Another strong argument for the Long Tail

This excellent article, recommended by BoingBoing is a strong argument for the Long Tail, even though it doesn't specifically mention it. Making Light: The life expectancies of books

Think of all those books, in print for the blink of an eye, unavailable, lost, buried. Why? Greed and stupidity. The concept of the Long Tail tells us that every book ever written would be read by someone, if they easily available and inexpensive.

But publishers are greedy and they want things to never expire from copyright. They might be able to squeeze another nickel out of it. And here comes the stupidity part: if copyright periods were reasonable, they could make untold billions. That's right, billions.

Imagine a system where you could go to a site, say Amazon, and order any book, not just those currently in print. For a small fee, say $.99, just like buying a song from iTunes, you could download ANY book ever printed.

How many books have been printed in human history? Now, multiply that times $.99. Over what period? Probably everything ever printed would be purchased every year. I'm betting the turns would be more often than that. Billions and billions.

What's fair for copyright? As an author, I would be happy for my lifetime plus 25 years. That means I would profit from anything I created, and my heirs would too, and the world would profit forever after.

What about corporations? Here's my radical statement for the day: corporations are not people. They are legal shelters and agreements. Fuck 'em.

long tail, copyright, publishing