Re: copyright expriation as a spur to creativity

On 02/22/99, Albert Henderson <noblestation[_at_]compuserve.com> wrote:
>
> On Fri, 19 Feb 1999, Timothy Phillips <hrothgar[_at_]telepath.com> wrote:
> >
> > Ms. Rawlinson goes on to mention that this state of affairs
> > might change in the future. She cites the Tattered Cover Bookstore
> > of Denver, Colorado, which is planning to install in on-demand
> > printer which will produce paperback books. I think that she's
> > exaggerating the threat to the established publishers. One
> > machine which can manufacture books on demand creates competition
> > only in the town where the machine is. The machine owner will
> > still need "a firmly established distribution system" if he wants
> > to compete farther afield.
>
> You are probably right unless the cost of the
> machine and the digital masters comes way down.
> NTIS and UMI have produced one-at-a-time books from
> microforms for decades, selling them by mail order.
> Their "commercial" success has not been spectacular.
>
> There should be no threat to publishers, who collect
> royalties and share them with authors.

I am not sure which machine the Tattered Cover is getting, but I recently attended a talk at an American Association of Publishers meeting from a woman at Sprout. This company gets computer files (PDF or PS I believe) from publishers, or will scan for a fee, that they store on a secure computer. Then when a customer orders and pays for a book, say from a terminal in a bookstore with the special printer in a back room, a copy is released to the printer which prints the book (B&W only), along with a color cover (heavier stock), binds it all within minutes, then destroys the local computer copy. The bookstore, publisher, and Sprout all get a fraction of the money collected for the book. (I think I've got this all correct). The finished product actually looks and feels like a published book, as opposed to the books I've used from UMI which look and feel like photocopies. I am not certain that the book is quite archival quality (paper-wise), but a large fraction of the books today sold yellow and decay quickly anyway. This could go over well for nearly out of print books and small publishers.

This system would not be a threat to publishers since the publishers do indeed get money for the books. It may help keep books in print. It would be interesting to see data in a few years as to how often books sold that would have been out of print otherwise.

All comments are my own and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.

Angela Putney, Ph.D.
Physics Management Fellow
American Institute of Physics
One Physics Ellipse
College Park, MD 20740

Phone: 301-209-3135
Fax: 301-209-3133
E-mail: aputney[_at_]aip.org Received on Tue Feb 23 1999 - 14:46:26 GMT