Wowio is a new publisher specializing in ad-supported OA books, some from the public domain and some still under copyright. (Thanks to Tom Peters.) From the site:
Is this legal? Absolutely. Magazines have ads. Newspapers have ads. Now, books have ads --except, unlike magazines and newspapers, we don't charge for books.
How is intellectual property protected? Since anyone can defeat the most "sophisticated" DRM with the print screen button, we believe that technology-based DRM is essentially a fraud. Our approach takes the market incentive out of misbehaving, rewards people for doing the right thing, and tries to stay out of the way of honest users. To help keep everyone honest, however, readers must agree to a licensing agreement when they set up their account and authenticate their identity with a valid credit card. Then, each ebook is serialized with the reader's authenticated name and a unique serial number. This information is clearly displayed on the cover and on every page in the ebook. WOWIO will immediately terminate the account of anyone caught illegally distributing ebooks, and will prosecute serious offenders....
Why is there a limit on the number of books per day? It's a Tragedy of the Commons thing --Google it. The current limit is 5 free ebooks per reader per day. We will raise the limit as our advertiser base grows....
I am looking for books you don't have. Will it do any good to request them? Request away. We are meeting with publishers as fast as we can to bring on new books, and telling them that we have people requesting their books will help us seal the deal. Contact us and let us know what you're looking for.
How will the availability of free ebooks impact sales of print books? There is good reason to believe that the availability of WOWIO ebooks will improve sales of print books. A few reasons are: (1) many of the people who download WOWIO ebooks would not otherwise buy the print versions --readers will give them a chance because they are free and because the ebooks are available on-demand, (2) this increased exposure will grow the readership and, correspondingly, the potential market for the print book, and (3) most people who really like a particular ebook will buy the print version because ebook readers and computers continue to lack the resolution and portability of print books.
I live outside the United States and cannot sign on to WOWIO. What's up? For now, WOWIO is only available to people living in the United States (apologies to our International friends). The way we pay our content partners is through advertising. Therefore, we can't expand our reach faster than we expand our advertising base. Our long-term goal is to make all books available to everyone on the planet for free. In the meantime, we ask for your patience.
I am an author or publisher and would like to explore WOWIO as an option of distributing my content. What do I do? Contact us and we'll be in touch.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 8/18/2006 08:37:00 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.
