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Kevin Kelly's blog posting



Interesting blog post by Kevin Kelly, who has a certain notoriety as one of the founding editors of Wired magazine. Kelly makes the case that (a) (not very originally) the Internet is a "copy machine" and, hence, copyright enforcement of any kind is impossible, and (b) (far more usefully) there are a number of ways to monetize free content, for which he provides a typology. Most of the examples, as you would expect, come from pop music, but there is application to academic publishing as well--because, in the end, media is media. I don't think I have seen this typology bettered.

Kelly does not take on any of the hard questions (Must a copy machine *always* make copies? Must a gun *always* be fired?), but for those resigned to a future of open access literature, the post prompts some thinking about business strategy.

Here is the link:

http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2008/01/better_than_fre.php

The name of the blog, "The Technium," is apparently offered without irony.

Joe Esposito