Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 14, No. 165.
Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
<http://www.princeton.edu/~mccarty/humanist/>
<http://www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/humanist/>
[1] From: Adrian Miles <adrian.miles@bowerbird.rmit.edu.au> (35)
Subject: Re: 14.0151 scary story for publishers
[2] From: "Norman D. Hinton" <hinton@springnet1.com> (13)
Subject: Re: 14.0162 King's publishing venture
[3] From: "Chris McMahon" <pharmakeus@hotmail.com> (16)
Subject: Re: 14.0162 King's publishing venture
--[1]------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Fri, 11 Aug 2000 07:16:07 +0100
From: Adrian Miles <adrian.miles@bowerbird.rmit.edu.au>
Subject: Re: 14.0151 scary story for publishers
At 20:49 +0100 7/8/2000, Humanist Discussion Group wrote:
>The new Stephen King novel, published on the Web with a request that at
>least 75% of downloaders send the author $1 for the privilege, may well
>change the way all sorts of intellectual property is marketed, says R. Polk
>Wagner, a Penn law school professor. "Traditional intellectual property
>theory holds that producers (that is, King) won't produce unless they have
>the ability to restrict the access of others to their goods. Here King is
>doing two significant things: First, he's only asking 75 percent of the
>people to pay him, thereby engaging in an unusual form of price
>discrimination where only those who feel the moral pressure to contribute
>will do so. That is, King acknowledges that not everyone will pay. Second,
>he's explicitly asking people to pay for his future services. The
>traditional theory of intellectual property would not consider this
>possibility. Classic intellectual property theory holds that producers must
>get paid for the works they've already created, not works they've yet to
>produce." The result could be troubling for publishers, who depend on the
>sacredness of intellectual property for their livelihood. "If Stephen King,
>one of the 'poster boys' of the intellectual property industry, doesn't
>need intellectual property (protection) anymore, what does that mean for
>intellectual property generally?" (Knowledge@Wharton 3 Aug 2000)
>http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1007-200-2419316.html
It's called shareware and has been a viable commercial internet model from
well before the current dot com madness. In fact this is the commercial
model that largely supported the software development that has allowed the
internet to develop to the state that it currently finds itself in. The
difference with King is that writing is now being considered in an
analogous way, and that he's publicly relying on his ability to seduce his
readers to maintain the project.
adrian miles
--lecturer in cinema studies and new media rmit university. 61 03 9925 3157 bowerbird.rmit.edu.au/adrian/ hypertext theory engine http://bowerbird.rmit.edu.au:8080/ adrian.miles@rmit.edu.au
--[2]------------------------------------------------------------------ Date: Fri, 11 Aug 2000 07:16:41 +0100 From: "Norman D. Hinton" <hinton@springnet1.com> Subject: Re: 14.0162 King's publishing venture
> > R. Polk Wagner wrote: > >[Stephen King's] explicitly asking people to pay for his future services. The > >traditional theory of intellectual property would not consider this > >possibility. Classic intellectual property theory holds that producers must > >get paid for the works they've already created, not works they've yet to > >produce." > > Hasn't Mr. Wagner ever heard of an advance? I believe Mark Twain sold some > of his works by advance subscription through canvassers.
A practice begun by Dr. Samuel Johnson, well before "classical intellectual property theory", a newcomer on the writer's horizon.
--[3]------------------------------------------------------------------ Date: Fri, 11 Aug 2000 07:18:43 +0100 From: "Chris McMahon" <pharmakeus@hotmail.com> Subject: Re: 14.0162 King's publishing venture
Personally, as someone who thinks that there is no real problem with Smithian/Maxist economic theory, except that it has not been fathomed yet, I too was taken aback when told that King was doing something that violated it's rules. The more I return to Marx's concepts, the more I find that they are more than adequate to the demands of postmodernity, globalised economies, dotcom-mania, and so forth. Futurity is, and always has been, of the nature of all capital investments. Having said that, it makes good sense to expand Marx's thinking via Bourdieu, whose study of "symbolic capital" develops Marxian thinking into the *artistic field(s)* in important ways. For example, I do not think King is going to make TOO MUCH cash on this venture. But he is rich enough not to worry about that. Q: What to get the man who has everything? A: Honour (e.g. "cool"). So what he is investing in here, what he wants, is symbolic capital (specifically, cool-capital). Thus King can afford to experiment in the cyber-Aquarian new age of deregulated publishing. And so doing makes him look cool in a shaggy utopianist, embracing the-possibilities-of-cyberspace way.
:) Chris
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