dearth of news? We will need to be watching media more carefully. But at the same time, the plethora of blogs could finally be a distraction. We have to have librarians' response to this.
12Nichols, John and Robert W. McChesney. “The Death and Life of Great American Newspapers” The Nation 288:13 April 6, 2009 11-19.
Nichols and McChesney open this essay listing the failure of many large newspapers that have already taken place, the possible closure of several others, and the general dismantling of many, many more due to budget cuts. They then suggest that the dismantling of our greatest news gathering entity is a commercial failure and that the for profit motive of most news organizations has failed news gathering. The authors further argue that the commercial model not only cannot sustain the media financially, it has failed in terms of quality reporting. It argues that this being the case, that we need government involved because the media is a public good and like other public goods cannot be allowed to disappear due to market place irresponsibility. They make the case that the media are fundamental to the continuation of democracy. They do not argue that government should step in and take over news organizations, but the authors suggest several indirect government subsidies including subscription subsidies, postal reforms, youth media and investment in public broadcasting.
The troubled state of the newspaper, even such flagship papers as the New York Times, The Boston, Globe, and Washington Post among others is troubling indeed. For librarians, the question is in part how we can possibly assure that our users can remain current with news if the daily disappears. What alternatives to the usual papers do we have? Without the complex and large bureaus that once covered the globe, how will our nation know what is taking place across the world? We certainly need more information than that which is available from government sources. I cannot help but think that this is a concern of the ALA, an intellectual freedom issue that should be addressed creatively from that point of view. Another concern is certainly about the form of the paper. Of course, most papers are now available online and many young people especially prefer to read the paper in this format. Finally, the loss of the local newspaper would require that librarians do everything in their power to find replacement sources for the news to make available to the public.
13Shafer, Jack. "Hello, Steve Brill, Get Me Rewrite" Slate April 17, 2009. <
Shafer argues that the micropayment idea developed by Steve Brill is unworkable on a number of counts. First it is highly unlikely that the enough news organizations that presently publish for free online are likely to go back to a pay per view way of doing business. Furthermore, in the unlikely event that they did, Shafer suggests that a rival business would be able to repackage their work without breaking any copyright laws and earn all the advertising revenue on a free site. Finally, Shafer argues that the free news model has a tradition in radio and television. We are accustomed to this.
This model of news distribution proposed by Shafer is what we have today. But it does not address the failure of our newspapers nor what should be done to save them. This concerns me. I don't believe that libraries can do this themselves, but libraries do have an obligation to engage in this debate.
14Sirota, David. "All the news that's fit to be birdcage liner" Salon March 28, 2009 <
Sirota argues that while the internet and dwindling advertising hurt newspapers, what really did papers were their own policies: namely, using cheap national news instead of creating local news and at the national level writing of national figures in a sensationalist rather than news worthy way. Thus we are not losing much local reporting according to Sirota at all.
This is all well and good. But we still need local news. How does a librarian
collect it? Where do we find it? How do we nourish its manufacture?
15Stephey, M.J. "The State of the Media: Not Good" Time March 16, 2009. <
Stepney summarizes the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism in four points: 1.) The major problem is the failure of advertisement to continue to pay for journalism; the micropayment option has already been tried and has failed; the non-profit idea looks too small; perhaps the internet should adopt a cable model; 2.) Media coverage of presidential campaign was worse, controlled by candidates, not by reporting. 3.) Citizens acting as journalists cannot replace reporters; 4.) The industry is shrinking, has shrunk by 20%. This is bad news.
This Pew report makes clear where the real difficulty lies in terms of funding. And yet, it does seem as if the quality of news has been disintegrating longer than the funding crisis has existed.
16Swensen, David and Michael Schmidt. "News You Can Endow" The New York Times January 28, 2009. <
Swensen argues that we must endow newspapers to save them because their business model is no longer workable and because they are fundamental to democracy. "If Jefferson was right that a well-informed citizenry is the foundation of our democracy, then newspapers must be saved."
While I agree with Swensen that endowments are a beginning, I don't know if they are enough. And I am not sure what librarians should be doing.
