Extending the iTunes Store business model
As a perpetual student, photocopying journal articles and chapters of books is an utterly routine activity. I have to do this to stay up to date with the literature. But it seems to me that it's also a very wasteful way of getting my own copies of the literature I need. My photocopying money goes to the photocopier manufacturers, paper suppliers, library support staff, and so on. Note that the authors of any of these books and papers are never part of the equation.
Wouldn't it be a good thing if some fraction of my money made its way back to the author? This is of course what the music industry does, which Apple has of course revolutionised with the iTunes Store. So does anyone here think its desirable or even possible to extend the iTunes model to book/journal publishing?
I know that there are electronic journal distribution schemes going already, but they're mightily unattractive to the end user: they're really pitched at academic staff who have their costs covered by their respective universities. This situation is more than a little reminiscent of the digital music distribution market prior to the iTunes store, is it not?
In view of Apple's historic strength in the education market, this would be a natural avenue to explore, I would have thought.
As with the iTunes model, prices need to be low enough to not be prohibitive, and distribution needs to be seamless. The former item should be dealt with by negotiation with the publishers, as per iTunes. But distribution seems to be the sticking point. Perhaps we need Apple to do for ebooks what the iPod did for digital music players....
Wouldn't it be a good thing if some fraction of my money made its way back to the author? This is of course what the music industry does, which Apple has of course revolutionised with the iTunes Store. So does anyone here think its desirable or even possible to extend the iTunes model to book/journal publishing?
I know that there are electronic journal distribution schemes going already, but they're mightily unattractive to the end user: they're really pitched at academic staff who have their costs covered by their respective universities. This situation is more than a little reminiscent of the digital music distribution market prior to the iTunes store, is it not?
In view of Apple's historic strength in the education market, this would be a natural avenue to explore, I would have thought.
As with the iTunes model, prices need to be low enough to not be prohibitive, and distribution needs to be seamless. The former item should be dealt with by negotiation with the publishers, as per iTunes. But distribution seems to be the sticking point. Perhaps we need Apple to do for ebooks what the iPod did for digital music players....