Friday, June 6, 2008

Krugman on Digital Content, Intellectual Property, and E-books


Link to Paul Krugman's June 6 New York Times column, "Bits, Bands and Books".
Quote: According to a report in The Times, the buzz at this year’s BookExpo America was all about electronic books. Now, e-books have been the coming, but somehow not yet arrived, thing for a very long time. (There’s an old Brazilian joke: “Brazil is the country of the future — and always will be.” E-books have been like that.) But we may finally have reached the point at which e-books are about to become a widely used alternative to paper and ink.

Amazon's Jeff Bezos has certainly been pushing us in this direction, but I become skeptical about an e-book tipping point when he won't reveal sales figures for the Kindle.

A business view from Business Week, October 27, 2007 ("The Future of E-Books")
Quote: Standard & Poor's thinks e-books could have the strongest future in higher education since today's students are more adept and versatile in their use of multimedia. Electronic textbooks can allow for greater interaction and can be tailored to fit each course.

No comments:

Post a Comment