On Mon, 22 Dec 2008, Steve Litt wrote:
I have a question about the "search inside the book". A publishing
mailing list of which I'm also a member is extremely upset about
Google's plan to scan all books from the libraries. The thought is that
why should customers buy the cow if the milk is free -- if you can view
it online, why should you pay for the book?
I'd definitely like your thoughts on this.
Hi Steve,
Perhaps you can gain some insight by considering a somewhat related
situation, namely that of the 'Baen free library' that Eric Flint started
( http://www.baen.com/library/ ). At that site, Eric has blogged about
these issues and by chance I recentely read #7 (from 2002).
http://www.baen.com/library/palaver_index.htm
In that blog he discusses the economics of providing some books for free.
Perhaps that reasoning can be adapted to this situation?
best regards
/Christian
PS. The Baen free library is a web site where Baen books have made
available about a 100 books for free by (mostly Baen) authors who've given
their permission. I believe Eric Flint is an author as well as some kind
of editor at Baen books.
--
Christian Ridderström, +46-8-768 39 44 http://www.md.kth.se/~chr
