On Sun, 12 Oct 2003, Gilbert Lawrence wrote: > Subject: Copying Wisdom in Goan Proverbs > > Gilbert Lawrence responds: > Copying Goan books for the cyberspace is a good idea for "the greater > good" or is it? May I ask what the authors and publishers gain except > for may be a wider audience. Is this how we want to encourage others to > undertake the hard work of writing or researching a subject?
Sorry about this long-delayed reply... Gilbert, Just for the sake of discussion ... Free software (which can be freely copied, improved, shared... and even sold for a price) , free music and MIT's OpenCourseware is another model of doing business, if you like. Those who are willing to put out their work on the Net for sharing/distribution should be encouraged to do so. In the case of copyright-expired Goa books, anyone is free to copy these. Asian Educational Services, if one recalls the name right, is doing a lucrative business out of selling reprinted editions of books (usually over a century old) largely from the Indo-Portuguese domain. The discussion here relates to the *Gulab* published book on Konkani/Konknni proverbs. It is priced at Rs 15. AFAIK, it's out of print. Perhaps the publisher doesn't see reprinting this title as a priority, since a few or not-so-few nostalgic and globally-scattered Goanetters (don't take offence) doesn't constitute a viable market. Let us look at alternative forms of publishing, that stimulate writers into action. In our case, the journalism e-book was possible because 19 other journalists generously gave in -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Frederick Noronha (FN) | http://www.fredericknoronha.net Freelance Journalist | http://www.bytesforall.org http://goalinks.pitas.com | http://joingoanet.shorturl.com http://linuxinindia.pitas.com | http://www.livejournal.com/users/goalinks ------------------------------------------------------------------------- T: 0091.832.2409490 or 2409783 M: 0 9822 122436 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- ########################################################################## # Send submissions for Goanet to [EMAIL PROTECTED] # # PLEASE remember to stay on-topic (related to Goa), and avoid top-posts # # More details on Goanet at http://joingoanet.shorturl.com/ # # Please keep your discussion/tone polite, to reflect respect to others # ##########################################################################
