Re: e-book publishing

On 9 Jun 2000, Joseph P. Riolo <riolo[_at_]voicenet.com> wrote:
>
> On Wed, 7 Jun 2000, Albert Henderson <noblestation[_at_]compuserve.com> wrote:
> >
> > [snip for brevity]
> > We should have learned some lessons, by the way, from bitter
> > experience with "brittle paper" that developed from 19th century
> > papermaking innovations. The new medium was cheaper and more
> > abundant. It also carried the potential to self-destruct. Learned
> > publishers now select neutral pH paper. Most periodicals are also
> > copied onto microfilm upon publication.
> >
> > Although computers process data with impressive speed, they
> > have yet to prove they can keep it around for more than a few
> > years. There is an argument that seems to be that anything worth
> > keeping will be kept in digital form (at considerable cost).
> > Who will pay? Who will decide?
>
> Given your desire in enlarging the monopolistic powers of
> copyright, I fail to understand why you are complaining. The
> detriments that you described in your post are the almost direct
> consequences of the copyright law. Moreover, who are you and us
> to tell the copyright holders what they should do and what they
> should not do with the works and materials in which they own
> copyrights? They have no moral or ethic in keeping the knowledge
> available. If they want to destruct the works or materials or
> let them deteriorate, they can.

Golly. There are no copyright holders here. Works by employees of the U.S. government start out in the public domain. They belong to the public. The government's responsibility has been to assure dissemination, something that is endangered by replacing print with digital media.

Albert Henderson
Editor, PUBLISHING RESEARCH QUARTERLY 1994-2000 <70244.1532[_at_]compuserve.com> Received on Tue Jun 13 2000 - 20:23:09 GMT