<nettime> letter from a publisher

[Geert Lovink <geert@xs4all.nl>]

From: William Cody <w.cody@elsevier.com>
To: geert@xs4all.nl
Subject: Re: contributor agreement -Reply

Dear Dr. Lovink: You indicate that you will not sign the contributor
agreement, and insist that your work must be free for all to read. In that
case, please feel free to post your work on the world wide web, but we
will not be able to include your chapter in the book. Quite simply, if we
allowed everyone free and open access we would have nothing to sell and
thus would, in effect, be out of business. (Why would anyone buy what they
could access for free?) I am sure "people in many countries would like to
read" your work, as you indicate, but how are they going to know of it? By
word of mouth? What about those who have not yet heard of you, who do not
know you by name? Promotion and marketing still do serve some purpose, and
the printed book still does have a few advantages over online materials. 

I welcome your thoughts and comments, and want you to know that we would
be happy to include your contribution in the book, but only if you can see
your way to sign the contributor agreement. Unless I hear from you by
Wednesday, Sep 29, we will have to drop your chapter from Culture and
Technology in the New Europe. Sincerely, William Cody, Senior Acquisitions
Editor. 



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