Revisiting Lawrence Lessig's Free Culture
I was re-reading Lessig's chapter on property within his excellent book. He does a wonderful job explaining the effect of the DCMA. He discusses the growing power of the publishing industries of music, newspapers, movies and books, drawing clear parallels between them. He looks concretely at the restrictions that the book publishing industry would like to impose upon books, that limits first sale and copying rights in dramatic ways. He goes on to discuss how law, DRM, protective technologies, and all the tracking devices available on computers combine to limit and monitor uses that were once free.
The most important element of Lessig’s work makes clear the threat monopolies pose to the world of ideas. In Lessig’s view it is the monopolies who control, indeed own, intellectual property. It is not individual thinkers who control this material and benefit primarily from the restrictions the monopolies want to impose.
I suppose, I could be sanguine that the e technologies will not destroy the viability of intellectual property. But I remain dreadfully frightened that this is so. I want intellectual labor to be understand as labor that needs support.
The most important element of Lessig’s work makes clear the threat monopolies pose to the world of ideas. In Lessig’s view it is the monopolies who control, indeed own, intellectual property. It is not individual thinkers who control this material and benefit primarily from the restrictions the monopolies want to impose.
I suppose, I could be sanguine that the e technologies will not destroy the viability of intellectual property. But I remain dreadfully frightened that this is so. I want intellectual labor to be understand as labor that needs support.
Annotated Bibliography, take two
Annotated Bibliography
1. Fialkoff, Francine. “To Kindle or not” Library Journal 133:8 March 1, 2008 p 8
This article suggests that while Sparta Public Library in New Jersey is resisting restrictive licensing that accompanies Kindle, the Kindle license itself is very restrictive. Officially, libraries may buy books for Amazon’s Kindle, but cannot lend them because of licensing agreements that limit first use, lending to third parties. Sparta Public Library has created their own rules that have nothing to do with licenses: users may borrow and buy one book. All other books on the kindle are available to that borrower.
This short piece echoes the Hughes article below which suggests that many ebooks market only to individuals.
2. Harris, Sian. “Redefining E-Books” Research information April/may 2009/
This article surveys seven different organizations (Oxford University Press, Swets, Ingram Digital, SAGE, Elseviar’s Science and Technolgy, OCLC NetLibrary, Cengage Learning) in the ebook business, primarily in scholarly or academic fields Within this field there were areas of disagreement, for example while: Sage suggests that text books without designated readers are generally not workable, Cengage argues that e textbooks are a hit.
Academic publishing is moving forward the change in the technology of the book much more quickly than the trade market. Most of the seven organizations discussed the increased ability to search the ebook, exemplified by the OCLC rep discussing the ebook as a database. This use of the book this way, however, requires DOIs and metadata for each chapter. Most of the reps suggest that the use of ebooks is of limited use. Average users spend less than thirty minutes in any part of a full text. Extended reading seems still to be reserved for print books.
Discussion of business models suggest that so far there is really not a business model that supports cost. Costs and pricing, some argue, are still using print models. And yet, books are generally being bought as collections just to have a quantity of titles. Furthermore, while the book producers want to put into place restrictive licensing, libraries are resisting. Because libraries want to loosen DRM, it is happening, though perhaps less fully than libraries.
Finally, one publisher suggests that standards are still not absolute. What this essay suggests to me is that all of the problems we have been discussing regarding ebooks are evidence. There is a problem with standards and being able to cross read. There is a desire to create pricing models and access over ownership that looks like ejournal agreements on the business side of the ebook industry. Some libraries are resisting, but they are not completely successful.
3. Herther, Nancy. “Ebook Reader is not the future of Ebooks” Searcher 16:8 Spring 2008, 26-40.
In this essay, Herther distinguishes between the ebook and the ebook reader quite distinctly. The essay suggests the ebook has languished in the market place is because of the ebook reader. She suggest it has not fared well because the ebook readers do not significantly alter the technology of the book, allowing for hyperlinks, multimedia, adding notes, ability to share passages, etc. Her second response to this question, why are ebooks languishing, is that the publishers of ebook readers and ebooks do not yet understand the traditional book market which was made of many small runs and markets. Ebook readers producers are not thinking about markets in the diverse way they need to. They want to bundle materials and consolidating, rather than following the model of internet: a kind of the superniche publishing of books.
Herther’s essay is perhaps the most interesting I have read about the business side of the ebook. Here she suggests that less control, less of an ejournal model will help the industry. It seems a bit at odds with the material reported by libraries in the academic model.
