Quote:
|
The trick, as always, is to watch how the recording industry behaves and do the opposite. Bring on the iTunes Store for ebooks, Apple, and make the Kindle better, Amazon!
|
Well said. And New York Times Op-Ed columnist Paul Krugman notes in "
Bits, Bands and Books" today:
Quote:
|
In 1994, one of those gurus, Esther Dyson, made a striking prediction: that the ease with which digital content can be copied and disseminated would eventually force businesses to sell the results of creative activity cheaply, or even give it away. Whatever the product — software, books, music, movies — the cost of creation would have to be recouped indirectly: businesses would have to “distribute intellectual property free in order to sell services and relationships.” ... Now, the strategy of giving intellectual property away so that people will buy your paraphernalia won’t work equally well for everything. To take the obvious, painful example: news organizations, very much including this one, have spent years trying to turn large online readership into an adequately paying proposition, with limited success.
|