News from the Administrator...

[b***@public.gmane.org]

What a useful exchange!

My impression is that when we write to a public list, what we say
enters the public domain and is free for anyone to read and copy. A
politician giving a speech is in much the same situation.

There are, of course, ways to copyright our products, and copyright
imposes some limitation on how how our productions can be used: use
must not be at the expense of producers. I don't know that copyright
prevents anywone from simply reading what is written, however, when
there is no real or potential commercial interest involved.

On the other hand, while I claim no legal expertise at all in such
matters, there seem to be precedents for implied copyright. Years ago,
jazz composers used to mail themselves a copy of their works and leave
the returned envelope unopened. Apparently if the issue came up in
court, the envelop's contents could be used to establish priority of
creation.

So, while I suspect Jon's agreement with Chuck, explicit or not, may
not have been necessary to protect Chuck's copyright, I'm not sure
that such an implicit copyright would prevent making available works
already in the public domain by creating an archive for them so that
they could be reread.

Does copyright have to do with commercial law? If so,it is designed
only to prevent commercial loss, or does it aim to protect privacy?
Surely one can't insist on privacy for works already in the public
domain, and the archive is not a commercial venture.

Fair use doctrine seems to limit the commerical protection in
situations were it would be difficult to compensate authors and where
doing so would hinder education or scientific advance. The law in
recent years has limited fair use doctrine and seems to extend
copywrite beyond mere questions of commercial interest, but I wonder
if that legal trend might not ultimately prove mistaken.

I see the archive as in some way fair use in the sense that it is a
convenience for people who already in principle had access to the
material, and Chuck has not implied he has any commercial interest in
his contributions. This seems a cloudy issue in law and is presently
under debate. But I wonder if it is the consensus of this forum that
our communcations, particularly our contributions to a dialog, are
implicitly commecial or do they become commercial only when we tag our
contributions as such? Some people do this, incidentally, but it is
nearly always in connection with an extended formal presentation of
some kind, not part of an informal dialog.

So let me pose a set of questions:

1. Does an archive of documents that are already in the public domain
enjoy any more or less protection in law than the documents it holds?
In this case, I assume Chuck meant his original submissions to be
accessible for reading and printing out if the reader found that
useful.

2. Copyright is national law, and while there are efforts toward
international agreements, that seems still off in the
distance. Internet, on the other hand, is inherently
international. Does this privilege an on-line archive in some way?
There are countries that have shut down embarassing web sites, and
there are powerful countries that have brought pressure to bear on
other countries to close down web sites they find politically
inconvenient, but ultimately, it is impossible to close or control an
Internet resource and therefore to enforce copyright law?

3. In a digital era, documents can be reproduced perfectly and in
great quantity at little cost, Illicit video and audio tapes and computer
software apparently threaten to become more common than legitimate
copies. The music industry has been forced to rethink its commercial
model. Does all this imply that the use of copyright to protect authors'
commercial interests will soon become obsolete? As in my previous
point, is a hopeless defense of an obsolete model to protect authors
standing in the way of developing alternatives?

4. Then, as for the moral dimension, is the widest possible diffusion
of works of artistic or literary creation inherently democratic and
most conducive to social welbeing? If so, does that mean that
copyright is inherently pernicious and some other model is needed to
support and protect authors? I assume that if society benefits from
artistic and scientific productions, then society ought to subsidize
the creators of those productions. Otherwise, only the relatively
advantaged will have access to what is so necessary for personal
development.

Haines Brown

[b***@public.gmane.org]

Thanks for the helpful replies. But of course, that leads to further
questions.

Wait. The archives of this list are NOT in the public domain.
As to the specific question, what? ... sorry, I'm lost.

So what is being in the "public domain" mean? I had naively assumed
that any text that is freely accessible and not copyrighted was in the
public domain.

If web sites have been closed down, then it seems to me that it is NOT
impossible to close down or control internet resources. I'd say copyright
law can be enforced most of the times. Should, could, would, -- who knows
until you do it.

My sense of the cases is that a powerful government (Germany in one
case) or a government associated with a monopolistic control over
means of communication (satellite in the case of Serbian Internet
connection), can cut someone off. Of course private individuals can
also cut a site off by bombing it (as happened recently with Federal
agencies). At the same time, there are cases where any web site
persecuted in one country pops up in ten others within hours (the
German case, again). So if there is monopolistic control over all
means of communication, there's no doubt that the monopolies will use
it to promote their own version of truth by blocking alternative
versions. This has clearly been the case so far.

Will the world's means of communciation become monopolized? I don't
know, and I don't know that all such monopolies would support
copyright law. Will monopolies tend to swallow each other up into a
giant monopoly? Perhaps so, for big wealth can always swallow smaller
wealth. Will the result be the protection of copyright? I suppose so
if it's to the interest of the monopoly to do so. But I'm more
concerned about the loss of the freedom of expression that inevitably
results than I am about copyright. Also, won't this limit cultural
artifacts to the wealthy western consumer? An alternative might be
publically owned means of communication, which could also protect
copyright, but I don't want to get into a political debate here.

You doubt that the reproducibility of digital data threatens
copyright. Let me offer a hypothetical scenario to elict a more
specific response. Suppose as a teacher I objected to my students
spending $50 for a textbook and so I arranged for someone in some
unnamed country to scan it and put the text on line. I then tell my
students to use their computers to access the text. OK, my students
are happy; I'm happy. But the publisher who fails to get the profit
(the main point of the copyright law in this case, for most textbook
authors actually loose money if one takes into account the time they
took to write). I assume the web site can't be shut down and I assume
I can't be prosecuted because I didn't in fact create the resource.

Now, since everyone except the publisher benefits, the idea catches
on. All textbooks become available as illicit copies available on web
sites outside the reach of the law. The authors discover that the
publisher no longer dictates what's in their texts, and so more and
more texts are made feely available on line. That's already
happening. For example, one of the best Java texts is that of Bruce
Eckel, and the entire text can be freely downloaded from on
line. True, the book suports his income from other sources, but no one
sets out to make money writing a textbook anyway. They do so because
they want a text that conforms to their vision or they want an
academic promotion. While academic prejudice resists accepting online
tests as peer reviewed evidence of merit, that will undoubtedly come.

Post by b***@public.gmane.org
4. Then, as for the moral dimension, is the widest possible diffusion
of works of artistic or literary creation inherently democratic and
most conducive to social welbeing?

You are making some leaps pal. I wish, as for more democratic and such, but
hardly the truth. You are running a few hundred years ahead of the real
world, sad to say.

Point understood. However, history is not a process of constant
change, but occurs by leaps and bounds. That future (or some other)
may be upon us much more quickly than we assume (decades, not
centuries). If that's a possibility, should we not take that
possibility into account? Also, hypothetical futures, like utopias,
offer a way to generate values for action today, not because such
action will lead immediately to that desired future, but because a
sense of direction is important. The world may not see real democracy
for a long time, but that does not keep me from trying to futher it
the best I can.

Post by b***@public.gmane.org
I assume that if society benefits from
artistic and scientific productions, then society ought to subsidize
the creators of those productions. Otherwise, only the relatively
advantaged will have access to what is so necessary for personal
development.

Me thinks you assume too much. =;0

Maybe. But perhaps my assumption is based on an inference from actual
trends. The question is, do the people of the world today have
effective access to the cultural products necessary to their
development? I don't think so. Even my local high school lost
accredidation because it ceased to educate. The only kids in my city
who get a decent high school education are those whose parents are
wealthy enough to send their youngters to private schools. Of course,
that I live the city with the second lowest per capita income in the
US may have something to do with it, but I think I can project this to
a world level. However, the story gets more complicated, for market
forces at the global level tend to displace local cultural traditions
with the cultural trash from the west.

well be, but our leverage to changes as to even the hints at what you ask
are perhaps beyond our united grasp in outcomes. We might even fumble the
discussion along the way as well.

Well, I suppose the urgency for change is a function of one's own
circumstance, or more accurately, the gap between expectation and
circumstance. However, based on historical analogy and the actual pace
of change in most people's lives since WWII, there is every reason to
think we are experiencing a profound global change for better or
worse. Part of strategic thinking must surely be to locate one's frame
of reference so as to be effective as that change occurs, rather than
in prison consoled only by philosophy. I guess I'm saying that one
dimension of what is pursued now will be its relation to a range of
possible futures that will surely be significantly different than the
present.

I see that I've wandered from the proper theme for the list. But the
list does look at a leading edge of change, and I would think that,
besides the obvious need to become master of that edge, one dimension
of our effort should be to grasp its implications in the long run. Is
the landscape not littered with the corpses of people or companies
which not long ago adapted well to the leading edge, but which failed
to account for its change? Is the aim only to make money by producing
an electronic book suited to today's market and technology?

Haines Brown






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[zendog]

What you have presented is a fairly active discussion in academia. Everyone
agrees with everything you say. The discussion has focused more on journal
literature than on text books. The costs of journals has risen more than
10% per year for the last 20 years or so. It is not uncommon for a journal
subscription to be several to many hundreds of dollars per year and the
authors get paid nothing for their copyright.

My perception of the problems are these:
1) Nobody but POP publishers has "responsibility" for editing and
"publishing" the material. And the publishers have a vested interest in the
print publication. A publisher would have to be nuts to publish an
Epublication for $20 if every sale results in a loss of $300 print
subscription. No other institution will say it is MY job to do this.
2) Authors want to publish in the most prestigious journals. You work a
year doing research. You have sent preprints to everyone else working in
the field. You don't care if anyone reads the paper or not, but you SURE
want the credit for publishing it. The Ejournal of phrenology will not be a
credit to you, but Nature will get you tenure.
3) Peer reviewers have been reluctant to invest the effort in peer reviewing
the electronic format because it has historically been seen as ephemeral. A
bit like Email posts.
4) Libraries (who have the most to gain or lose) tend to think of themselves
as buildings that house printed matter.
But things are changing pretty rapidly now. Some editors (typically unpaid
or poorly paid scientists) are starting alternative publications that are
partly electronic, partly print. Some disciplines are accepting electronic
format for full academic credit. Libraries are beginning to accept and
promote electronic format. Scientific societies are getting into the act.
And authors are beginning to reserve some rights of copyright and make
things available in electronic format. Ejournals on the net have shown
people that it can be done cheaper with high quality -- even without the
prestige of a big name journal.

The scheme was so economically wacko that the electronic format was bound to
prevail. I am only surprised that print has been able to dominate this
long.

Of course, there is a lot more to it than that, and this is only my opinion,
but this trend is part of the trend related to ebooks.
*********************************************************
Millard Johnson -- INCOLSA -- http://incolsa.palni.edu
Zendog-HUoZFpBAYW7/***@public.gmane.org
I would rather risk failure than achieve it without risk.
*********************************************************

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Sent: Friday, June 18, 1999 11:02 AM
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Subject: Re: [eBook-List] News from the Administrator...

Jack,

Post by b***@public.gmane.org
I can't be prosecuted because I didn't in fact create the resource.

Ah, but if you "arranged" to copy the resource, you CAN be prosecuted.

Depressing thought.

Since you are so skillful at puncturing my fantasies ;-), take an aim
at this one (for the sake of argument, I assume here universal
Internet access):

History professors write articles and books for the fun of it, for ego
satisfaction, to provide materials for classroom use, as an excuse for
a sabattical, and as grist for the promotion mill (unless they happen
to be full professors).

