Tim O’Reilly über Filesharing und mehr

Tim O’Reilly, Verleger und Vordenker, der unter anderem den Begriff „Web2.0“ in die Welt gesetzt hat, hat Forbes ein interessantes Interview gegeben.

Für den Wandel von Print zu Web zieht er den Kartenmarkt als Beispiel für das heran, was viele Bereiche ereilt oder noch ereilen wird:

The print map has largely gone away—certainly not for everyone, and the industry has continued in some form—but online mapping has become the norm. And in the process, the form of what we expect from maps has completely changed. They tell you where to go. They include directions. They tell you where the nearest gas station is or, if you’re using a location-based product like FourSquare they tell you there’s a merchant nearby that has deals for you.

Das Beispiel deutet bereits auf die richtige Herangehensweise, wie man an den aktuellen Wandel zum Beispiel als Buchverlag herantritt:

So the question we need to be asking ourselves about e-books is, are there similar transformations that we can expect in what we think of as the book and it becoming electronic.

Über den Wandel im Buchverlagswesen:

My entire class, if you like, of computer book publishers were all self-published authors who then extended their services to other people. O’Reilly, Peachpit, Ventana Press, Waite Group Press—we all emerged about the same time in the mid-eighties and all of the others were eventually bought; we’re the only one that’s still around as an independent publisher. But all of them were self-published authors that turned into publishers. And I will guarantee you that the next crop of publishers will be successful self-published e-book authors who start offering services to other authors.

Was man immer wieder beobachten kann ist, wie vielen Unternehmen es schwer fällt, die eigene Rolle auf einer abstrakteren Ebene zu sehen und zu formulieren. O’Reilly ist einer der wenigen, der das für sich und sein Unternehmen kann:

At O’Reilly the way we think about our business is that we’re not a publisher; we’re not a conference producer; we’re a company that helps change the world by spreading the knowledge of innovators.

Am interessantesten ist vielleicht die Aussage von O’Reilly über ‚Piraterie‘ und warum sie bei O’Reilly Media auf DRM verzichten:

Let’s say my goal is to sell 10,000 copies of something. And let’s say that if by putting DRM in it I sell 10,000 copies and I make my money, and if by having no DRM 100,000 copies go into circulation and I still sell 10,000 copies. Which of those is the better outcome? I think having 100,000 in circulation and selling 10,000 is way better than having just the 10,000 that are paid for and nobody else benefits.

Oft wird bei Filesharing nur das Trittbrettfahrer-Problem betrachtet. Ignoriert werden die Vorteile, die sich aus einer größeren Verbreitung ergeben können:

In a similar way, the exposure that you get from free content actually helps drive visibility and awareness for people who are unknown. So we’ve always sort of taken the approach that on balance it’s OK, and we’ve also taken the approach that it’s more important to establish social norms around payment. The way that you do that is by honoring people and respecting how they act, people pay us because they know that if we don’t get paid we don’t do what we do.

Das komplette Interview ist lesenswert.

(via)