... Almost every form of publishing has been organized as if the medium
was what they were selling, and the content was irrelevant. Book
publishers, for example, set prices based on the cost of producing
and distributing books. They treat the words printed in the book
the same way a textile manufacturer treats the patterns printed on
its fabrics. ...
Now that the medium is evaporating, publishers have nothing left
to sell. Some seem to think they're going to sell content—that
they were always in the content business, really. But they weren't,
and it's unclear whether anyone could be.
There have always been people in the business of selling information,
but that has historically been a distinct business from publishing.
And the business of selling information to consumers has always
been a marginal one. When I was a kid there were people who used
to sell newsletters containing stock tips, printed on colored paper
that made them hard for the copiers of the day to reproduce. That
is a different world, both culturally and economically, from the
one publishers currently inhabit.
People will pay for information they think they can make money from.
That's why they paid for those stock tip newsletters, and why
companies pay now for Bloomberg terminals and Economist Intelligence
Unit reports. But will people pay for information otherwise?
History offers little encouragement. ...
I don't know exactly what the future will look like, but I'm not
too worried about it. This sort of change tends to create as many
good things as it kills. Indeed, the really interesting question is not
what will happen to existing forms, but what new forms will appear. ...
Posted by
Gavin Baker at 9/18/2009 07:19:00 PM.
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.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