So lets suppose the American Historical Association creates an on-line
database to hold historical works it deems meritorious. These works
receive a blanket copyright release, and everyone has access to them.

1. Students now have access to teaching materials for virtually
nothing.

2. The public at large has access to scholarly historical works, which
is a good thing.

3. Faculty still satisfy their principle objectives in writing, for
there's some peer review to support applications for promotion and
sabatticals (in any case, the system of peer reviewed publication
has broken down significantly).

4. There's no one else with a legitimate interest, and so the scenario
seems a win-win situation. Those who do have an immediate interest
have a motivation to bring it about.

Haines Brown
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[b***@public.gmane.org]

Millard,

The charge that e-documents are "ephemeral" is one that I've
encountered personally and find annoying because its usually because
the person making charge feels that because electrons are invisible,
they are not real.

But there is a more serious side to this, it seems. a) a citation
must, by its nature, point to a stable and publically accessible
repository. Indeed URLs have been ephemeral, but that does not seem
inevitable. I've seen XML mentioned as a possible solution to this to
this problem, but not sure it has been implemented in any way. b) An
advantage of e-documents is that they are readily ammended, but this
is also problem because it muddies the issue of which version is
authoritative. c) And there's the problem of authenticity, which,
again, I think can be addressed in terms of current technology.

It strikes me that peer reviewed publication raises a greater
challenge. I'm not sure it is really possible in the long run.

Incidentally, let me apologize to all for having in some previous
posts wandered a bit from the proper scope of the forum.

Haines Brown
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[Michael S. Hart]

Post by b***@public.gmane.org
Millard,
The charge that e-documents are "ephemeral" is one that I've
encountered personally and find annoying because its usually because
the person making charge feels that because electrons are invisible,
they are not real.

1. All visble light is sent to us by electrons. . .making them, in
one very real sense, the ONLY visible things in the Universe.

2. I can't really pay attention to this sort of thing, as I have
been on the Net with Project Gutenberg for nearly 30 years. . . .
During that time millions of paper books have gone in and out of
print, some never to be seen again, by any scholarly effort. Not
to mention the number of libraries that have been destroyed or
shut down, etc.

Post by b***@public.gmane.org
But there is a more serious side to this, it seems. a) a citation
must, by its nature, point to a stable and publically accessible
repository. Indeed URLs have been ephemeral, but that does not seem

No more ephemeral than the books on the bookstore shelves. . . .
Perhaps even less so.

Post by b***@public.gmane.org
inevitable. I've seen XML mentioned as a possible solution to this to
this problem, but not sure it has been implemented in any way. b) An
advantage of e-documents is that they are readily ammended, but this
is also problem because it muddies the issue of which version is
authoritative. c) And there's the problem of authenticity, which,
again, I think can be addressed in terms of current technology.

I don't get into "authoritative". . .just not worthwhile.

I couldn't get a PhD doing what I do, but several people have
been given them for writing about what I am doing. . .at least
so I have been told. . .I have NOT received copies of the theses
I asked for. . . .

Post by b***@public.gmane.org
It strikes me that peer reviewed publication raises a greater
challenge. I'm not sure it is really possible in the long run.

I don't do THAT either. . .I haven't a fraction of the time for
anything but the greatest investments I can make of my time. . .

Post by b***@public.gmane.org
Incidentally, let me apologize to all for having in some previous
posts wandered a bit from the proper scope of the forum.

_I_ think such apologies from the likes of you are hardly necessary,
and didn't even realize until now this was going to the forum. . . .

Post by b***@public.gmane.org
Haines Brown

Michael

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[b***@public.gmane.org]

Michael,

I'd like to rejoin some of your points, not because I disgree
entirely, but because I've experienced them as serious constraints
upon on-line scholarship and feel that need of heavy machinery to
manage them.

Post by Michael S. Hart
1. All visble light is sent to us by electrons. . .making them, in
one very real sense, the ONLY visible things in the Universe.

Well, not "heavy machinery" exactly, but try photons, not electons.

Post by Michael S. Hart

Post by b***@public.gmane.org
But there is a more serious side to this, it seems. a) a citation
must, by its nature, point to a stable and publically accessible
repository. Indeed URLs have been ephemeral, but that does not seem

No more ephemeral than the books on the bookstore shelves. . . .
Perhaps even less so.

Doesn't quite address my point. Scholarship, or at least the branch
with which I have a little familiarity, insists that argumentation is
justfied by reference to evidence, and this evidence, in fields such
as history, consists of critical source editions available in
libraries.

That books are ephemeral in the market place does not seem relevant;
what is important is that such critical editions are actually library
(the libraries that can afford them) and any interested person can
without legal obstruction, gain access to the source editions to
evaluate the soundness of the argumentation based upon them. Now,
while this traditional attitude may be entering crisis, it still
represent a very important moral force within the scholarly community.

Now, while I personally feel that an archive of e-documents can do
just as well if not better in certain respects to costly hard cover
edited source documents and even manuscript originals, in many cases,
the URL to those sources is indeed ephemeral. This is a real problem:
when you add citations to a research paper, and these include on-line
documents, will the URL be valid a year from now?

This, I think, promises to become a more serious problem. I'm sure it
has been beaten to death in this forum, so I hesitate to stick my neck
out, but there has been talk of URL respositories that redirect you to
the actual current name and location of documents that must by their
nature have a pointer to them that is permanent. If not too boring,
I'd love to hear a brief summary of the present state of this issue.

Post by Michael S. Hart

Post by b***@public.gmane.org
this problem, but not sure it has been implemented in any way. b) An
advantage of e-documents is that they are readily ammended, but this
is also problem because it muddies the issue of which version is
authoritative. c) And there's the problem of authenticity, which,

Again, I think this may underestimate a real problem. When arguments
that are considered important are based on a precise analysis of
words, and if the source for those words is in a fluid state, you are
inclined to go into honest work like digging ditches. People have
spent their lives worrying about alternative wording in just one
document. Maybe they make a big issue of nothing, but isn't biblical
exegesis a big deal for many people?

The conventional way out of this problem is for the profession (a term
I leave vague) to put their imprimatur (another term with
associations) on a particular version of a document so that it becomes
authoritative in the sense that if there is ambiguity, it is this
version you work with (unless you bring out solid and explicit reasons
why it is not). This is not at all a trivial problem in terms of
traditional scholarship.

Again, there is significant progress in versioning documents,
encrypted signatures, etc., to validate dodument authenticity. But I
suspect that these technologies will have to mature and become more
universal before we can confidently enter an age of on-line scholarship.

Post by Michael S. Hart
been given them for writing about what I am doing. . .at least
so I have been told. . .I have NOT received copies of the theses
I asked for. . . .

As an aside. The Univ. Michigan project to put PhD dissertations on
microfilm is the obvious way to obtain dissertations. Does anyone know
if there's a comparable effort to provide this resource in the form of
e-documents?

Post by Michael S. Hart

Post by b***@public.gmane.org
It strikes me that peer reviewed publication raises a greater
challenge. I'm not sure it is really possible in the long run.

I don't do THAT either. . .I haven't a fraction of the time for
anything but the greatest investments I can make of my time. . .

But, again, it is a serious question. Generally all advance in
knowledge stands on the shoulders of what has gone before. Of course,
what has gone on before is a can of worms, but there are mechanisms
employed by the experts to cull out the best so that it offers a more
secure foundation.

I don't say this (entirely) tongue in cheek. If culture is an
cumulative process, it needs definition. I fear authority figures who
impose their own definitions, but on the other hand, peer review of
scholarly productions makes good sense. Can you imagine selecting what
to read without any guidance whatsoever except the publisher's blurb?
With all its flaws, I'm not convinced we can do without some kind of
peer review of new productions. So how is this to be implemented with
e-documents on line? I'm aware of counter arguments and
conditionalities, but that does not obviate what seems to be a real
and inescapable social need.

I've been talking in terms of academic scholarhip, but do these
concerns not apply to other fields as well? A doctor searching on line
for an anecdote wants to know that the advice he gets is
authoritative. He wants to know that the URL pointing to the
pharmocological information is still valid, so that he can get to it
before his patient dies. He also wants some assurance that the
information is current, not out of date.

Haines Brown







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[Michael S. Hart]

Post by b***@public.gmane.org
Michael,
I'd like to rejoin some of your points, not because I disgree
entirely, but because I've experienced them as serious constraints
upon on-line scholarship and feel that need of heavy machinery to
manage them.

Post by Michael S. Hart
1. All visble light is sent to us by electrons. . .making them, in
one very real sense, the ONLY visible things in the Universe.

Well, not "heavy machinery" exactly, but try photons, not electons.

[Slight Increase in Radiation Here] mh

I got more than one message about this, some privately, which I replied
to privately. . .and in a mild manner. . . .

However, I would like to clarifiy that I said. . .and I am cutting and

Post by b***@public.gmane.org
The charge that e-documents are "ephemeral" is one that I've
encountered personally and find annoying because its usually because
the person making charge feels that because electrons are invisible,
they are not real.

1. All visble light is sent to us by electrons. . .making them, in
one very real sense, the ONLY visible things in the Universe.

Things are visible because they send us photons. . .electrons send
all the photons _I_ know of. . .therefore what is visible is the electrons.
Since the electrons are grouped into material shapes much of the time,
we get a good representation of the shapes via the photons they send us.

If you want to argue as to whether we SEE the electrons or the photons,
you may as well argue as to whether we hit the BALL or the PITCHER in
the game of baseball. . .we certainly don't keep statistics on the BALLS,
but we do keep them on the PITCHERS. . . . Of course, you can go just one
step further and say then we should say we see the matter. . .but, of
course, matter is too heavy for the eye to deal with, or to get here
fast enough to do much good. . .the electrons are lighter. . .and can
go fast. . .but they are charged. . .and would also thus be too much
for our eye to handle. . .so. . .they send us photons. . .we get the
message. . .but we SEE the messenger. . .via the message. . . .

All you have to do to SEE an electron is make it send a photon. . .
of course, then it "moves" but not "through" the intervening space,
it actually goes backwards in time and then reappears elsewhere,
if you believe in Feynmann Diagrams. . . .

Now, if that's not good enough, go down the hall to take semantics,
physics, and philosophy. . .and you can argue about how many photons
or angels can dance on the head of a pin. . .but. . .leave me out.

[Slight Reduction in Thermal Radiation Here] mh

Post by b***@public.gmane.org

Post by Michael S. Hart

Post by b***@public.gmane.org
But there is a more serious side to this, it seems. a) a citation
must, by its nature, point to a stable and publically accessible
repository. Indeed URLs have been ephemeral, but that does not seem

No more ephemeral than the books on the bookstore shelves. . . .
Perhaps even less so.

Doesn't quite address my point. Scholarship, or at least the branch
with which I have a little familiarity, insists that argumentation is
justfied by reference to evidence, and this evidence, in fields such
as history, consists of critical source editions available in
libraries.

Sorry, I don't buy into that. . .never did. . .that's why I have been
able to do what no one else was doing. . .even when they said it was
impossible. If I had waited until there was evidence that Elibraries
were feasible you probably would have never heard of me.

