when i was a child my grandaunt told me the story of a demon who lived in old banyan tree. he would swoop down on unwary travellers, but the travellers always ran away. one day, one traveller could not run, and the demon stopped him. he said, sit down under the tree, and learn everything i know. that is the only way i can stop being a demon. i was turned into a demon for refusing to teach what i knew. i want to be freed of that curse. umashankar
i have published my poems. read (or buy) at http://stores.lulu.com/umashankar > Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2011 07:06:38 -0700 > From: [email protected] > To: [email protected]; [email protected] > Subject: Re: [Sursound] [ot] another patent > > > RD's analysis was very interesting. But about "Informantion wants to be > free": People certainly deserve protection for the value of their > intellectual work. But greed transforms this plausible principle > often enough into abuse. > > Let me give an example: Scientific research papers and textbooks. > Publishers in the past had to charge money for journals, just to pay for > the cost of distriubtion and physical production of the journal in the > first place. Same with books. > Now along come changes. First of all,technology made the things > cheaper to produce, > for example because authors supply not typed material that needs type > setting > but computer ready copy where the type-setting is just a matter of pushing > a button. Second, the distribution becomes free. > Moreover, older papers and books are free to the publisher-the publisher > already owns them. > > So what ought to happen? Books ought to get cheaper, the authors ought to > get more of what they do cost(the authors are now doing some of the work > that formerly was done by the publisher), and old papers ought to be free > entirely on line. > > Did this happen? Well, somewhat. Some older parts of mathematical journals > are free on > line now. But not all. The AES is charging for old papers on line and so > is Springer for example for mathematical journal articles, even old ones. > > And books are not cheaper at all. Textbooks for example are a deliberate > money scam, with texts on ancient unchanging subjects like calculus going > through frequent multiple editions with only meaningless changes to make > sure that > used copies cannot be used by students. This is a deliberate attempt to > work the students over and extract money for nothing. (The changes are > trivial but are such that > students can no longer use an old eidtion, e.g., changes in the numbering > and details of homework exercises). > > Publishers in short are being greedy, as are textbook authors. In a big > way. Well, it is the publishers' last > hurrah. Soon they will cease to exist and they deserve to. In a way, that > is too bad. I > like books. But many publishers are running a scam on the public. They > deserve the fate that will soon be upon them. > > I was looking the other day for a cheap old calculus book to use as a > text. The subject of > couse and also how it is taught have not changed in the last fifty years > or so so I figured I could find an old cheap textbook still in print but > reissued cheap in paperback that I could use instead of asking the already > financially stressed students(suffering from the collapse of public > funding for public education in the USA) to spend nearly $200 on a > new and unnecessarily expensive textbook. > > This search has failed , so far. Such is the greed of people that even > books by authors long dead are still being offered, forty years later, at > full price. The authors are no longer even around but their grandchildren > (or whoever constitutes their estate) are still trying to make money > out of books written in the 1960s. > > Fie upon them. The authors of calculus books were in those days, befor the > thing became an industry, were not even making a living out of writing the > books. They were taking time from being university professors, already (at > that time) well paid and trying to make more money. This is all quite > contrary to the proper academic spirit. > > Information really ought to be free, in many cases. The opposite approach > serves only to entrench the culture that says that only the rich have > access to much of anything. > > Robert > _______________________________________________ > Sursound mailing list > [email protected] > https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/sursound -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/private/sursound/attachments/20110922/cbfa61a1/attachment.html> _______________________________________________ Sursound mailing list [email protected] https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/sursound
