On Mon, Jun 7, 2010 at 5:03 AM, Charles Matthews
<charles.r.matthews(a)ntlworld.com> wrote:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/jun/07/james-murdoch-british-library
James Murdoch criticises the British Library's plans to digitise old
newspapers. And I quote: "public sector interest is to distribute
content for near zero cost – harming the market in so doing ..."
I think the WMF should be getting a hearing in this debate. Every page
of free content we post does clearly remove someone else's chance to
profit from selling that content.
It's not all that clear that it removes anyone's chance to profit.
Most of these long-tail 'markets' are rate limited by how hard it is
to find the material in question, or to identify subsets of it that
are popular. Having a digital PD copy that's easy for fans to find,
categorize, remix, and collate into other works can make publishing
easier.
I want to hear the argument that the
Murdoch line is nothing better than an attempt to justify "enclosing the
commons" simply because someone can then profit. You have to look at
whose land it was in the first place, not whether the result can be monetised.
Hear, hear.
SJ