I can't wait until what I know to be true is accepted as "evidence,"
especially in the Scholarly Sense. . .I have been doing Etext for
nearly 30 years, and it is just now becoming BARELY acceptable,
but not in the "evidence" sense and certainly not in the Scholar's
Sense. . .that will only come most likely after I am dead, and can't
revel in it. . .but I still revel. . .today. . .which is the ONLY
time we can do ANYthing. . .even if electrons have more options.

More. . . .

The person who says it cannot be done....
Should not interrupt the person doing it.
Chinese proverb

The world is moving so fast these days that the man who says
it can't be done is generally interrupted by someone doing it.
Harry Emerson Fosdick

"If what you did yesterday
Still seems great today,
Then your goals for tomorrow
Are not big enough." mh
"There are always alternatives,
That's why there is always a tomorrow." mh
[It's my own quote, and yet I forget sometimes]

The Future is not yet come and the Past is a foreign country - in both
places they do things differently there. What really counts is Now.

Post by b***@public.gmane.org
That books are ephemeral in the market place does not seem relevant;
what is important is that such critical editions are actually library
(the libraries that can afford them) and any interested person can
without legal obstruction, gain access to the source editions to

You might be surprised at the legal and illegal obstructions that
libraries have. . .I no longer have the energy to keep a library
card active, that I pay for, have a legal right to, just because
they really don't want me there. . .and unless I REALLY need to
use the materials HEAVILY, I don't bother keeping it active.
At yet another library my card kept being listed as "stolen"
even though _I_ always had it. . .so I had to get a new one
each time, as they had deleted the previous one's access.
And those are only two examples. . .I have a few more in which
I was not quite as polite. . . .

Post by b***@public.gmane.org
evaluate the soundness of the argumentation based upon them. Now,
while this traditional attitude may be entering crisis, it still
represent a very important moral force within the scholarly community.

As I said before, I just can't get into it with the scholarly community,
it takes too much time, and yields too few results. . .and yet when the
results are in, I am glad to see them.

Post by b***@public.gmane.org
Now, while I personally feel that an archive of e-documents can do
just as well if not better in certain respects to costly hard cover
edited source documents and even manuscript originals, in many cases,
when you add citations to a research paper, and these include on-line
documents, will the URL be valid a year from now?

By storing locally, you don't have to worry about the URL changing
or vanishing. . .and if you use alexa.com, you even get old URL's
data when you ask for it. They backed up the entire Web. . . .

I should probably add here that I have promoted LOCAL STORAGE since the
dawn of the Net, and even moreso now, since 10G drives are affordable
to anyone who really wants one. . .I just bought 10 2G drives for $400,
2G drives are what the controller on this machine likes. . . . I still
have 99% of all email I sent or received over the past 10 years. . . .
Makes a nice archive. I still predict that within around 20 years you
will be able to store every word that was in the Library of Congress
in 1971 on a drive you can carry with one hand. . .though it may be
heavy. . . .

Post by b***@public.gmane.org
This, I think, promises to become a more serious problem. I'm sure it
has been beaten to death in this forum, so I hesitate to stick my neck
out, but there has been talk of URL respositories that redirect you to
the actual current name and location of documents that must by their
nature have a pointer to them that is permanent. If not too boring,
I'd love to hear a brief summary of the present state of this issue.

People also fear 1984ism with this sort of thing. And I must say it
is somewhat true, even with alexa.com. . . .

Post by b***@public.gmane.org

Post by Michael S. Hart

Post by b***@public.gmane.org
this problem, but not sure it has been implemented in any way. b) An
advantage of e-documents is that they are readily ammended, but this
is also problem because it muddies the issue of which version is
authoritative. c) And there's the problem of authenticity, which,

Again, I think this may underestimate a real problem. When arguments
that are considered important are based on a precise analysis of
words, and if the source for those words is in a fluid state, you are
inclined to go into honest work like digging ditches. People have
spent their lives worrying about alternative wording in just one
document. Maybe they make a big issue of nothing, but isn't biblical
exegesis a big deal for many people?

Hmm. . .I certainly agree. . .perhaps we can find some dance room,
after all. . . .

Post by b***@public.gmane.org
The conventional way out of this problem is for the profession (a term
I leave vague) to put their imprimatur (another term with
associations) on a particular version of a document so that it becomes
authoritative in the sense that if there is ambiguity, it is this
version you work with (unless you bring out solid and explicit reasons
why it is not). This is not at all a trivial problem in terms of
traditional scholarship.

Sorry, not that into "authoritative" either. . .I have had to struggle
not to become an authority, myself. . .but I am succeeding. . . .
But after I am dead it will be harder. . . . ;-)

Post by b***@public.gmane.org
Again, there is significant progress in versioning documents,
encrypted signatures, etc., to validate dodument authenticity. But I
suspect that these technologies will have to mature and become more
universal before we can confidently enter an age of on-line scholarship.

Ugh!

Post by b***@public.gmane.org

Post by Michael S. Hart
been given them for writing about what I am doing. . .at least
so I have been told. . .I have NOT received copies of the theses
I asked for. . . .

As an aside. The Univ. Michigan project to put PhD dissertations on
microfilm is the obvious way to obtain dissertations. Does anyone know
if there's a comparable effort to provide this resource in the form of
e-documents?

UMICH was doing that, too, at least for a while, but they decided,
I think, that the MONEY was more important, and feared they could
not control access. . .rumor only. . . .

Post by b***@public.gmane.org

Post by Michael S. Hart

Post by b***@public.gmane.org
It strikes me that peer reviewed publication raises a greater
challenge. I'm not sure it is really possible in the long run.

I don't do THAT either. . .I haven't a fraction of the time for
anything but the greatest investments I can make of my time. . .

But, again, it is a serious question. Generally all advance in
knowledge stands on the shoulders of what has gone before. Of course,
what has gone on before is a can of worms, but there are mechanisms
employed by the experts to cull out the best so that it offers a more
secure foundation.

Sorry. . .can't deal with it. . . .

Post by b***@public.gmane.org
I don't say this (entirely) tongue in cheek. If culture is an
cumulative process, it needs definition. I fear authority figures who
impose their own definitions, but on the other hand, peer review of
scholarly productions makes good sense. Can you imagine selecting what
to read without any guidance whatsoever except the publisher's blurb?
With all its flaws, I'm not convinced we can do without some kind of
peer review of new productions. So how is this to be implemented with
e-documents on line? I'm aware of counter arguments and
conditionalities, but that does not obviate what seems to be a real
and inescapable social need.

We should judge by the book, not by the cover, or what is writtin on
the cover, etc.

Post by b***@public.gmane.org
I've been talking in terms of academic scholarhip, but do these
concerns not apply to other fields as well? A doctor searching on line
for an anecdote wants to know that the advice he gets is
authoritative. He wants to know that the URL pointing to the
pharmocological information is still valid, so that he can get to it
before his patient dies. He also wants some assurance that the
information is current, not out of date.

Slightly different. . .but a good example. . . .

Private versus medical judgement.

Post by b***@public.gmane.org
Haines Brown

Thanks!

So nice to hear from you!!

Michael S. Hart
[hart-e+***@public.gmane.org]
Project Gutenberg
"Ask Dr. Internet"
Executive Director
Internet User ~#100

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[Rich Kulawiec]

Post by b***@public.gmane.org
Doesn't quite address my point. Scholarship, or at least the branch
with which I have a little familiarity, insists that argumentation is
justfied by reference to evidence, and this evidence, in fields such
as history, consists of critical source editions available in
libraries.

Ah, but the fact that these critical source editions appear in libraries
is not a guarantee that they are authentic or accurate. Consider that
in the case of some of the key documents we possess, the versions
we have are not originals -- we know that they have been manually
copied, perhaps many times. Each act of copying provides a possible
source for error, as well as for embellishment or "correction" (in the
name of political expediency or current fashion). Part of
researching such a document consists of trying to ascertain
the extent to which it differs from the original -- spotting anachronisms,
obvious errors of fact, deliberate changes, and so on.

Post by b***@public.gmane.org
From where I sit, the only difference is one of time scale: if I wished

to manually copy a written volume of the history of a French monastery,
it would take me some considerable time (not the least of which would
be rectifying my terrible handwriting and learning how to do
illuminations!). But copying -- and perhaps more importantly,
*modifying* -- an electronic document might only take me a few seconds.

In either case, an end product which unfaithfully reproduces the original
is possible...and one must rely on authentication technology to detect
these differences (or to certify that no differences exist). My thinking
in that encryption/authentication technology has gone a long way toward
addressing this issue.

As to their longevity...hmm. A (paper) book made with just the right
kind of ink, on just the right kind of paper, and kept in appropriate
atmosphere/temperature/humidity conditions will last quite a long time.
So will a (digital) book -- although it may be transferred from
one storage medium to another during its lifetim. (I hope we will
agree that that this doesn't change the identity or content of the
book, providing it's a bit-for-bit copy.)

---Rsk
Rich Kulawiec
rsk-***@public.gmane.org

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[b***@public.gmane.org]

Rich,

Post by Rich Kulawiec
Ah, but the fact that these critical source editions appear in libraries
is not a guarantee that they are authentic or accurate. Consider

True, but in practice it seems important that we can place some
reliance on the critical source editions. Merely a lack of guarantee
does not mean that in fact the situation is chaotic. You go on to cite
the difficulties arriving at a critical source editions, and so I
gather you are not suggesting doing away with them, but merely insist
that the issue is not one that sharply divides hard copy and e-copy
documents.

It seems what helps make a critical edition authoritative is its cost
and rarety. If there were a thousand different versions of the Magna
Carta on line, which is entirely conceivable, and you assigned your
students to write a paper on it, what would be your reaction to quite
different conclusions resulting from the different versions? You might
give all your students A for effort, but to evaluate their conclusions
you would have to look at an authoritative version.

Likewise your point about the issue of longevity tends to reduce the
difference. I agree here as well, but stil see some significant difference
nevertheless. Is not one important factor in longevity the
multiplication of perfect copies, not just the longevity of the medium?

Haines
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[Michael S. Hart]

Post by b***@public.gmane.org
Rich,

Post by Rich Kulawiec
Ah, but the fact that these critical source editions appear in libraries
is not a guarantee that they are authentic or accurate. Consider

{snip}

Post by b***@public.gmane.org
It seems what helps make a critical edition authoritative is its cost
and rarety.

I certainly do not like the concept that only those with access to the
costliest and rarest copies have any chance an "an authoritative edition"
. . .to further respond to your example below, when I put the Declaration
of Indpendence online as the first Project Gutenberg Etext, I never did
find ANY two editions which agreed on all the spelling, capitalization,
and punctuation. . .out of a dozen I looked at, from the usual suspects
of great authoritarianism at the great universities and encylopedia to
the sleazy little faux-parchments handed out on the Bicentennial. . . .
There was no real agreement among those, on a document only 200 years old,
and that was only 5,000 characters long. . .so going after this sort of
thing with books that are older and longer just seems to be the stuff
dreams are made of. . .it isn't of interest to 99.99% of the readers,
and if you aren't publishing for them, you don't have a real audience,
only one dreams are made of. I'm afraid I have to put this kind of
scholarship up there with "Angels Dancing on the Head of a Pin" and
how many times Shakespeare used the word "and". . .which you could
get any high school hacker to find out for you with a few instructions
and a few dollars. Last I recall Susan Hockey, then of Oxford, spent
some $US99 50,000 to count them up. . .and the conclusion was that the
person most likely to have been Shakespeare was. . .Queen Elizabeth!!

