Raw Matter

Ross Anderson's Security Engineering (2001, Wiley) is now free for download. This is a Good Thing™ by itself, but Ross Anderson has an interesting comment on making it available, I think:

I don't expect to lose money by making this book available for free: more people will read it, and those of you who find it useful will hopefully buy a copy. After all, a proper book is half the size and weight of 300-odd sheets of laser-printed paper in a ring binder. (My colleague David MacKay found that putting his book on coding theory online actually helped its sales. Book publishers are getting the message faster than the music or software folks.)

While I am all for more music and software to be free for download (and possibly redistribution and modification, too, in true Open Source/Free Software spirit), I think the point he is making while not fully connecting the dots here is that in the music and software business, there is no big added value of getting a physical CD compared to the download. In comparison, as he correctly points out, the printed and bound book is just more comfortable to read.

How to fix that? Software is already moving towards open source software coupled with companies making money off training, support and engineering, so I guess that leaves us with the question of what the media industry should do. Concentrate on live performances? Sell CDs with really informative booklets instead of the usual ad for other CDs from the same publisher? I don't know the answer here, honestly, but I certainly think that book publishers have it a bit easier here.