Op-Ed - The End of History (Books) - NYTimes.com - Marc Aronson 2010-04-02 - 0 views
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Before we even get to downloads, though, we need to fix the problem for print books. As a starting point, authors and publishers — perhaps through a joint committee of the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers — should create a grid of standard rates and images and text extracts keyed to print runs and prices.
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Claude Almansi on 06 Apr 10Interesting proposal - except for the idea of letting the Authors' Guild and the Association of American Publishers enact it: see the mess they made with the Google Book Search Settlement, and the Authors' Guild claim that the Text to Speech option on the Kindle created a new derivative audio work.
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"...If rights remain as tightly controlled and as expensive as they are now, nonfiction will be the province of the entirely new or the overly familiar. Dazzling books with newly created art, text and multimedia will far outnumber works filled with historical materials. Only a few well-heeled companies will have the wherewithal to create gee-whiz multimedia book-like products that require permissions, and these projects will most likely focus on highly popular subjects. History's outsiders and untold stories will be left behind. We treat copyrights as individual possessions, jewels that exist entirely by themselves. I'm obviously sympathetic to that point of view. But source material also takes on another life when it's repurposed. It becomes part of the flow, the narration, the interweaving of text and art in books and e-books. It's essential that we take this into account as we re-imagine permissions in a digital age. When we have a new model for permissions, we will have new media. Then all of us - authors, readers, new-media innovators, rights holders - will really see the stories that words and images can tell. "
