"We are the press. You know our power." - Editorial

In the Middle Ages, those who would develop a symphony or a painting or a book of poetry sought a patron--a rich person who, for whatever reason, would support the arts. The patrons chose whom to support and greatly influenced the products of that support. It is no coincidence that Michelangelo dealt with religious themes, for the Church was a huge source of patronage. The Church also controlled the making of books, in that most were created by hand in monasteries. Not only were topics carefully controlled, but also production costs were enormous, so only the very wealthy could own books.

Mr. Gutenberg, of course, changed all that. Today books cost a few dollars and the marketplace determines topics. If you'll buy it, someone will probably publish it. Movies are also now mass marketed, and for about the price of a book or even less, you can buy a copy of a multimillion-dollar film. And whereas forty years ago, a few moguls decided what you would see and when you would see it, today you choose from thousands of titles to view at your leisure.

The advent of the Internet is having an impact not unlike the printing press and the VCR. It is now possible to publish and distribute almost any type of material for pennies. You may be one of the thousands who copy all of the newest movies from the Internet without paying a dime, or one of the millions who copy songs without making payments.

You are almost certainly one of the masses who equate the Internet with "free." Virtually all consumers have resisted paying for anything on the Internet and yet have expected to find everything there. They even object to many forms of advertising that support free distribution on the Internet. In other words, there is no viable economic model for Internet-distributed materials, and most of them are free, even if they are not supposed to be.

Publishers have responded to this development just as the Church in the Middle Ages responded to the printing press. Well, they haven't burned or beheaded transgressors, but they have aggressively sought legal protection, even winning most cases ala Napster.

If you know your history, you know that the Church lost. Today anybody can publish any form of the Bible they want, anywhere they want. Today, though, few people claim to be writing additional books of the Bible. It may be due to a lack of inspired writers, or it may be due to a lack of royalty potential. The fact is that someone has to pay people to produce information and art--few people with talent have the resources to do it otherwise. If consumers won't pay, there must be a new model. Patrons? Perhaps. Governments certainly have the interest and the resources to subsidize such things, and many do. This model is developing rapidly.

I wonder what the world will be like when governments play this role and determine what gets published? Oh wait, I forgot--I could see it now by looking at textbooks that get adopted in Texas. I promise never to "rip-and-burn" again.

TECHNOS: Quarterly for Education and Technology (ISSN 1060-5649) is published four times a year by TECHNOS Press of the Agency for Instructional Technology (ALT). Copyright 2002 by AIT. All rights reserved. Yearly subscription price is $28 ($32 international); library, $24.

* Jean Giraudout, from The Madwoman of Chaillot (1945)

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