Theos-Talk Archives (May 2005 Message tt00525)

Dear Ramadoss, friends,

I have many times seen your message advocating that instead of paper and 
ink publishing, everything should be instead published on the Internet. 
I have been giving this matter considerable thought and I agree with 
many of the ideals behind this notion, such as:

1. Making literature available to those who cannot afford it

2. A potentially larger reading audience (maybe).

3.It would not cost the reader anything to access the information. 
However, there are other issues which I have not seen you address, and 
would appreciate it if you and/or others would address them:

1. Reciprosity: There is a prevailing attitude, at least in Western 
cultures, that if something is free, it must not have any value. I have 
experimented with this and am convinced that this is basically true. 
When I started an experimental journal, I began by giving away copies at 
gatherings etc. in the hopes of gaining subscribers. No one 
subscribed. I changed my tactic and started putting out "Display 
copies" of the journal for people to look at, people began pulling out 
their check books.

2. Compensation for labor: Whether it be the production of a Journal, 
or the compilation of a book like the Blavatsky collected letters, there 
is involved hundreds, and sometimes thousands of hours of combined labor 
to put the work into a publishable form. For instance, in the case of 
the Blavatsky letters, in order for the letters to have been correctly 
prepared for publication, time was required to access the letters, 
transcribe them, check them for accuracy, research the historical 
background of each letter, and to compose the needed background 
information. 
3. Compensation for actual costs: Even a not-for-profit organization 
has costs. If a book is to be published in the traditional way, one 
must sell the book at a price which will recover the printing and labor 
costs, plus a little more so that there will be money to finance the 
next project. If the work is the be given away over the Internet, there 
are still costs involved in creating and maintaining of the website.

4. Intellectual property: In the case of the publication of original 
information, one may spend years years researching a subject, and 
thousands of dollars in incidental expences involved in getting this 
information. If the information is freely published on the Internet for 
anyone to use, how with the researcher recover his/her expences and time 
invested which could have been used to make money for other charitable 
projects? Further, going back to the reciprosity argument, would the 
information be as valued and as appreciated it it was available at no 
cost? 
One more comment: I have been googling all over the Internet for some 
years now and have been quite amazed at the amount of information (and 
mis-information) one can find on any subject. Much of this information 
on the one hand, comes from books which are now in public domain, or on 
the other, people who like to talk out of their .... I have also seen 
a lot of student's papers on different subjects. What I rarely (if at 
all) see, is quality publishible research and other such materials from 
known scholars in any given field. Brill academic publishers still have 
no problem selling their original scholarly publications at very hight 
prices--a thin volume of a hundred pages will sell for over $120.00 a 
copy. This kind of scholarship does not appear on the Internet. 
Jerry






MKR wrote:

> Lot of time effort and money can be saved by using Internet. Compile the 
> competing Vol I and upload it to Internet. You will also have much wider 
> and larger audience who will read the material since it would not cost 
> anything for the reader other than time to download. Just a simplistic thought.
>
> mkr
>
> At 12:22 PM 05/19/05 +0000, kpauljohnson wrote:
>
>
> > Hey,
> >
> > Having just discovered this publication this month, I'm intrigued by
> > the current cause celebre. Turn to page 21 for information about
> > an "H.P. Blavatsky Defense Fund" being established in order to
> > publish a competing Volume I of the Letters of H.P. Blavatsky, the
> > Adyar version of which ULTers confidently assert contains twenty
> > forgeries.