Tim O'Reilly, Piracy is Progressive Taxation, and Other Thoughts on the Evolution of Online Distribution, O'Reilly Network, December 11, 2002. Thoughts from a creative book publisher in P2P networks, piracy, and the business models of publishers. Most is not relevant to FOS, but here are two bits that are. "Lesson 1: Obscurity is a far greater threat to authors and creative artists than piracy." FOS translation: Scientists and scholars write for impact, not money. "Lesson 5: File sharing networks don't threaten book, music, or film publishing. They threaten existing publishers." FOS equivalent: Open-access distribution doesn't threaten science and scholarship. It only threatens publishers that can't compete with it." (PS: The second of these is not a strict translation because O'Reilly's version refers to unauthorized copying and open-access distribution never requires unauthorized copying. Scientific journal literature has this intrinsic advantage over music and movies for the purpose of free online access: its creators consent to publish it without payment. See Lesson 1: they write for impact, not money.)
Posted by
Peter Suber at 12/12/2002 09:06:00 AM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
