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From: postmaster@mailcom.FIDONET.ORG (Bernard Aboba)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: Hundreds of books on an optical disk
Message-ID: <8827@spl1.UUCP>
Date: 31 Oct 88 14:55:25 GMT
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Organization: MailCom Message Center, Palo Alto CA (415) 855-9548
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Not to mention the copyright problems, which many publishing firms have 
already concluded to be insurmountable.  It is important to keep in mind 
that "higher technology" does not necessarily imply "higher profit."  In 
fact, it can be argued that the single largest force pushing the adoption 
of high technology is the desire to remain competitive -- i.e. if I don't 
develop the technology, someone else will.  This force is NOT operative 
in publishing -- if I own the copyright to informmation X, I'm the only 
one who can publish it, in whatever media.  At that point the question 
becomes "which media will generate the most profit?"  The answer, most 
assuredly is NOT optical, or CD-ROM, and may NEVER be.  Right now, the 
cost of time and materials for copying a $40 textbook of, say 500 pages, 
makes the project barely worthwhile at $0.05 per page.  However, the 
economics of ripping off an entire Encylopedia Brittanica or two is much 
better if the Encyclopedia is on an optical disk.  Plus, the deed could 
be done in a fraction of the time.  Is it so strange for publishers to 
conclude that the major benefactor of optical publishing would be 
pirates?  
The record industry has already concluded the same thing, which is why 
they have vehemently opposed DAT.  My own guess is that floptical drives 
may well sound the death nell not only for CD-ROM, but for much of the 
optical publishing industry, which right now exists almost exclusively to 
serve vertical markets.  In these markets, where you sell a few copies at 
high prices, piracy has devastating effects.  Imagine the damage that 
could be done, say if a volume of legal references were copied by 
virtually every student at a law school, who then took the pirated copies 
with them into their practices?  
You'd not only kill immediate sales, but sales of the product down the 
line.  The advent of eraseable optic media therefore shifts the development away 
from REFERENCE materials such as encyclopedias, to information with a 
TIME VALUE, such as stock price data.  



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