Saul Albert on Wed, 29 Sep 1999 13:15:04 +0200 (CEST) |
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Re: <nettime> letter from a publisher |
Dear Mr Cody I am sure you've received hundreds of unsolicited e-mails since Geert posted your letter on Nettime, and I hope you are doing yourself the service of reading through them. Geert is very deeply involved in the on-line writing practice of Nettime. It is part of his research and a real achievement that he has helped to establish such a remarkable thing. I call it a "thing" because, as you are probably aware if you are in the business of publishing such books as "Culture and Technology in the New Europe", a mailing list can be a meeting place, an agora, an argument, an improvised performance or a literary genre. One of the basic principles of Nettime is that all material is mutable and governed by a free distribution clause. The net is a medium, Mr Cody, and develops it's own rules for distribution and filtration. It does not rely on traditional publishing tactics and allows it's users and writer/publishers to find their most relevant audience. If Geert has something to say about Culture and Technology in the New Europe, then you ought to be broad minded enough to see that it must be contextualised by it's legal status. His writing is the product of his involvement in a culture that has it's own laws and methods for creating value and protecting a notion of "copyright". Readers of your book will no doubt appreciate it for it's qualities. It's broad distribution, it's material quality, it's context. Geert's work will be different in printed form, but not worthless as such, just because it is also available on the net. It is a different experience, reading printed matter, and one that will be paid for gladly. The efforts of proof readers, editors, graphic designers and printers are not unrecognised. I pay for those people's efforts because it's worth it for the results. Just because I can download the entire text of Plato's republic it doesn't mean I will toast my eyes reading it of the screen, or spend £28 on ink cartridges to print it out. I'll buy the penguin paperback edition for £5.00 and read it on the loo. Mr Cody, if Geert still agrees to let you use his piece once you recognise the need to contextualise his work legally and allow him to publish without the agreement, rest assured you have included something relevant, legally and (probably) textually. ---------- >From: Geert Lovink <geert@xs4all.nl> >To: nettime-l@bbs.thing.net >Subject: <nettime> letter from a publisher >Date: Fri, Sep 17, 1999, 1:42 pm > > From: William Cody <w.cody@elsevier.com> > To: geert@xs4all.nl > Subject: Re: contributor agreement -Reply > > Dear Dr. Lovink: You indicate that you will not sign the contributor > agreement, and insist that your work must be free for all to read. In that > case, please feel free to post your work on the world wide web, but we > will not be able to include your chapter in the book. Quite simply, if we > allowed everyone free and open access we would have nothing to sell and [ edited to save bits ] # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: majordomo@bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net