Sorry, this is NOT scholarship. . . .

Post by b***@public.gmane.org
If there were a thousand different versions of the Magna
Carta on line, which is entirely conceivable, and you assigned your
students to write a paper on it, what would be your reaction to quite
different conclusions resulting from the different versions? You might
give all your students A for effort, but to evaluate their conclusions
you would have to look at an authoritative version.

And is there one? And could a high school, or even college, or even
a grad student be expected to gain access to it?

My father never got to read the "originals" of Shakespeare's works
until he was a well-respected full professor. . . .

This is NOT anything that need concern "real people". . .not that
it is of NO interest. . .but you can gain a resonable appreciation
of Shakespeare without any of this, and a person who has all of this
can still be lacking a reasonable appreciation of Shakespeare.
Example: "Slings and arrows". . .did he mean the kind of sling
David slew Goliath with?

Or why "colliers" at the very start of Romeo and Juliet. . . .

Each of these could add a byte to the meaning of their play,
but would not change the essence of the play one bit. . . .
Though enough of them might make our middle class audience
appreciate the three audiences for which Shakespeare wrote:
1. The 3 penny seats, closest to the performers, who had to
be quieted the soonest.
2. The mercantile class, who had their own interests.
3. The nobility. . .

{snip}

Thanks!

So nice to hear from you!!

Michael S. Hart
[hart-e+***@public.gmane.org]
Project Gutenberg
"Ask Dr. Internet"
Executive Director
Internet User ~#100

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[zendog]

One of the problems the networked information universe will have to deal
with is authentication. You may be right than nobody really cares what
actually IS in the constitution. (It seems that congress is busily passing
laws that ignore the Bill of Rights with respect to free speech and the
right to own guns.) But, the fact is that it is much easier to create
authentic looking web sites with authentic sounding documents. Simply
because the authentic version of Shakespeare is of interest to only a few
people does not mean that we should ignore the issue of authenticity.

Consider the holocaust. There are people who promote the concept that it
never occurred. They can make a web site that looks every bit as convincing
as an authentic historical archive. Who are we to believe? In a paperless
society, what do we have to go on? In times past, we could trust major
publishers, scholars and libraries.

I don't think it is a good idea to "poo poo" the issue. Everyone is born
ignorant. The memory of civilization is our document store. We take it for
granted that what we know of the evolution of civilization is "reasonably"
accurate, but that foundation of our confidence is a store of physical
documents that is not all that easy to counterfeit. That is not at all
true in the electronic environment! People that propose to preside over the
birth of the electronic era should give serious attention to authenticity.
MJ
*********************************************************
Millard Johnson -- INCOLSA -- http://incolsa.palni.edu
Zendog-HUoZFpBAYW7/***@public.gmane.org
I would rather risk failure than achieve it without risk.
*********************************************************

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-ebook-list-***@public.gmane.org [mailto:owner-ebook-***@exemplary.net]
On Behalf Of Michael S. Hart
Sent: Tuesday, June 22, 1999 3:37 PM
To: ebook-list-***@public.gmane.org
Subject: Re: [eBook-List] News from the Administrator...

Post by b***@public.gmane.org
Rich,

Post by Rich Kulawiec
Ah, but the fact that these critical source editions appear in libraries
is not a guarantee that they are authentic or accurate. Consider

{snip}

Post by b***@public.gmane.org
It seems what helps make a critical edition authoritative is its cost
and rarety.

I certainly do not like the concept that only those with access to the
costliest and rarest copies have any chance an "an authoritative edition"
. . .to further respond to your example below, when I put the Declaration
of Indpendence online as the first Project Gutenberg Etext, I never did
find ANY two editions which agreed on all the spelling, capitalization,
and punctuation. . .out of a dozen I looked at, from the usual suspects
of great authoritarianism at the great universities and encylopedia to
the sleazy little faux-parchments handed out on the Bicentennial. . . .
There was no real agreement among those, on a document only 200 years old,
and that was only 5,000 characters long. . .so going after this sort of
thing with books that are older and longer just seems to be the stuff
dreams are made of. . .it isn't of interest to 99.99% of the readers,
and if you aren't publishing for them, you don't have a real audience,
only one dreams are made of. I'm afraid I have to put this kind of
scholarship up there with "Angels Dancing on the Head of a Pin" and
how many times Shakespeare used the word "and". . .which you could
get any high school hacker to find out for you with a few instructions
and a few dollars. Last I recall Susan Hockey, then of Oxford, spent
some $US99 50,000 to count them up. . .and the conclusion was that the
person most likely to have been Shakespeare was. . .Queen Elizabeth!!

Sorry, this is NOT scholarship. . . .

Post by b***@public.gmane.org
If there were a thousand different versions of the Magna
Carta on line, which is entirely conceivable, and you assigned your
students to write a paper on it, what would be your reaction to quite
different conclusions resulting from the different versions? You might
give all your students A for effort, but to evaluate their conclusions
you would have to look at an authoritative version.

And is there one? And could a high school, or even college, or even
a grad student be expected to gain access to it?

My father never got to read the "originals" of Shakespeare's works
until he was a well-respected full professor. . . .

This is NOT anything that need concern "real people". . .not that
it is of NO interest. . .but you can gain a resonable appreciation
of Shakespeare without any of this, and a person who has all of this
can still be lacking a reasonable appreciation of Shakespeare.
Example: "Slings and arrows". . .did he mean the kind of sling
David slew Goliath with?

Or why "colliers" at the very start of Romeo and Juliet. . . .

Each of these could add a byte to the meaning of their play,
but would not change the essence of the play one bit. . . .
Though enough of them might make our middle class audience
appreciate the three audiences for which Shakespeare wrote:
1. The 3 penny seats, closest to the performers, who had to
be quieted the soonest.
2. The mercantile class, who had their own interests.
3. The nobility. . .

{snip}

Thanks!

So nice to hear from you!!

Michael S. Hart
[hart-e+***@public.gmane.org]
Project Gutenberg
"Ask Dr. Internet"
Executive Director
Internet User ~#100

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[Michael S. Hart]

Post by zendog
One of the problems the networked information universe will have to deal
with is authentication. You may be right than nobody really cares what
actually IS in the constitution. (It seems that congress is busily passing

So we need to know what it is to defend it. . .but _I_ am not the sort
who tries to change the meaning of it by inserting or a deleting a comma.
The founders were clear enough, we just cheap and cheat in interpretation.

Post by zendog
laws that ignore the Bill of Rights with respect to free speech and the
right to own guns.) But, the fact is that it is much easier to create
authentic looking web sites with authentic sounding documents. Simply
because the authentic version of Shakespeare is of interest to only a few
people does not mean that we should ignore the issue of authenticity.

Having read some of the "authentic versions of Shakespeare" _I_ can say
they didn't interest me at all. . .and I LOVE Shakespeare. . . . They
are so ugly, and full of intentional typos, misspellings, etc., that I
can't imagine that even 1% of the reading public would care to see them,
or care about the arguments go on about them. . .you can still get 99%
of the Bard to 99% of the people.

Post by zendog
Consider the holocaust. There are people who promote the concept that it
never occurred. They can make a web site that looks every bit as convincing
as an authentic historical archive. Who are we to believe? In a paperless
society, what do we have to go on? In times past, we could trust major
publishers, scholars and libraries.

I always thought the biases of even the major publishers, scholars,
and libraries were pretty obvious. . .once you realized you should
look for them. . .so I don't trust them, either. . . . You have to
look at a multitude of sources. . .which is why they teach us to do
research papers. . .the only thing is that they did NOT tell us it
was to avoid the prejudices of the works we would see. . . !

Post by zendog
I don't think it is a good idea to "poo poo" the issue. Everyone is born
ignorant. The memory of civilization is our document store. We take it for
granted that what we know of the evolution of civilization is "reasonably"

I still fear the victors rewrite the history to their own satisfaction.

Post by zendog
accurate, but that foundation of our confidence is a store of physical
documents that is not all that easy to counterfeit. That is not at all
true in the electronic environment! People that propose to preside over the
birth of the electronic era should give serious attention to authenticity.

Serious to some degree, yes, but it quickly gets out of hand, and loses any
public interest.

Michael

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[b***@public.gmane.org]

Michael,

Post by Michael S. Hart

Post by b***@public.gmane.org
It seems what helps make a critical edition authoritative is its cost
and rarety.

I certainly do not like the concept that only those with access to the
costliest and rarest copies have any chance an "an authoritative edition"

I don't like the idea either, but my point was (right or wrong) that
the whole notion of critical editions has presumed their cost and
scarcity. I.e., it they could be generated in great numbers at little
cost, then falsifications would abound.

Post by Michael S. Hart
. . .to further respond to your example below, when I put the Declaration
of Indpendence online as the first Project Gutenberg Etext, I never did
find ANY two editions which agreed on all the spelling,
capitalization,

...

Post by Michael S. Hart
only one dreams are made of. I'm afraid I have to put this kind of
scholarship up there with "Angels Dancing on the Head of a Pin" and

...

Post by Michael S. Hart
Sorry, this is NOT scholarship. . . .

If you are saying that much scholarship, perhaps the majority of
doctorial dissertations, are little more than scholastic exercises of
limited interest, you are probably right. However, a) that trivia was
intended primarily as a methodological exercise, and should be
understood primarily as such, b) I'm not sure we can draw a line
between picky research of interest to three others in the world, and
the broader efforts that appeal to hundreds, and, at the other end of
the spectrum, a mass audience for popular works. I suspect not only
that there's a continuum, but that each level stands on the one
below.

I think we should ask ourselves whether the corpus of knowedge as a
whole (in the case of historiography, say the corpus produced in
Western Europe from the 1860s), is really important. If on the whole
it seems today irrelevant, or to benefit the few at the expense of the
many, then perhaps we might jetison that tradition altogether. But if
we conclude that with all its flaws, the intellectual tradition as a
whole is of fundamental importance, then I'd not assume it would
continue to stand were I to pull the rug from under it: most areas of
knowledge rest of some very picky detailed scholarship of interest to
few others.

Post by Michael S. Hart

Post by b***@public.gmane.org
different conclusions resulting from the different versions? You might
give all your students A for effort, but to evaluate their conclusions
you would have to look at an authoritative version.

And is there one? And could a high school, or even college, or even
a grad student be expected to gain access to it?

I'm not talking about the original, but critical editions. I would
hope that all university libraries would own a critical edition of the
magna carta, and so that on the whole serious students of history
would have access. An authoritative edition is simply one that experts
in the field agree is as true to the original as possible. This is not
a good or complete definiton, but hopefully addresses your point.

Post by Michael S. Hart
This is NOT anything that need concern "real people". . .not that
it is of NO interest. . .but you can gain a resonable appreciation

Again, I'm afraid that there are dangers underestimating the very
special and demanding requirements of basic research. I'll gladly
admit that such research might loose sight of the broader picture,
that it might often not really conribute much to the advance of
knowledge, but it seems to me that all serious scholarship is based on
it. It seems off hand that we have several options: a) abandon that
area of scholarship as a waste or time or pernicious (phrenology), b)
offer an entirely different paradigm that preserves the field of
knowledge while achieving it in a different way, or c) attack
certain features of a discipline as weak or unnecessary. I'm not
sure which if any of these positions you adopt.