4. Hoorebeek, Mark. “eBooks, libraries and peer-to-peer file-sharing” The Australian Library Journal 52.2 http://alia.org.au/publishing/alj/52.2/full.text/hoorebeck.html accessed 7/6/2009
Draws a parallel between the music business, napster and e-content of books. Ipods, like book readers, may jeopardize the copyright laws. Looks as if the book business will be protected as the music industry has been . Essay fears copyright infringement.
In many ways this piece shares the concerns of Lawrence Lessig about copyright’s growing power.
5. Hughes, Carol Ann. “E-Books” Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science, eds. Marcia J. Bates, Mary Niles Maack, and Miriam Drake. 23 June 2003. www.infromaworld.com.ezproxy.library.wisc.edu/smpp/section?content=a7135311989 accessed on 7/26/2009
The essay begins with a consideration of the definitions of book and ebook. Ebooks challenge existing publisher, author, bookstore, and library interactions in which everyone hopes that costs will go down and more money will be made. Publishers fear the ability to copy digitally and want to limit fair use and first sale copyright abilities. They are also now changing contracts because in Random House vs. Rosetta books publishing houses were not granted immediate rights to print, publish, and sell electronically.
Most producers of ebooks were either engaged in individual subscriptions or institutional licenses, not both. Hughes suggests that there is not yet a viable business model, that ebooks are still a niche market. Further she quotes a report by the International coalition of Library consortia:
“Although there is no empirical evidence that fair use causes material or undue harm to providers, many information providers nonetheless are seeking to discontinue the well-established principle of fair use, and they are using the new electronic environment as the reason and means to do so.”
In some ways, I Hughes suggesting that ebook producers are trying to control and limit fair use and first sale in order to create the business model that will support the ebook. So far, this has been unsuccessful. But it remains a threat.
6. Shatzkin, Mike. “A Modest Proposal in the E-Wars” Publishers Weekly May 28, 2001. P 24
In this essay, Shatzkin discusses the litigation that is nearly inevitable about authors and publishing houses. Original contracts, negotiated over time, did not address epublishing. Should this be considered part of publishers copyright, as it is a different world now? Should authors be able to negotiate their own deals on epublishing? Shatzkin suggests that author should grant these rights to publishers.
Shatzkin would allow that much more control to publishing houses over intellectual property. This is a consolidation of power that just continues apace.
1. Fialkoff, Francine. “To Kindle or not” Library Journal 133:8 March 1, 2008 p 8
This article suggests that while Sparta Public Library in New Jersey is resisting restrictive licensing that accompanies Kindle, the Kindle license itself is very restrictive. Officially, libraries may buy books for Amazon’s Kindle, but cannot lend them because of licensing agreements that limit first use, lending to third parties. Sparta Public Library has created their own rules that have nothing to do with licenses: users may borrow and buy one book. All other books on the kindle are available to that borrower.
This short piece echoes the Hughes article below which suggests that many ebooks market only to individuals.
2. Harris, Sian. “Redefining E-Books” Research information April/may 2009/
This article surveys seven different organizations (Oxford University Press, Swets, Ingram Digital, SAGE, Elseviar’s Science and Technolgy, OCLC NetLibrary, Cengage Learning) in the ebook business, primarily in scholarly or academic fields Within this field there were areas of disagreement, for example while: Sage suggests that text books without designated readers are generally not workable, Cengage argues that e textbooks are a hit.
Academic publishing is moving forward the change in the technology of the book much more quickly than the trade market. Most of the seven organizations discussed the increased ability to search the ebook, exemplified by the OCLC rep discussing the ebook as a database. This use of the book this way, however, requires DOIs and metadata for each chapter. Most of the reps suggest that the use of ebooks is of limited use. Average users spend less than thirty minutes in any part of a full text. Extended reading seems still to be reserved for print books.
Discussion of business models suggest that so far there is really not a business model that supports cost. Costs and pricing, some argue, are still using print models. And yet, books are generally being bought as collections just to have a quantity of titles. Furthermore, while the book producers want to put into place restrictive licensing, libraries are resisting. Because libraries want to loosen DRM, it is happening, though perhaps less fully than libraries.
