Cory explains "Free(konomic) E-books"
Kes: I'll give Cory credit for still attempting to provide persuasive arguments in what I have come to view as another religious war with way too much of people's individual personalities wrapped up in the argument to ever really have a chance of changing their minds. To some degree, I think the digital book is viewed with great suspicion in our culture, it messes with the American idea of definitive ownership. I also think, however, that there is a small but vocal contingent of readers--many of them critics and academics--who have gotten a lot of mileage out of claiming that nobody reads "real" books anymore, and that they are themselves the last defenders of the shining light of true literacy, the only thing standing between civilization and the barbarians who are clamoring at the gate.
Myself, I wish they would get off the cross--I could use the wood for more bookshelves.
Posted by Cory Doctorow:
My latest column in Locus Magazine has just gone live. Called
"Free(konomic) E-books," it's an attempt to enumerate the evidence that
Creative Commons and other scheme for giving away free ebooks works to
sell printed books. In my next column, I'l expain how Creative Commons
works, and how science fiction writers can use it.
> Many of us have assumed, a priori, that electronic books substitute for print books. While I don't have controlled, quantitative data to refute the proposition,
I do have plenty of experience with this stuff, and all that experience leads me to believe that giving away my books is selling the hell out of them.
>
> More importantly, the free e-book skeptics have no evidence to offer in support of their position - just hand-waving and dark muttering about a mythological
future when book-lovers give up their printed books for electronic book-readers (as opposed to the much more plausible future where book lovers go on buying
their fetish objects and carry books around on their electronic devices).
Column:
http://www.locusmag.com/Features/2007/09/cory-doctorow-freekonomic-e-books.html
Myself, I wish they would get off the cross--I could use the wood for more bookshelves.
Posted by Cory Doctorow:
My latest column in Locus Magazine has just gone live. Called
"Free(konomic) E-books," it's an attempt to enumerate the evidence that
Creative Commons and other scheme for giving away free ebooks works to
sell printed books. In my next column, I'l expain how Creative Commons
works, and how science fiction writers can use it.
> Many of us have assumed, a priori, that electronic books substitute for print books. While I don't have controlled, quantitative data to refute the proposition,
I do have plenty of experience with this stuff, and all that experience leads me to believe that giving away my books is selling the hell out of them.
>
> More importantly, the free e-book skeptics have no evidence to offer in support of their position - just hand-waving and dark muttering about a mythological
future when book-lovers give up their printed books for electronic book-readers (as opposed to the much more plausible future where book lovers go on buying
their fetish objects and carry books around on their electronic devices).
Column:
http://www.locusmag.com/Features/2007/09/cory-doctorow-freekonomic-e-books.html