Midwest Conference on Technology, Employment & Community
Chicago Circle Center, UIC,
750 South Halsted, Chicago,
March 2 - 4, 1995
Notes on Workshop #17:
Will hard copy survive? printing and publishing in the digital age
- Lew Rosenbaum, the Guild Complex, PrinterUs Row Bookfair
- Mary Anne White, (Workshop Organizer) CCIA, PrinterUs Row Bookfair
- Dan Kaplan, Chicago Reader
- Liane Casten, Freelance Investigative Journalist
- Diamond Jack, Lumpen Times
Lew:
Setting panel in context...Conference started with discussion w/ Rifkin and his
position that the end of work is coming. End of work means end of wages and
buying power. Technology is putting people out of work...Auto, Clothing,
Agriculture and Books & Publishing. The commodity weUre talking about here is
Intellectual Property, diseminating ideas.
Diamond Jack:
Grew up in a tough area, very near UIC. Started writing under this
pen name. Felt that there was a lot of censorship of what he wanted
to write about. JackUs story was rejected by the Tribune. He
self-published story exposing a secret service agent infiltrating
Unification Church, outside of the RsystemS (traditional publishers).
This forced the Tribune to write an article.that they had not wanted
to write.
On anti-copywrite. The Lumpen Times welcomes people to copy all of
the stories in the paper, as long as it's mentioned that
Liane:
She agrees with DJ that we can't get published in main stream. Electronic
access lets greedy folks, cruising the Tnet, who will download and copy the
information for their own use. Ziff Publishing, Information Access and
Electronic Newsstand and others have grabbed her stories without her permission
While she gets mentioned as the writer, this is being done without giving her
any revenue for this work. National Writers Union is concerned. Photos can be
altered without the viewer knowing. Who gets credit for this? Some publishers
have created Rcontracts from hellS, where all writerUs rights are lost in leau
of publishers paying for electronic reproduction. The Union is created the
MADCAP contract (modeled on ASCAP), a credit is generated to the writer upon
downloading of article. They feel that the writer should have some control of
who publishes work. There is a lawsuit brought by the Union against New York
Times.
Dan:
Dan's notes are in a separate file.
Comments & Questions:
Fundamental question of valuation of intelectual property when it can be
replicated infinitum via electronic distribution. It's becoming a
non-commodity.
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Maintained by Robin Burke <burke@cs.uchicago.edu>
Last modified: Tue Mar 7 12:53:42 1995