Free: The Future of a Radical Price
p2pnet news view P2P:- Wired Editor Chris Anderson first book, The Long Tail, “has been required reading in our office since day one and today we’re extremely excited to be working with him to bring another first to Spotify,” says, well, Spotify.
Starting today Anderson’s new book, Free: The Future of a Radical Price, will be, “made available,” says Spotify.
But only to UK users. Which is passing strange since Anderson is an American.
“Personally narrated by Anderson, Free considers a brave new world where the old economic certainties are being challenged by a growing flood of free goods – newspapers, DVDs, T-shirts, phones, even holiday flights,” says the story, adding:
“The audiobook supports today’s hardback launch of Free, published by Random House.”
But of course, Free isn’t free. Listed at $26.99, Amazon is flogging it for $17.81 .
Which is also passing strange because it’s all about how companies get rich by charging nothing.
It’s, “essentially an extended elaboration of Stewart Brand’s famous declaration that ‘information wants to be free’,” says a review in The New Yorker.
“This is the first audiobook we’ve ever included in our catalogue,” says Spotify. “We’re going to trial it, see what people think and who knows, maybe this is the start of something new for us.”
Spotify - Chris Anderson’s Free, the first audiobook on Spotify, July 2, 2009
The New Yorker – Priced to Sell, July 5, 2009
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July 3rd, 2009 at 1:55 pm
Entertainment kartels are constantly whining how they can’t compete with free.
But there are at least eight other qualities that let your product win over free alternative.
I was reading the Coding horror blog and found this:
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001097.html
July 3rd, 2009 at 2:00 pm
On the page linked from Coding horror,
http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2008/01/better_than_fre.php
this caught my attention:
”
When copies are free, you need to sell things which can not be copied.
Well, what can’t be copied?
There are a number of qualities that can’t be copied. Consider “trust.” Trust cannot be copied. You can’t purchase it. Trust must be earned, over time. It cannot be downloaded. Or faked. Or counterfeited (at least for long). If everything else is equal, you’ll always prefer to deal with someone you can trust. So trust is an intangible that has increasing value in a copy saturated world.
”
And here is an excerpt from the trusted computing video:
Trust
Trust is the personal believe in correctness of something.
It is the deep conviction of truth and rightness and cannot be enforced
If you gain someones trust
you have established an interpersonal relationship
based on communication, shared values and experiences.
Trust always depends on mutuality.
July 4th, 2009 at 10:22 am
Kevin Kelly trips up when he says “When copies are free, you need to sell things which can not be copied.”
Kevin certainly understands the Internet and the folly of attempting to protect the price of copies via anachronistic copyright legislation.
Unfortunately, his conclusion is grievously malformed. He should have said “When copies of things are free, you need to sell the things, not the copies”. It doesn’t matter whether things can be copied, unless you were hoping to profit from a state granted privilege of exclusive sale/manufacture of copies, such as patent or copyright.
For example, it’s quite possible to sell GPL software (free as in speech, not beer) despite the fact that it can be freely copied (without charge). The consequence is not that people give up selling software, but that people give up selling copies of it (except added value affixed thereto).
This doesn’t invalidate the many things that Kelly suggests can also be sold, but it remains perfectly possible to sell digital art despite the market for digital copies becoming quickly saturated.
The value is in the art, not the copy.
That the instantaneous diffusion of the Internet may devalue copies does not consequently devalue the art so copied. The art and its value remains unaffected.
The notion that the value of art resides in each of its copies is an illusion created entirely by copyright.
“When art may be freely copied at negligible cost, sell the art – not copies”
Thus, sell the blockbuster movie – do not try and sell copies. People still value the movie just as much as ever, but the market for copies is over.
Copyright is over.