The relevance, I think, is that which we choose to embrace has a lot
to do with how we approach the question of e-documents and
scholarship.


Haines Brown
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[Michael S. Hart]

Post by b***@public.gmane.org
Michael,

Post by Michael S. Hart

Post by b***@public.gmane.org
It seems what helps make a critical edition authoritative is its cost
and rarety.

I certainly do not like the concept that only those with access to the
costliest and rarest copies have any chance an "an authoritative edition"

I don't like the idea either, but my point was (right or wrong) that
the whole notion of critical editions has presumed their cost and
scarcity. I.e., it they could be generated in great numbers at little
cost, then falsifications would abound.

Hmmm. . .a strangely disconcerting thought.

And if they could NOT be created in great numbers at little cost,
the the public is simply left out of the process. . .a "Nation of Sheep."

Post by b***@public.gmane.org

Post by Michael S. Hart
. . .to further respond to your example below, when I put the Declaration
of Indpendence online as the first Project Gutenberg Etext, I never did
find ANY two editions which agreed on all the spelling,
capitalization,

...

Post by Michael S. Hart
only one dreams are made of. I'm afraid I have to put this kind of
scholarship up there with "Angels Dancing on the Head of a Pin" and

...

Post by Michael S. Hart
Sorry, this is NOT scholarship. . . .

If you are saying that much scholarship, perhaps the majority of
doctorial dissertations, are little more than scholastic exercises of

so said my father, and nearly all thesis writers I knew of, outside of
the hard sciences. . .they say it is something like fraternity hazing.
A rite of passage, but not a real one. . . .

Post by b***@public.gmane.org
limited interest, you are probably right. However, a) that trivia was
intended primarily as a methodological exercise, and should be
understood primarily as such, b) I'm not sure we can draw a line
between picky research of interest to three others in the world, and
the broader efforts that appeal to hundreds, and, at the other end of
the spectrum, a mass audience for popular works. I suspect not only
that there's a continuum, but that each level stands on the one
below.

Not standing on the shoulders of. . . ?

Post by b***@public.gmane.org
I think we should ask ourselves whether the corpus of knowedge as a
whole (in the case of historiography, say the corpus produced in
Western Europe from the 1860s), is really important. If on the whole
it seems today irrelevant, or to benefit the few at the expense of the
many, then perhaps we might jetison that tradition altogether. But if
we conclude that with all its flaws, the intellectual tradition as a
whole is of fundamental importance, then I'd not assume it would
continue to stand were I to pull the rug from under it: most areas of
knowledge rest of some very picky detailed scholarship of interest to
few others.

The question is not whether it is important, but important to whom?

And how useful? And to whom? And when?

Post by b***@public.gmane.org

Post by Michael S. Hart

Post by b***@public.gmane.org
different conclusions resulting from the different versions? You might
give all your students A for effort, but to evaluate their conclusions
you would have to look at an authoritative version.

And is there one? And could a high school, or even college, or even
a grad student be expected to gain access to it?

I'm not talking about the original, but critical editions. I would
hope that all university libraries would own a critical edition of the
magna carta, and so that on the whole serious students of history
would have access. An authoritative edition is simply one that experts
in the field agree is as true to the original as possible. This is not
a good or complete definiton, but hopefully addresses your point.

I had the same problem with the Magna Carta. . .I didn't see even
the experts agreeing on what was the best edition. . .but a few
reads and you got the idea. . . .

Post by b***@public.gmane.org

Post by Michael S. Hart
This is NOT anything that need concern "real people". . .not that
it is of NO interest. . .but you can gain a resonable appreciation

Again, I'm afraid that there are dangers underestimating the very
special and demanding requirements of basic research. I'll gladly
admit that such research might loose sight of the broader picture,

I'll go along with you, as an analogy to basic scientific research.
I like it fine, but it loses sight of the big picture, and is mostly
never relevant to the average person on the street. . .but we should
still do it. . . . Now. . .does that last apply to less scientific
matters. . .much more subjective. . .much harder to tell. . .AND. . .
probably much less productive. . .to the person on the street.
Which seems to be a bit where you are going below. . .

Post by b***@public.gmane.org
that it might often not really conribute much to the advance of
knowledge, but it seems to me that all serious scholarship is based on
it. It seems off hand that we have several options: a) abandon that
area of scholarship as a waste or time or pernicious (phrenology), b)
offer an entirely different paradigm that preserves the field of
knowledge while achieving it in a different way, or c) attack
certain features of a discipline as weak or unnecessary. I'm not
sure which if any of these positions you adopt.

I have to go in a more Utilitarian direction. . .not totally,
but in that direction. . .and useful to the masses. . .in the end.
We can't always be right about that. . .but we can try.

Post by b***@public.gmane.org
The relevance, I think, is that which we choose to embrace has a lot
to do with how we approach the question of e-documents and
scholarship.

I just hate to see such "Limited Distribution" in a medium designed
for "Unlimited Distribution". . .and I mean "Limited Distribution"
not only in reference to oddball markup formats, but also in just
plain "who will be interested."

Thanks!

So nice to hear from you!!

Michael S. Hart
[hart-e+***@public.gmane.org]
Project Gutenberg
"Ask Dr. Internet"
Executive Director
Internet User ~#100


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[Lance Purple]

Post by b***@public.gmane.org
I don't like the idea either, but my point was (right or wrong) that
the whole notion of critical editions has presumed their cost and
scarcity. I.e., it they could be generated in great numbers at little
cost, then falsifications would abound.

Not necessarily; you could have critical e-texts (or audio files, or any
other binary file), signed with a digital authentication code from some
authoritative source. Then scholars could check whether their copy of
shakespeare.zip has a valid signature from library.oxford.edu.uk , etc.

(Or am I misunderstanding what you mean by "critical edition" ?)

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[Michael S. Hart]

Post by Lance Purple

Post by b***@public.gmane.org
I don't like the idea either, but my point was (right or wrong) that
the whole notion of critical editions has presumed their cost and
scarcity. I.e., it they could be generated in great numbers at little
cost, then falsifications would abound.

Not necessarily; you could have critical e-texts (or audio files, or any
other binary file), signed with a digital authentication code from some
authoritative source. Then scholars could check whether their copy of
shakespeare.zip has a valid signature from library.oxford.edu.uk , etc.

Actually, you could just use COMP or "diff" or any other file comparison
program to show you the differences between any two files you suspect are
not quite exactly the same. . . .

Michael

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[b***@public.gmane.org]

Michael,

Post by Michael S. Hart
Actually, you could just use COMP or "diff" or any other file comparison
program to show you the differences between any two files you suspect are
not quite exactly the same. . . .

Yes, but comparison against what, if not a standarded, guaranteed as
authentic, acknowledged as best edition, etc.? Further, I don't know
that you really expect everyone to carry out a comparison themselves
rather than rely on a validating agency. If you get different versions
of a document, how are you to judge between them unless you happen to
be an expert, which is unlikely in most cases.

Haines
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[b***@public.gmane.org]

Lance,

Post by Lance Purple
Not necessarily; you could have critical e-texts (or audio files, or any
other binary file), signed with a digital authentication code from some
authoritative source. Then scholars could check whether their copy of
shakespeare.zip has a valid signature from library.oxford.edu.uk , etc.
(Or am I misunderstanding what you mean by "critical edition" ?)

No. In fact, that that was the context of my comment, although
somewhat lost sight of, I must admit. My basic point was that in terms
of traditional scholarship, authentification is necessary, and the new
digitial technologies challenge traditional means of
authentication. My point was not that authentification is impossible
with e-documents, but only that new approaches, such as the one you
mention, are called for.

Haines
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[Rich Kulawiec]

Post by b***@public.gmane.org
True, but in practice it seems important that we can place some
reliance on the critical source editions. Merely a lack of guarantee
does not mean that in fact the situation is chaotic. You go on to cite
the difficulties arriving at a critical source editions, and so I
gather you are not suggesting doing away with them, but merely insist
that the issue is not one that sharply divides hard copy and e-copy
documents.

Yes, that's very much the gist of what I was trying to say.

In the conventional world, we have experts who can ascertain which
editions constitute original critical sources, and which don't.j
They've got a myriad of techniques at their disposal, ranging
from microscopic examination to chemical analysis to typography
to linguistics and so on. We trust that these experts are (a) honest
and (b) competent, and we rely on their findings to guide us.

[ As an aside: I seem to recall an instance from history where an
oft-referenced document was later asserted to be a complete fabrication.
Please forgive my aging synapses, but I vaguely associate this
with Constantine and a land grant in eastern Europe; does anyone
with a better grasp of history recall the details? ]

But that's much harder to do in the digital world: I could create a
copy (for example) of *your* message, the very one I'm replying to,
alter it, disseminate it, etc., in such a way as to very much muddy
the waters for anyone trying to figure out which is which. The same
can be done (with more computational and human effort) for pictures,
digitized audio, video, web sites, and just about anything else.

In a way, this is worse than what Orwell envisioned: he seemed to
confine the power to alter such documents (and thus "history")
to the state, assumedly because of the difficulty and cost involved.
But now that power is not only available to the state, but to you
and me: $1000 worth of hardware and software is more than adequate
to create a bogus copy of anything that hasn't had at least *some*
effort put into making it resistant to such tampering.

It's an exciting and chilling prospect at the same time.

The ray of light in this is the development of public-key encryption
and authentication technologies. Given sufficiently strong algorithms
(a matter of mathematical design) and sufficiently robust keys (usually
a matter of their length), it's possible to "fingerprint" digital
materials in such a way as to authenticate their originator and to
guarantee their bit-for-bit integrity. With software like PGP, I can
send you a message that (a) only you can decrypt and/or (b) that you
can positively identify as having originated from me, and/or (c) that
you can check for evidence of tampering.

Of course, the race between code-makers and code-breakers will never
be over, and today's secure technology may yet yield to tomorrow's
breakthroughs in algorithms and computer technology. But there is
at least the possibility that a solution lies here.

Post by b***@public.gmane.org
It seems what helps make a critical edition authoritative is its cost
and rarety. If there were a thousand different versions of the Magna
Carta on line, which is entirely conceivable, and you assigned your
students to write a paper on it, what would be your reaction to quite
different conclusions resulting from the different versions? You might
give all your students A for effort, but to evaluate their conclusions
you would have to look at an authoritative version.

Hmmm, that's an interesting point. There are already examples of this
in documents which have undergone translation: different translators
have chosen not only different words, but different sentence structures,
idioms, and so on based on their knowledge and experience with the
material. What's different about the online world is that a thousand
versions could surface in a few days, as opposed to the centuries it's
taken for printed works. And so the opportunity for confusion, as I think
you're pointing out, is much greater.

Post by b***@public.gmane.org
Likewise your point about the issue of longevity tends to reduce the
difference. I agree here as well, but stil see some significant difference
nevertheless. Is not one important factor in longevity the
multiplication of perfect copies, not just the longevity of the medium?

I'm not sure...I hadn't thought of it that way before and need to
spend a little time staring out the window and thinking about this.


---Rsk
Rich Kulawiec
rsk-***@public.gmane.org
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[b***@public.gmane.org]

Michael,

Post by Michael S. Hart

Post by b***@public.gmane.org
Doesn't quite address my point. Scholarship, or at least the branch
with which I have a little familiarity, insists that argumentation is
justfied by reference to evidence, and this evidence, in fields such
as history, consists of critical source editions available in
libraries.

