[Reader-list] NY Times: Steal This Book? A Publisher Is Making It Easy

[Lachlan Brown]

Yes, it is a good marketing campaign to advertise
Prentice Hall products among a new market.
We are making sure that the brand 'Prentice
Hall' is circulating and doing the service
for PH for free. 

There's quite a tradition of 'stealing books' 
to ensure that both the 
title of the book and the name of the distributor
circulates, after all, 'notoriety is what passes
for publicity in the new media' (all quotes are
trade marks of Thirdnet, or otherwise remain
the personal property of Lachlan Brown).

The idea of free online versions of books is
a good one and it can only help sell the 
printed version. Of course the same is true
payment for an online version
and providing the printed book for free.
There are a number of models to be explored
in the coming 'dotnet boom' TM . 

Get in touch l.brown at london.com if you would
like to know more.

Luv,

Lachlan



> The New York Times
> January 13, 2003
> 
> Steal This Book? A Publisher Is Making It Easy
> By STEVE LOHR
> 
> he counterculture rules of the open-source software community are 
> edging into mainstream book publishing, thanks to Bruce Perens.
> 
> Prentice Hall is publishing a line of computer books, the "Bruce 
> Perens' Open Source Series." The first titles have already arrived 
> for sale in bookstores like Barnes & Noble, and the electronic 
> versions are expected to be available online soon afterward - and to 
> be free.
> 
> All the books - a total of six are planned for this year - will be 
> published not under a traditional copyright but under the Open 
> Publication License, which was created in 1999 by David Wiley, an 
> assistant professor at Utah State University. The license allows 
> people to copy, modify and redistribute works. It is modeled after 
> the General Public License for software, which sets the rules for 
> information-sharing and reuse of code for the GNU Linux operating 
> system (www.opencontent.org).
> Advertisement
> 
> "If you want to take one these books, put it on a photocopy machine 
> and make copies, that's cool," said Mr. Perens, a leading open-source 
> advocate.
> 
> Such practices make most publishers cringe and call their lawyers. 
> But Prentice Hall, acknowledging the risk of lost sales, says the 
> experiment is a worthwhile attempt to earn good will and gain readers 
> among the growing ranks of programmers who work with open-source 
> software like Linux and the Apache Web server. The front-runner among 
> publishers of books for open-source programmers is O'Reilly & 
> Associates, which publishes most of its books under traditional 
> copyright.
> 
> In open-source projects, groups of programmers voluntarily develop, 
> debug and modify the code. The software is free. But Linux companies 
> like Red Hat and SuSE Linux charge their customers, who buy the 
> software in boxes that include the code on CD-ROM's along with 
> explanatory manuals.
> 
> Similarly, Prentice Hall, a unit of Pearson, is charging for the 
> books, printed on paper with CD's attached. The first two titles, 
> "The Linux Development Platform" and "Embedded Software Development 
> with eCos," are priced at $49.99 each. (ECos is an open-source 
> operating system developed for wireless devices like cellphones and 
> remote controls.)
> 
> The free electronic versions of the books will be available in a 
> couple of months - a delay intended to ensure that another publisher 
> does not just make copies and beat Prentice Hall to stores at, say, 
> half the price.
> 
> For Mr. Perens, the book series is a way to encourage the spread of 
> open-source software by supplying better written instruction for 
> programmers - who generally do not get their kicks from documenting 
> their labors. "We've been saying we've got great software, but we 
> don't actually have very good documentation," he said.
> 
> The electronic versions of the books, Mr. Perens added, can be 
> frequently updated, and the authors can edit readers' contributions. 
> He considers the series - in which his role is mainly selecting books 
> and setting policy - to be a step toward broadening the application 
> of open-source principles. "We are expanding the scope of 
> collaborative works beyond software," Mr. Perens said.
> 
> In the past, individual books have been published under the Open 
> Publication License at the insistence of individual authors like Mr. 
> Perens. But Mark L. Taub, an editor in Prentice Hall's professional 
> and technical book division, termed the Perens series a "strategic 
> commitment" to a continuing line of books with the open license.
> 
> There is nothing to prevent programmers from waiting a couple of 
> months to download copies of the books free rather than buying them. 
> But Mr. Perens, a member of the digital avant-garde, predicts that 
> serious programmers will buy the books for $50 each. Why? "People 
> like paper," he said.
> 
> Even though photocopying the entire book or making a printout of the 
> electronic version would violate no copyright law, Prentice Hall is 
> betting that most people will not bother, preferring to pay for the 
> convenience of the book itself.
> 
> Anthony J. Massa, a programmer and author of "Embedded Software 
> Development with eCos," agrees. "I personally like having the printed 
> version of a bound book in front of me," he said.
> 
> 
> -- 
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Lachlan Brown

T (416) 666 1452

                                       

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