Guardian blogger suggests piracy

Bobbie Johnson has suggested that more piracy would encourage a shift to digital publishing. Only on his blog at the moment. Maybe in print tomorrow.

I agree that the promotion for Kindle, Sony Reader etc usually fails to mention the amount of public domain, creative commons etc content that is available. A "free CD" with Charles Dickens etc. is only a taster. Devices that cost a couple of hundred pounds need a story to support them. The ePUB format is based on open standards so should be easy to create. Not quite so yet but this could change.

What will happen with journal articles in Humanities / Social Science? Still very expensive to download a single article from the British Library. University Librbaries used to allow casual visitors to read hard copy but now it is all hidden behind a user id and password. The text around Business Schools is often available somewhere else as a draft or a blog. This connects more easily with practitioners so is more widely read anyway. At least that is my impression. I seem to be going a bit off topic for this blog but that is a good sign. The communications industry is relevant for learning.