Sorry, I don't buy into that. . .never did. . .that's why I have been

Hope you understand that I was raising the objections of traditional
scholarship to focus debate and that I'm not unsympathetic to some of
your points. I'm not defending the old ways, but you are implying
there's an entirely different paradigm in the works, of which Project
Gutenberg is an examplar.

I don't know that we can or should preserve all the old hangups and
prejudices, but I do think that if we are arguing for a paradigm shift
that we are clear about what must be jetisoned and what preserved. For
example, in the quote above, I'm acutely aware of the enormous
difficulty and cost to produce critical editions of sources. Sometimes
it is almost a lifetime work to produce one critical edition. I'm also
acutely aware of the importance of critical editions for
scholarship. If a different paradigm is proposed, then is it supposed
that critical source editions are really unecessary?

Post by Michael S. Hart
I can't wait until what I know to be true is accepted as "evidence,"
especially in the Scholarly Sense. . .I have been doing Etext for

Understood, and I appreciate the frustration. However, I suspect that
the narrow issue of accepting on-line documents as the equivalent of
hard copy is a battle you are slowly winning. It is the other
dimensions of the problem that are a bit harder.

Post by Michael S. Hart
You might be surprised at the legal and illegal obstructions that
libraries have. . .I no longer have the energy to keep a library
card active, that I pay for, have a legal right to, just because
they really don't want me there. . .and unless I REALLY need to
use the materials HEAVILY, I don't bother keeping it active.

No, I'm very sympathetic. The best library in these parts would charge
me $600 just to enter its hallowed walls (Yale). So I travelled to
Colombia for a while, but that became difficult. Finally I just gave
up.

Post by Michael S. Hart

Post by b***@public.gmane.org
evaluate the soundness of the argumentation based upon them. Now,
while this traditional attitude may be entering crisis, it still
represent a very important moral force within the scholarly community.

As I said before, I just can't get into it with the scholarly community,
it takes too much time, and yields too few results. . .and yet when the
results are in, I am glad to see them.

I'm not clear whether you are deflating scholarship as socially
unnecessary, you are offering an alternative paradigm for scholarship,
or whether you simply want to see e-documents incorporated into
traditional scholarhip. Seems these are quite different, even
incompatible, objectives, and I'm not quite clear where you are headed.

Post by Michael S. Hart
By storing locally, you don't have to worry about the URL changing
or vanishing. . .and if you use alexa.com, you even get old URL's
data when you ask for it. They backed up the entire Web. . . .

Not sure I understand what you mean by "storing locally." I had
thousands of documents on a server that had its own address because
academic. Then the server was taken out and the address changed. I
moved to a commerical server and now have a portable address, which
takes care of the problem, but there was a URL change
nevertheless. What did you mean by "local storage?"

Post by Michael S. Hart

Post by b***@public.gmane.org
The conventional way out of this problem is for the profession (a term
I leave vague) to put their imprimatur (another term with
associations) on a particular version of a document so that it becomes

Sorry, not that into "authoritative" either. . .I have had to struggle
not to become an authority, myself. . .but I am succeeding. . . .
But after I am dead it will be harder. . . . ;-)

OK, but are you then suggesting that scholarship based on document
research does not need to agree on which version of a text scholars
will use, and if I want to include Tobias and his dog in the Chistian
bible and base my theological arguments on it, that is OK? On the
street I suppose a thousand flowers should bloom, but scholarship
really is, after all, a cooperative and cumulative process. Or are you
offering a different paradigm?

Post by Michael S. Hart

Post by b***@public.gmane.org
But, again, it is a serious question. Generally all advance in
knowledge stands on the shoulders of what has gone before. Of course,
what has gone on before is a can of worms, but there are mechanisms
employed by the experts to cull out the best so that it offers a more
secure foundation.

Sorry. . .can't deal with it. . . .

Am I to infer you are saying that everyone should have the technical expertise
to know valid documents from those that are not, even through their
primary field of expertise may lay elsewhere? Are you saying that if I
wanted to look up whether photons are particles and/or waves, about which
I'm no expert, that I can somehow hit upon literature that addresses
my level of understanding, is up to date, and technically sound
without the help of reviewers, peer or otherwise?

Post by Michael S. Hart
We should judge by the book, not by the cover, or what is writtin on
the cover, etc.

Nice if you can do it, but I can't afford to. Nearly everything I read
has been recommended by someone else. I don't have the time or
inclination to read everything in a field to decide which book was the
one I should have read. I assume your comment was not literally in
reference to publishers' blurbs, but to other people's opinions about
the book.

I'm afraid that learning is inherently a social activity,
not just because other people write the books we read, but because we
need other people to guide us in the literary thicket, to stimulate
our pursuits, and to offer the social context in which that pursuit
makes sense. I've no problem accepting the authority of others (I
accept that of my wife daily ;-), although I may not want certain
people to presume to do it.

Haines
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[Michael S. Hart]

Post by b***@public.gmane.org
Michael,

Post by Michael S. Hart

Post by b***@public.gmane.org
Doesn't quite address my point. Scholarship, or at least the branch
with which I have a little familiarity, insists that argumentation is
justfied by reference to evidence, and this evidence, in fields such
as history, consists of critical source editions available in
libraries.

Sorry, I don't buy into that. . .never did. . .that's why I have been

Hope you understand that I was raising the objections of traditional
scholarship to focus debate and that I'm not unsympathetic to some of
your points. I'm not defending the old ways, but you are implying
there's an entirely different paradigm in the works, of which Project
Gutenberg is an examplar.

Well. . .I certainly do think Project Gutenberg is the first example
of what will become a new paradigm. . .in fact. . .I think the paradigm
may be more important than Project Gutenberg. . .which is why the Lords
and Ladies of Copyright have been so fiercly busy of late. . .they were
possibly some of the first who recognized, and feared, the paradigm shift
to EVERYONE HAVING EVERYTHING. . .and they couldn't stand the concept.

Post by b***@public.gmane.org
I don't know that we can or should preserve all the old hangups and
prejudices, but I do think that if we are arguing for a paradigm shift
that we are clear about what must be jetisoned and what preserved. For
example, in the quote above, I'm acutely aware of the enormous
difficulty and cost to produce critical editions of sources. Sometimes
it is almost a lifetime work to produce one critical edition.

Which is nothing compare to the thousands of lifetimes it has taken to
write the very tools we are using to create this conversation. . . .
Cost is such a relative term. . .if it were a real term, I, who have
never had a year or two of average salary in my life, could never have
published a few thousand books, could never have changed the world.
You sound as if you would like to *preserve* the fact that these things
used to cost a lot, to everyone concerned, but the creator and the reader,
but what happens when both ends are a labor of love, and no money changes
hands. . .will THAT chase the money-changers out of academia's vestries?

I'm also

Post by b***@public.gmane.org
acutely aware of the importance of critical editions for
scholarship. If a different paradigm is proposed, then is it supposed
that critical source editions are really unecessary?

Just that they only apply to a very small percentage of the audience,
and hardly anyone else could benefit. . . .

Post by b***@public.gmane.org

Post by Michael S. Hart
I can't wait until what I know to be true is accepted as "evidence,"
especially in the Scholarly Sense. . .I have been doing Etext for

Understood, and I appreciate the frustration. However, I suspect that
the narrow issue of accepting on-line documents as the equivalent of
hard copy is a battle you are slowly winning. It is the other
dimensions of the problem that are a bit harder.

It isn't frustrating at all. . .it's just like "running around end"
in a football game. . .you leave all the big boys locked in mortal
combat in the middle. . .and you scamper unhindered to the goal.
At least that's they _I_ played football, AND did my academics.
I probably should mention that I completed a four year program
in two years, with a 5.0 GPA, with all available honors, distinction, etc.
But then just continued on my own path, rather than in academia/industry.
Beware the military/industrial/[academic] complex. . .President Eisenhower
Probably the bravest thing a president ever said. . .and he had the sense
to wait until he was retiring. . .this is often quoted, rarely understood.

Post by b***@public.gmane.org

Post by Michael S. Hart
You might be surprised at the legal and illegal obstructions that
libraries have. . .I no longer have the energy to keep a library
card active, that I pay for, have a legal right to, just because
they really don't want me there. . .and unless I REALLY need to
use the materials HEAVILY, I don't bother keeping it active.

No, I'm very sympathetic. The best library in these parts would charge
me $600 just to enter its hallowed walls (Yale). So I travelled to
Colombia for a while, but that became difficult. Finally I just gave
up.

Hmm. . .I guess I was lucky. . .the Yale library let me in free. . . .
Not that I could check anything out, but I did get a look at their
Gutenberg Bible. . . . I am often lucky that way. . .I have a sign on
my desk, I can't even see it right now, so much clutter, but it says:

"You Never Know What You Could Get. . .Until You Ask For It!"

So I ask. . .and am surprised at what I do and do not get.

Got a free private tour of one of the closed wings of the Metropolitan
Museum in NYC. . .went three times. . .always closed. . .so I asked,
and a guard took us through the whole wing, stayed as long as we wanted.
I have gotten into many museums free of charge, just by asking, and also
had a Rodin uncrated for a private showing just for me. . .the just locked
me into the room, with a polishing cloth, and told me to knock when I
wanted out. . .I didn't come out until I was tired, hungry, and thirsty.
There are a dozen more such examples. . .and usually from people who have
no idea who I am. . .I have yet to actually have that kind of recognition.

Post by b***@public.gmane.org

Post by Michael S. Hart

Post by b***@public.gmane.org
evaluate the soundness of the argumentation based upon them. Now,
while this traditional attitude may be entering crisis, it still
represent a very important moral force within the scholarly community.

As I said before, I just can't get into it with the scholarly community,
it takes too much time, and yields too few results. . .and yet when the
results are in, I am glad to see them.

I'm not clear whether you are deflating scholarship as socially
unnecessary,

"I am glad to see them." should answer that. . . .

you are offering an alternative paradigm for scholarship,

Post by b***@public.gmane.org
or whether you simply want to see e-documents incorporated into
traditional scholarhip. Seems these are quite different, even
incompatible, objectives, and I'm not quite clear where you are headed.

I suppose you would best understand my thoughts if I used the Dead Sea
Scrolls, or Professor Kingsfield's "Paper Chase" scavenger hunt as examples.

I just don't believe in hogging the resources, hiding the resources, etc.
If you are really a top of the line academic, then you aren't afraid of
everyone seeing the resources. . .it is only those BOTH want to be at
the top academically AND who fear their own incompetence who are afraid
for everyone to see the resources.

I was VERY proud of the French for letting everyone see the cave paintings
a few years back, and, additionally for letting Project Gutenberg use them
immediately, while they were still the hottest thing in the news; no waiting
for all the academic journals to take a year to publish their opinion first.

THAT is the paradigm I am working towards, and am SO GLAD I AM NOT ALONE.

Post by b***@public.gmane.org

Post by Michael S. Hart
By storing locally, you don't have to worry about the URL changing
or vanishing. . .and if you use alexa.com, you even get old URL's
data when you ask for it. They backed up the entire Web. . . .

Not sure I understand what you mean by "storing locally." I had
thousands of documents on a server that had its own address because
academic. Then the server was taken out and the address changed. I
moved to a commerical server and now have a portable address, which
takes care of the problem, but there was a URL change
nevertheless. What did you mean by "local storage?"

