[Solar-general] neal stephenson sobre cc

Jue Oct 21 17:46:18 CEST 2004

Sacado de la entrevista publica a Neal Stephenson (para quienes no saben
quien es ---> http://www.nealstephenson.com/ )

12) Do new publishing models make sense? - by Infonaut

Have you contemplated using any sort of alternative to traditional
copyright for your works of fiction, such as a flavor of Creative
Commons [creativecommons.org] license? Do you feel that making money as
a writer and more open copyright are compatible in the long term, or do
you think that writers like Lessig who distribute electronically via CC
are merely indulging in a short-lived fad?

Neal:

Publishing is a very ancient and crafty industry that existed and
flourished before the idea of copyright even existed. When copyright
came into existence, the publishing industry dealt with it and moved on.
My suspicion is that everything that's been going on lately will amount
to a sort of fire drill that will force publishing to scurry around and
make some new arrangements so that they can get back to making money for
themselves and for authors. 

You can use the brick-and-mortar bookstore as a way to think about this.
There was a time maybe five years ago when many people were questioning
whether brick-and-mortar bookstores were going to survive the onslaught
of online retailers. Now, if you take the narrow view that a bookstore
is nothing more than a machine that swaps money for books, then it
follows that there's no need for a physical store. But here we are five
years later. Some bookstores have gone out of business, it's true. But
there are big, beautiful bookstores all over the place, with sofas and
coffee bars and author appearances and so on. Why? Because it turns out
that a bookstore is a lot more than a machine that swaps money for
books. 

Likewise, if you think of a publisher as a machine that makes copies of
bits and sells them, then you're going to predict the elimination of
publishers. But that's only the smallest part of what publishers
actually do. This is not to say that electronic distribution via CC is
just a fad, any more than online bookstores are a fad. They will keep on
going in parallel, and all of this will get sorted out in time.

-- 
josx <josx en interorganic.com.ar>