When I proposed a well-stocked national digital library system in the 1990s in Computerworld, I suggested a mix of TV-set taxes, general revenue and subscription fees determined by income.
A distributed network of librarians in many cities, I said, could develop and manage the TeleRead collection, and authors could be paid based on download counts. In my book NetWorld I advocated the use of trusted third parties to preserve the privacy of library patrons. Other private companies could do audits–anything to reduce the Big Brotherish threat from Washington while maintaining the integrity of the system.
Since I made the orignal TeleRead proposal, many others have taken a whack at the issue of fair compensation, such as Harvard’s William Fisher III; and among the latest to do so is Philip Dorrell in New Zealand, author of a self-published paper called Published Digital Information is a Public Good: The Case for Voted Compensation. I don’t agree with all that Philip says there, but his paper is well worth a look. If nothing else, it’s always good to see others mentioning the T word.
To me, tax-supported content would be acceptable if (1) privately owned publishers, bookstores and distributors still mattered, a “must” to assure checks on the power of the librarians and guarantee continued freedom of expression, (2) provisions existed for dealing with special interest groups’ efforts to manipulate the system, (3) local libraries played a major role rather than D.C. imposing its cultural tastes on the entire country, and (4) the system were bloody-more efficent than the present mess, under which less than 15 percent of a typical public library budget is going for actual content. Remember, the tens of billions that Americans spend on books and other content are just a speck of the Gross Domestic Product of around eleven trillion.
Product-specific taxes: Not necessarily the only way to go
Of course, when I proposed TeleRead in the early ’90s, Americans were not shelling out millions on recordable CDs and computers, one reason I was thinking of a TV tax instead. Besides, I later dropped the product-specific tax idea in favor of a reliance on general revenue. I’d rather see the burden spread around. A means to cost-justify this approach would be to encourage use of tablet-style computers–the very kind this program inherently would promote–for tax forms and other paperwork reduction in both the public and private sectors. Yes, regular desktop computers and other portable equipment could still be used.
A variant of the original TeleRead approach would be to create a national digital library fund through which local libraries could choose vendors in the OverDrive vein–with an important requirement being the use of nonproprietary formats, the avoidance of expensive proproprietary DRM, and limitations on the the percentage that such companies could collect.
Copyright modernization
One way or another, given the famous savage inequalities of our libraries, not just our schools, and given the tyranny of powerful copyright interests able to buy laws, we badly need to modernize our antiquated copyright system here in the States.
If we cherish the basic idea of copyright, which I do, then we should update the concept or see it fade away, which it will if the copyright interests alienate enough voters.
Good even for copyright interests–if their content is up to snuff
Ironically content providers themselves would be among the main beneficiaries since this change would place their interests close to those of their customers. Of course, their content would have to stand on its own merits, as opposed to who’d signed the best business deals. Simply put, it’s time for content providers to halt their battles against schools and libraries and lobby with them for a workable solution.
Meanwhile a good first step would be for the Bush administration to stop using trade agreements to bully other countries into replicating America’s existing mistakes, and to help them set up well-stocked national digital library systems of their own.
Xanadu vs. the tax-funded approach: Some historical content:
But back to the issue of the tax-supported approach. Ted Nelson’s Xanadu vision didn’t involve the use of tax money. And others’ visions of “information utilities,” as far as I know, did not (I’ll welcome evidence of earlier plans with references to use of tax money–beyond one little question in Martin Greenberger’s The Computers of Tomorrow). Nelson envisioned a system of private franchise, just like a hamburger chain. I myself would prefer a more open, public approach.
One other problem with Xanadu is that it could well menace the concept of fair use since the use of content would be tracked so closely. A librarian-oriented system like TeleRead would be far more likely to have fair use built in than would Nelson’s private approach or the direction in which copyright law is presently headed.
What’s really disturbing is the possiblity someday of copyrights on ideas rather than expression, a criticism made in the past against Nelson. Combine that with Jack Valenti’s passion for eternal copyright short of a day, and, Houston, we have a problem.