I mean stored in your own house or office. . .today computers are so
cheap, and drives even cheaper, that there is NO excuse for not storing
EVERYTHING you might ever want to see again on your own personal computer.
A friend told me today that he saw some 10G drives for $100 each. . . .
I have not confirmed that, but the truth is that it WILL be true shortly,
if not already. . .put a few of those in your PC, and why ever worry about
URLs again. . .just save it all. . .doesn't take more time or bandwidth,
and when you reuse it, it takes SO much less!!!

Post by b***@public.gmane.org

Post by Michael S. Hart

Post by b***@public.gmane.org
The conventional way out of this problem is for the profession (a term
I leave vague) to put their imprimatur (another term with
associations) on a particular version of a document so that it becomes

Sorry, not that into "authoritative" either. . .I have had to struggle
not to become an authority, myself. . .but I am succeeding. . . .
But after I am dead it will be harder. . . . ;-)

OK, but are you then suggesting that scholarship based on document
research does not need to agree on which version of a text scholars

They never agree anyway. . .at least rarely. . . .

And since they don't make those documents public, I am an outsider,
and I prefer to represent outsiders, and work for outsiders, which
upsets the insiders to the nth degree.

Post by b***@public.gmane.org
will use, and if I want to include Tobias and his dog in the Chistian
bible and base my theological arguments on it, that is OK? On the
street I suppose a thousand flowers should bloom, but scholarship
really is, after all, a cooperative and cumulative process. Or are you
offering a different paradigm?

As above. . .

Post by b***@public.gmane.org

Post by Michael S. Hart

Post by b***@public.gmane.org
But, again, it is a serious question. Generally all advance in
knowledge stands on the shoulders of what has gone before. Of course,
what has gone on before is a can of worms, but there are mechanisms
employed by the experts to cull out the best so that it offers a more
secure foundation.

Sorry. . .can't deal with it. . . .

Am I to infer you are saying that everyone should have the technical expertise
to know valid documents from those that are not, even through their

If you don't know it yourself, you have to at least know how do judge what
the others say about it. . .if you can't do THAT. . .then you are merely
substituting someone else's judgement for your own. . . !

And what kind of scholarship is THAT?!?

Post by b***@public.gmane.org
primary field of expertise may lay elsewhere? Are you saying that if I
wanted to look up whether photons are particles and/or waves, about which
I'm no expert, that I can somehow hit upon literature that addresses
my level of understanding, is up to date, and technically sound
without the help of reviewers, peer or otherwise?

Yes, you can. . .I do it all the time. . .with the help of REFERENCE
LIBRARIANS. . .who, as I ALWAYS say. . .ARE WORTH THEIR WEIGHT IN GOLD.

Yes, I do do as much research as I can first, and since I have over 50
full paper encylopedias in the house, along with the CDROM ones, etc.,
means I only have to call them about one time out of 7 or 8. . .but
we often recognize each others' voices, even so.

Post by b***@public.gmane.org

Post by Michael S. Hart
We should judge by the book, not by the cover, or what is writtin on
the cover, etc.

Nice if you can do it, but I can't afford to. Nearly everything I read
has been recommended by someone else.

Are you going to look over what I suggested?

I look at anything someone gives me. . .but not always if they don't.
I am a total Type A personality, and try to do several things at once,
I am currently logged in twice, once here, with ASCII only, once with
Netscape, on two different lines. . .and also listening to music. I
sometimes have the news on at the same time. . . .

I don't have the time or

Post by b***@public.gmane.org
inclination to read everything in a field to decide which book was the
one I should have read. I assume your comment was not literally in
reference to publishers' blurbs, but to other people's opinions about
the book.

Actually, one of my pet peeves is that the librarians who order books
seem to NEVER actually look at them first, much less READ them. . . .

No, I wasn't talking about blurbs. . .that's just advertizing. . . .

But. . .if you are going to get "outside the box" you either have to
have friends who live "outside the box" or you have to spend some
time just reading what's in the trash. . the best thing I may have
read all of the past year was a Time magazine, of all things, that
I picked up out of the trash. . .about the second issue of 1999,
Cover was a DNA strand, and a dozen articles about genetics and
the new medicine. . .stunning. . .two friends of mine have gotten
knee deep into it. . .both on the way to med school. . . . Craig
Ventor[sp] is really something. . . ! A bit like me. . .hee hee!

Post by b***@public.gmane.org
I'm afraid that learning is inherently a social activity,
not just because other people write the books we read, but because we
need other people to guide us in the literary thicket,

BUT!!!

The longer it takes to get from the writer to the reader, and back!,
the less of a social activity it becomes. . .instead it is oligarchy.
A one way street, straight from the horse's ailimentary canal. . . .

But which end, eh?

It's up to YOURSELF to choose!

[snipped the ending]

Thanks!

So nice to hear from you!!

Michael S. Hart
[hart-e+***@public.gmane.org]
Project Gutenberg
"Ask Dr. Internet"
Executive Director
Internet User ~#100


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[Joseph Teller]

Post by Michael S. Hart
UMICH was doing that, too, at least for a while, but they decided,
I think, that the MONEY was more important, and feared they could
not control access. . .rumor only. . . .

That is always the stickler problem in this society, and it drives me up the wall.

Its one of the reasons I went away from trying to market anything I write, and
instead of trying to figure out some way to limit access I give it away, as I
think what I have to say is more important than whether I get paid to say it.

I also get very frustrated with the battle over local storage options. Many folks
on the net see the net as ephemeral - you can create fan related materials for
the net for example without as much as a peep out of companies, the moment
you place material on a CD and give it away or sell it at cost the lawyers come
out of the woodwork after you as they consider a CD disk to be publishing it
and violating their perceived copyrights, trademarks or patents (even if you
are doing so simply to help out folks without access to the net).

Fair use has also gone out the door, along with the concepts in trademark law
that you can't trademark a common usage word and that a trademark is within
a specific field of endeavor (Look at the efforts of McDonalds to claim that
they own the Mc part of words and that no one can start a business with such
without facing their lawyers, even if they are not in the food business and not
using with the same rest of name).

In this era where a CD-R disk can be bought from 50 cents to about $2 I can
home-press a CD and mail it to someone with a cost of $3-$5. It costs real
companies even less to do mass pressings in commercial format.

DVD recordables, the next step in this information process are being held up
because of everyone who wants to find someway to prevent folks from pirating
material potentially, and everyone has their hand out for a share of it. When
they become available the price tag (like that of CD's) will be outrageously
high to prevent individuals from getting the benefit from such (just like they did
with CDs for a good decade). Money is again slowing progress.

Joe



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[Joseph Teller]

Would you care to send me any of what you have written?

Most of its on my website, but I can zip it up and send it along. Its not
scholarly or necessarily of value to everyone, and a lot of what I write is
related to roleplaying game design and related fields (Sf/Fantasy). Still I'll
gladly pass it along. I also have a CD of material I produced a few years ago
(home pressed CD-R for the PC) in conjunction with a group of other authors
that was distributed on an at-cost basis. Just drop me a mailing address and
I'll send a copy (I have a great respect for your project and efforts in the etext
field, and though I can't afford to send everyone a free CD I'll gladly send it
along to you for the enjoyment your project's results have brought me along
the way).

The way around this is "SneakerNet". . .just encourage your users to share
the information on your site with their friends. . .they copy it, put on
their "Sneakers" and run across the street to their friends' houses. . . .
Project Gutenberg got around the world that way before the Internet got
around it.

Well, that and the BBS systems - I remember quite a few Etexts passing thru
those channels back when I was running a system (which I did for about 8
years).

Another channel thats been useful to me is the convention route (good for
those of us in SF/Fantasy/Roleplaying area) where one takes a stack of
material with you to the convention and hand it out to folks for free (or at cost
if you can't afford it).

However, they are failing in this attempt. . .in part due to the McDonald
Clan. . .and THE MacDonald. . .head of the clan. . .and in part to others
of the McAnything name.

I know, but we really need them to extend this out of the Scottish courts and
into the American courts to teach these folks a lesson. So far they haven't lost
in the US courts that I'm aware of....

And music CDs haven't come down in price since the day they were
introduced, about 15 years ago. . .even though you can make your own for
50 cents. . . .
And you KNOW the artists are getting only about 5% of what you pay.

I know, and its SOOOOOOOO frustrating.

Joe

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[b***@public.gmane.org]

Chuck,

Post by zendog
History professors write articles and books for the fun of it, for
ego satisfaction, to provide materials for classroom use, as an
excuse for a sabattical, and as grist for the promotion mill
(unless they happen to be full professors).

You forgot: To get paid royalties for the books that are used to
teach students at their school or other schools.

Aha! Exactly my point. My wild guess is that history professors write
on average two books in their careers, primarily because they have
to. A minority write more; a smaller minority write many more. Of
those who write books, my guess is that in 95 percent of the cases,
the effort is financially a loosing proposition in that the costs of
production (including time) are greater than the financial
return. When people figure their pay for writing history books, they
typically come up with numbers that are far less than what they could
have made by moonlighting or summer teaching, etc. True, I've known
exceptions where history authors have indeed made signficantly more,
but in most cases, my sense is they would have written even without
that financial incentive.

Therefore, I concluded that a history professor writing primarily for
the income is a rarety and hence omitted that as a significant
motivation. Of course, the omission could be mistaken, but my
impression is that my conclusion represents the consensus among
academics, at least in the liberal arts. Professors naturally like to
make more money, and they do so in a variety of ways. Never met one
who looked upon writing as the way to do it, however.

My basic point is that if much artistic and literary production of
merit does not arise primarily from the creators' economic interest
and if such production could to a signficant extent take place without
royalties, then copyright law should perhaps be reexamined. However, I
realize that there is signficant economic interest involved besides
that of the creators of cultural products, and I realize that the
issue of whether motivation is econmic or not is ideological and
therefore probably not subject to reasoned debate.

Surely the college might have an interest if the book were written
on its time, especially if the quality of the work reflected badly
on the college and the author was publicized as being of that
college. There also might be the thought that the college was
paying the person on sebatical to write the book, and as such might
have some rights.

Yes, but this varies according to discipline and time. Traditionally
(in the US more than two decades ago I mean), universities tended to
have little economic interest in faculty creative activity. More
recently that has become an issue, but my impression that this has
more to do with scientific or engineering discoveries than simple
academic publication. Also, the economic concerns here seem to be
coming from the private sector, and the universities, increasingly
strapped for funds, are looking at where the profits of inventions
they helped subsidize are going. In the literature there's often
complaint that the US is falling behind in basic research for this
very reason. Ie, the commercialization of creative activity has
stultified it.

That a univerity likes to bask in the glow of its stellar (excuse the
metaphore) faculty or might be embarrassed by crackpot works eminating
from its ranks is probably true, but I don't quite see the
relevance. Usually the deal is: facutlty are supposed to be creative;
publication is an important, but not sole, manifestation of that
creativity; faculty are granted opportunties, such as sabaticals, to
encourage this creative activity. At no univerisity I know is all this
viewed primarily in economic terms. In any case, I know of no
university extending a proprietary claim to any books that might arise
from a sabatical. Perhaps there are exceptions, but I suspect they are
indeed just that. Does Harvard get a cut from the sales of Samuelson's
economic text (if published by HUP, that's something else)?