Finally, one publisher suggests that standards are still not absolute. What this essay suggests to me is that all of the problems we have been discussing regarding ebooks are evidence. There is a problem with standards and being able to cross read. There is a desire to create pricing models and access over ownership that looks like ejournal agreements on the business side of the ebook industry. Some libraries are resisting, but they are not completely successful.
3. Herther, Nancy. “Ebook Reader is not the future of Ebooks” Searcher 16:8 Spring 2008, 26-40.
In this essay, Herther distinguishes between the ebook and the ebook reader quite distinctly. The essay suggests the ebook has languished in the market place is because of the ebook reader. She suggest it has not fared well because the ebook readers do not significantly alter the technology of the book, allowing for hyperlinks, multimedia, adding notes, ability to share passages, etc. Her second response to this question, why are ebooks languishing, is that the publishers of ebook readers and ebooks do not yet understand the traditional book market which was made of many small runs and markets. Ebook readers producers are not thinking about markets in the diverse way they need to. They want to bundle materials and consolidating, rather than following the model of internet: a kind of the superniche publishing of books.
Herther’s essay is perhaps the most interesting I have read about the business side of the ebook. Here she suggests that less control, less of an ejournal model will help the industry. It seems a bit at odds with the material reported by libraries in the academic model.
4. Hoorebeek, Mark. “eBooks, libraries and peer-to-peer file-sharing” The Australian Library Journal 52.2 http://alia.org.au/publishing/alj/52.2/full.text/hoorebeck.html accessed 7/6/2009
Draws a parallel between the music business, napster and e-content of books. Ipods, like book readers, may jeopardize the copyright laws. Looks as if the book business will be protected as the music industry has been . Essay fears copyright infringement.
In many ways this piece shares the concerns of Lawrence Lessig about copyright’s growing power.
5. Hughes, Carol Ann. “E-Books” Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science, eds. Marcia J. Bates, Mary Niles Maack, and Miriam Drake. 23 June 2003. www.infromaworld.com.ezproxy.library.wisc.edu/smpp/section?content=a7135311989 accessed on 7/26/2009
The essay begins with a consideration of the definitions of book and ebook. Ebooks challenge existing publisher, author, bookstore, and library interactions in which everyone hopes that costs will go down and more money will be made. Publishers fear the ability to copy digitally and want to limit fair use and first sale copyright abilities. They are also now changing contracts because in Random House vs. Rosetta books publishing houses were not granted immediate rights to print, publish, and sell electronically.
Most producers of ebooks were either engaged in individual subscriptions or institutional licenses, not both. Hughes suggests that there is not yet a viable business model, that ebooks are still a niche market. Further she quotes a report by the International coalition of Library consortia:
“Although there is no empirical evidence that fair use causes material or undue harm to providers, many information providers nonetheless are seeking to discontinue the well-established principle of fair use, and they are using the new electronic environment as the reason and means to do so.”
In some ways, I Hughes suggesting that ebook producers are trying to control and limit fair use and first sale in order to create the business model that will support the ebook. So far, this has been unsuccessful. But it remains a threat.
6. Shatzkin, Mike. “A Modest Proposal in the E-Wars” Publishers Weekly May 28, 2001. P 24
In this essay, Shatzkin discusses the litigation that is nearly inevitable about authors and publishing houses. Original contracts, negotiated over time, did not address epublishing. Should this be considered part of publishers copyright, as it is a different world now? Should authors be able to negotiate their own deals on epublishing? Shatzkin suggests that author should grant these rights to publishers.
Shatzkin would allow that much more control to publishing houses over intellectual property. This is a consolidation of power that just continues apace.
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Economic models, technology, and copyright
Hillesund, Terje. “Reading Books in the Digital Age subsequent to Google and the long tail” First Monday 12:9 September 2007, 1-24.
In this essay, Hillesund argues at length with the thesis of John B. Thompson’s book that paper has staying power. Hillesund argues that books are now produced in a half-digital, half-paper method, that we are in a transitional period of revolutionary nature. He uses many theorists and thinkers who study the history of the book to make this claim. He suggests, however, that technology alone does not determine the course of history. He argues that other factors may slow change dramatically.
