[GregS]

Friends, we need a business model that can work for both extremes - that is the big established publisher, and perhaps someone living in small town in India that just happens to write like and angel and never will get close to a publisher of any kind.

Apple's itunes went particularly well because you could buy a card at a music shop and use it for buying music over the net. Without that card it would have not been half as successful.

That is the critical part, methods of payment - that works for small amounts.

I agree it is not question of cheap, cheap, cheap, even less that everything should be free. I want to see authors and editors paid, so they keep producing. I want to see that gifted self-published author - get more than enough to live comfortably and keep writing. But that is not going to happen through credit cards, or paypal.

The secret is small amounts, a few cents, being an easy transaction. The bottom end is critically important, get that fixed and the rest will flow. Whether the pay in method is phone cards or indeed itune cards, credit cards, or any other means, paying-in has to be easy; and getting cash for work has to be almost as easy as well.

If I edited a public domain text, what is that worth? I think only a few cents per copy, after 15 years that too should become public domain (ie that edition, not the work itself).

Copyright is an issue and unfair laws can be gotten around by using servers in countries with different, fairer laws. The big publishers won't like it, but we need fair copyright, copyright that protects authors throughout their life-time )and I would suggest 15 years after their death. Editions protected for 15 years from first publication).

The reason I bring this up as part of a business model, is that fair copyright is essential to it. For ebooks to flourish as part of this second Gutenberg revolution in printed works, both the creative genius must be protected, and also the public interest. If need be a compliant country can be found that will police and protect fair copyright.

Fair copyright allows small ebook publishers to gain a toe-hold, and it allows authors to break free of some of the unfair contract arrangements made with big publishers.

Which brings me to the last part of this model. Authors and creative talent (illustrators, translators and editors), have to establish a fair price for their work on a per item basis, and stated in a single currency (Euros I would suggest).

It would assume a method of payment that works (none presently do, especially for small sums), and a method of payment direct to the copyright owners, however, the ebook is obtained.

Rather than crippling the ebook (current DRM), there could be a use of digital signatures, public encryption and receipting to establish the copyright owners prices, the abstract identity of the purchaser and transferrers of ownership of copies.

It would not be perfect, but the present mess is crippling to all concerned. Electronic literature changes many things. For one if I want to print it, I do so at my own expense, if I want to have the text voice synthesized I do the work. If I want to get at the text for close personal study, perhaps process it through other applications - that is my business.

If I want to give away other peoples' work I am a pirate, but if the prices are unfair and the DRM crippling, and I have no way of paying the true copyright holders their money, am I still a pirate? Or has this piracy been imposed on me? The present situation encourages piracy as Prohibition encouraged bootlegging.

There is a better model, readers actually want authors to be paid. Fair prices, fair copyright and the means to pay them are preconditions for ebook publishing to flourish as it should, and create whole new generations that read more and understand more because they do.

As for big publishing companies they have to adapt, or in the long term, perish. But it is up to us, not them to establish the market and business model. Copyright must be policed, but it must be secured first and foremost on fairness, to the creative talent and to the public interest in obtaining the words of that talent and its transition into the public domain.

If the parameters of such a model were in place, would you not be obliged to report pirates and be happy to do so? And what better police force than readers themselves.

Of course the easiest way to do things is find a country willing to host ebook publishing, based on a fair copyright laws that are enforced, the method of payment would be an inducement, after all the real money has to sit somewhere.

Doing things right will in the end, make things work, but waiting on big business to do the right thing will be a very long wait.