Pehaps I'm naive, but I hope that the combination of digital documents
and Internet might offer space for an emerging world culture that is
not reduced to commodities and competing commercial interests and that
is copyright free. What significant writings available in world
culture would now be unavailable to us had there been no copyright
laws? Very few, I suspect, would now be unavailable.

Haines Brown

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[Lisa L. Spangenberg]

Post by b***@public.gmane.org
With all its flaws, I'm not convinced we can do without some kind of
peer review of new productions. So how is this to be implemented with
e-documents on line?

We can't. Peer review is essential to scholarship. But humanists might
look to the model offered by the sciences, particularly Physics, where
epublished peer review journals have became quite common, and are among
the most respected. I'm not sure all scholars will take kindly the the
kind of vociferous review that the net makes possible. Many of the
humanists I work with are almost terrified of publishing something on the
web simply because the audience is so much larger.

And though I value eBooks, not least because they pay for my tuition, I
also value the virtues of the traditional codex book. I do not seem them
as mutually exclusive, rather, I seem them, and use them, for different
purposes.

Certainly in my fields, medieval and renaissance literature, I will
always need to resort to primary sources that are traditional books.
That's a given. Right now, it's not convenient to have five or six eBooks
open, with pages visible from all of them. I can, and often do do just
that with conventional codex books.

Lisa L. Spangenberg | Digital medievalist
-----------------------------------------------------------------
of making many books there is no end;
and much study is a weariness of the flesh.
Eccles. 12:12
-----------------------------------------------------------------

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[Lisa L. Spangenberg]

Post by b***@public.gmane.org
Now, while I personally feel that an archive of e-documents can do
just as well if not better in certain respects to costly hard cover
edited source documents and even manuscript originals, in many cases,
when you add citations to a research paper, and these include on-line
documents, will the URL be valid a year from now?

This is a very real problem, especially given the length of time between
submitting an article for publication, and the actual publication of a
journal. I wrote an article in September for publication in a journal
this May. The URLs I cited changed several times in the intervening
months. It wouldn't surprise me if they change again.

It this aspect of online publication that I think most disturbs the
faculty I work with.
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[Michael S. Hart]

Post by Lisa L. Spangenberg

Post by b***@public.gmane.org
Now, while I personally feel that an archive of e-documents can do
just as well if not better in certain respects to costly hard cover
edited source documents and even manuscript originals, in many cases,
when you add citations to a research paper, and these include on-line
documents, will the URL be valid a year from now?

This is a very real problem, especially given the length of time between
submitting an article for publication, and the actual publication of a
journal. I wrote an article in September for publication in a journal
this May. The URLs I cited changed several times in the intervening
months. It wouldn't surprise me if they change again.
It this aspect of online publication that I think most disturbs the
faculty I work with.

Obviously the problem is twofold. . .one medium is too fast, while the
other is too slow. . .the fault lies with the fact that your journals
move too slowly to be of major use with the Net, and the Net changes
too quickly to be mapped by anything as slow as your journals.

The obvious solution, and one I use at Project Gutenberg, is to insist
that I not only post the URLs to any materials we copy, but to insist
that we also be able to post our own copies of the materlials. . .not
only to avoid "link rot" but also to insure people all over the world
have easy access via servers closer to them.

Thanks!

So nice to hear from you!!

Michael S. Hart
[hart-e+***@public.gmane.org]
Project Gutenberg
"Ask Dr. Internet"
Executive Director
Internet User ~#100


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[Deena Larsen]

Hi,.

I have a copyright issue that I would like to get some advice on. My
hypertext in progress is a mystery that tracks a girl's disappearance by
referring readers to external websites (such as www.fbi.gov).

Obviously, I can't just recopy the relevant sites to my own drive.

Is there any way I can link to these sites AND make sure that the links
are good for more than a day--without tromping over a copyright and
getting eaten alive by lawyers?

Thanks!
Deena Larsen

Post by Michael S. Hart
Obviously the problem is twofold. . .one medium is too fast, while the
other is too slow. . .the fault lies with the fact that your journals
move too slowly to be of major use with the Net, and the Net changes
too quickly to be mapped by anything as slow as your journals.
The obvious solution, and one I use at Project Gutenberg, is to insist
that I not only post the URLs to any materials we copy, but to insist
that we also be able to post our own copies of the materlials. . .not
only to avoid "link rot" but also to insure people all over the world
have easy access via servers closer to them.

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[Michael S. Hart]

Post by Deena Larsen
Hi,.
I have a copyright issue that I would like to get some advice on. My
hypertext in progress is a mystery that tracks a girl's disappearance by
referring readers to external websites (such as www.fbi.gov).
Obviously, I can't just recopy the relevant sites to my own drive.

[snip]

You might be able copy what you want with permission. . .but also be
aware that even if you can expect the URL to remain the same, the data
will certainly be quite different next year. . . .

Michael

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[Joseph Teller]

Post by Deena Larsen
I have a copyright issue that I would like to get some advice on. My
hypertext in progress is a mystery that tracks a girl's disappearance by
referring readers to external websites (such as www.fbi.gov).
Obviously, I can't just recopy the relevant sites to my own drive.
Is there any way I can link to these sites AND make sure that the links
are good for more than a day--without tromping over a copyright and
getting eaten alive by lawyers?

You shouldn't get eaten alive for material from fbi.gov - material produced by
government employees for the government is public property and
reproducable. Thats why the CIA factbooks were distributed all over the place
a few years ago (included on magazine CDs etc). You can't claim to own it,
but the entire population of the USA technically owns usage of it.

I doubt the government main URLS are going to go away quickly, but
individual pages under the URLS are subject to change.

Joe

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[b***@public.gmane.org]

Lisa,

Post by Lisa L. Spangenberg
This is a very real problem, especially given the length of time between
submitting an article for publication, and the actual publication of a
journal. I wrote an article in September for publication in a journal
this May. The URLs I cited changed several times in the intervening
months. It wouldn't surprise me if they change again.
It this aspect of online publication that I think most disturbs the
faculty I work with.

Perhaps Michael H. will enlighten us about alexis.com (and why it
smacks of 1984). Also, I've heard that XML offers a way around this,
but wonder about the specifics. Anyone want to volunteer that
information?

Haines
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[Lisa L. Spangenberg]

Post by Michael S. Hart
. . .to further respond to your example below, when I put the Declaration
of Indpendence online as the first Project Gutenberg Etext, I never did
find ANY two editions which agreed on all the spelling, capitalization,
and punctuation. . .out of a dozen I looked at, from the usual suspects
of great authoritarianism at the great universities and encylopedia to
the sleazy little faux-parchments handed out on the Bicentennial. . . .
There was no real agreement among those, on a document only 200 years old,
and that was only 5,000 characters long. . .so going after this sort of
thing with books that are older and longer just seems to be the stuff
dreams are made of. . .

That's why you have to serve some sort of an apprenticeship learning how
to produce editions of texts. It's not easy, especially working with
texts that have archaic orthography, and are in multiple versions. And
why you try to get close to the original--like the photographic
facsimile. It isn't a dream; it is far more "real" in the digital age
than it has ever been before, because you can now combine the image-based
digital facsimile with a text-based edition, allowing for searches and
indices and concordances.

As a case in point--when Voyager produced Macbeth, David Rodes, one of
the two content experts (the other was Al Braunmuller) askedMichael
Cohen, the programmer producer of Macbeth, if it would be possible to
produce a list of the first lines of each characters' speeches, and then
to sort them by character.

Michael did that. Dr. Rodes pointed out that because you could see the
first lines listed by speaker you could see that Lady Macbeth has a
dramatically different style of speech in terms of who interrupts who and
when, than any other character in the play.

We left that chart in the final version of the play. Yes, you could do
this without a computer--in a sense Professor Rodes had. But the computer
made it much easier to see the pattern. It was a dramatic way to show
people one of the important things to notice about the language in
plays--who speaks when, to whom, and who interrupts and is interrupted.
That tells careful listeners and readers a lot about status , power, and
convention, and is a technique that is just as viable in analyzing real
life "speech acts."

Post by Michael S. Hart
it isn't of interest to 99.99% of the readers,
and if you aren't publishing for them, you don't have a real audience,
only one dreams are made of. I'm afraid I have to put this kind of
scholarship up there with "Angels Dancing on the Head of a Pin" and
how many times Shakespeare used the word "and". . .which you could
get any high school hacker to find out for you with a few instructions
and a few dollars. Last I recall Susan Hockey, then of Oxford, spent
some $US99 50,000 to count them up. . .and the conclusion was that the
person most likely to have been Shakespeare was. . .Queen Elizabeth!!

I know Michael is exaggerating for effect. But the kind of thing he is
talking about, concordances and other sorts of "lists" do have a
practical value. So does analyzing phrase clusters. The problem with what
I think is his underlying argument is that is suggests that something
that the majority is not interested in is not worth pursuing.

That's a personal issue, for me. I'm finishing a degree in English,
specializing in medieval Celtic and English literature. There is no
chance that I will ever receive an academic appointment in Celtic
literature. None. I'm not even going to try. But I'm still going to spend
time doing things like parsing and tagging Old Irish texts.

Of course, there are very few people who care about the texts, never mind
read them. But it doesn't matter to me. If we can get these texts
digitized, as images and as text, and tagged, then lots of them will be
preserved, and as scholars become interested, these texts will be
available.

And in authoritative editions, so that readers can compare manuscripts,
and alternative versions. They'll be able to trace the way the Irish
language changed from the eighth through the sixteenth centuries, even if
most people couldn't care less.

Post by Michael S. Hart
Sorry, this is NOT scholarship. . . .

We'll never agree on that.

<snip>

Post by Michael S. Hart
My father never got to read the "originals" of Shakespeare's works
until he was a well-respected full professor. . . .

No one alive has ever read the "originals" though I know Michael is
referring to the Folio and Quarto editions. We'd like to get an idea of
what the originals may have been like. Which is why data, like analyzing
the use of "and," is useful. It helps us notice what is typical for
Shakespeare, versus that of his contemporaries, to notice how his writing
changed, or didn't change, with time, and what may have been printers'
corrections.

And I'm sure there are people using the Gutenberg Shakespeare texts as
base lines, because the Project texts all have a pedigree attached to
them.

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[Lisa L. Spangenberg]

Post by Michael S. Hart
Actually, you could just use COMP or "diff" or any other file comparison
program to show you the differences between any two files you suspect are
not quite exactly the same. . . .

Don't such files only compare the text contained in a file? That would be
find for say, text files, or uncompiled code, but not for other data
types. And then on the Mac, you have to check each resource in the
resource fork of the file as well, though there are specialized tools to
do that, they're less than user friendly.
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[Michael S. Hart]

Post by Lisa L. Spangenberg

Post by Michael S. Hart
Actually, you could just use COMP or "diff" or any other file comparison
program to show you the differences between any two files you suspect are
not quite exactly the same. . . .

Don't such files only compare the text contained in a file? That would be
find for say, text files, or uncompiled code, but not for other data
types. And then on the Mac, you have to check each resource in the
resource fork of the file as well, though there are specialized tools to
do that, they're less than user friendly.

Even if you data is in three files, you can just compare all three.

As for forks, that makes it too much of a program for my taste,
and not really an Etext. . . .

Michael

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