He ends his essay looking at the complexity of major book publishers who are uncomfortable with a movement toward the e-book because of copyright issues:
"Moreover, one of the publishing firms’ most valuable assets is their right to exploit book content: The control over the rights gives the publishing firms power in relation to authors, readers and different actors who want to exploit the content of books. When e–books were introduced at the end of the 1990s, publishing firms quickly discovered that pirate copying and dissemination of unencrypted versions of books could undermine the publishing firms’ own sales. Experiences from the music industry did not reduce this fear, and the majority of publishing firms have chosen to introduce a very restrictive digital control of rights on e–book publications (Lynch, 2001). This has greatly influenced the technology. Both the design of reading devices and the formulation of the e–book sales are often built on proprietary, closed and not especially reader–friendly solutions (Hillesund and Noring, 2006).
"In the sale of e–books, traditional compositors, printers, booksellers and book clubs are replaced with e–book designers, Internet providers, e–booksellers and companies providing systems for digital payment and control of rights. When, in addition, the actual production of books is changed, there is little doubt that e–book distribution constitutes a text cycle very different from the printed book cycle. In this situation, it has been rational for publishing firms to use their control of rights and their role in the publishing chain to control the digital changes such as to retain their central position in the field of publishing (Lynch, 2001) Even though it is difficult to support empirically, much in the publishing firms’ acts and statements (in both Thompson’s and the Norwegian study) indicates that the publishing firms are satisfied with a situation in which printed books dominate book sales, and that they make few active attempts to further develop the e–book markets. In fact, most publishing firms want e–books to remain a niche product. Nye (2006) provides many historical examples of actors who worked against the proliferation of new technologies, and Winston (1998) calls the phenomenon “the law of suppression of radical potential.” This suppression is not entirely negative: Through opposition, new technologies are formed by cultural preferences and economical realities. (p 17)
Here we have a discussion of a cycle of production and use of knowledge that is in the course of change. The change, however, is limited by the discomfort of those who hold power because they would rather not cede that power. The power in question is copyright.
In this essay, Hillesund argues at length with the thesis of John B. Thompson’s book that paper has staying power. Hillesund argues that books are now produced in a half-digital, half-paper method, that we are in a transitional period of revolutionary nature. He uses many theorists and thinkers who study the history of the book to make this claim. He suggests, however, that technology alone does not determine the course of history. He argues that other factors may slow change dramatically.
He ends his essay looking at the complexity of major book publishers who are uncomfortable with a movement toward the e-book because of copyright issues:
"Moreover, one of the publishing firms’ most valuable assets is their right to exploit book content: The control over the rights gives the publishing firms power in relation to authors, readers and different actors who want to exploit the content of books. When e–books were introduced at the end of the 1990s, publishing firms quickly discovered that pirate copying and dissemination of unencrypted versions of books could undermine the publishing firms’ own sales. Experiences from the music industry did not reduce this fear, and the majority of publishing firms have chosen to introduce a very restrictive digital control of rights on e–book publications (Lynch, 2001). This has greatly influenced the technology. Both the design of reading devices and the formulation of the e–book sales are often built on proprietary, closed and not especially reader–friendly solutions (Hillesund and Noring, 2006).
"In the sale of e–books, traditional compositors, printers, booksellers and book clubs are replaced with e–book designers, Internet providers, e–booksellers and companies providing systems for digital payment and control of rights. When, in addition, the actual production of books is changed, there is little doubt that e–book distribution constitutes a text cycle very different from the printed book cycle. In this situation, it has been rational for publishing firms to use their control of rights and their role in the publishing chain to control the digital changes such as to retain their central position in the field of publishing (Lynch, 2001) Even though it is difficult to support empirically, much in the publishing firms’ acts and statements (in both Thompson’s and the Norwegian study) indicates that the publishing firms are satisfied with a situation in which printed books dominate book sales, and that they make few active attempts to further develop the e–book markets. In fact, most publishing firms want e–books to remain a niche product. Nye (2006) provides many historical examples of actors who worked against the proliferation of new technologies, and Winston (1998) calls the phenomenon “the law of suppression of radical potential.” This suppression is not entirely negative: Through opposition, new technologies are formed by cultural preferences and economical realities. (p 17)
Here we have a discussion of a cycle of production and use of knowledge that is in the course of change. The change, however, is limited by the discomfort of those who hold power because they would rather not cede that power. The power in question is copyright.
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