tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4299483766711403391.post7741022340607604921..comments2012-11-17T13:06:48.976-08:00Comments on liberal arts library: staying afloatMark Dahlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09883637834846756347noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4299483766711403391.post-62433020064828882332011-02-25T11:48:41.167-08:002011-02-25T11:48:41.167-08:00Good points. I wouldn't necessarily describe ...Good points. I wouldn't necessarily describe the publishing industry's primary problem as an intentional inertia, although that is a factor. Two other big ones:<br /><br />1. Reinvesting infrastructure from P to E is expensive and many of the houses don't have the capital to get it wrong, or to invest in anything that changes drastically within the next 12-18 months. They are waiting to see what happens with proprietary formats and standards and how the marketplace reacts to the iPad, Kindle, and Nook before hedging their bets on anything. Given the notorious instability of the e-book industry and the speed at which things are moving, I can't say that their hesitancy is unwarranted.<br /><br />2. The catastrophe of the music and film industry and their inability to stop piracy, particularly offshore. The decline of the dollar and the abysmal overall reputation of our economy has taken away whatever small amount of clout the U.S. entertainment industry had with the Asian markets, where many of the popular pirating sites, like MegaUpload, are based. Torrents are even worse. The U.S. made some headway with Pirate Bay in Sweden but this appears to be back and growing larger (see http://thepiratebay.org/legal for some choice examples). I'm already seeing tons of e-book torrents and files floating around, stripped of their DRM and posted on blog after blog. And not just recent mainstream things either. I actually spotted Patrice Petro's JOYLESS STREETS the other day, one of my German Expressionist texts in college. And if that's floating around--an academic monograph from the late 80s--I can only imagine. I suspect that this is one factor in the release delay of e-versions.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com