Power over Publishing:

the trade in e-books

by Richard Guthrie

In the beginning came AOL and Gemstar. MIT,

Negroponte and other digital prophets saw the
new technologies and said they were good.

Old media - Time warner, News Corp., Rupert

Murdoch, Gerry Levin et al - checked their share
prices and saw that the long term power and asset
prognosis for Old Media was bad.

Established conglomerate-owned media organized

a defence. In the early 21st century atmosphere of
corporate power encouraged by the new Bush
administration, the media conglomerates
marshalled themselves. Against all market logic
that history provides for new publishing products (it’s all about price), corporate
publishing kept e-books prices artificially high. As history shows us, all new media
technology is seen first as a threat to the establishment; the powerful media
conglomerates engaged in technology suppression. They exploited the draconian powers
and provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, promoted cumbersome Digital
Rights Management technology locks, and directed their daily press, magazine and TV
assets to promote doubt and fear over New Media e-reading technologies in the minds of
ill-informed consumers. Porter details in Competitive Strategies just how far
corporations will go, what tactics they will use, in order to succeed - ‘no holds are
barred’. Conglomerate-owned publishing went to war with New Media.

The media and entertainment conglomerates oversee 80% of sales in all sectors of
Anglophone book publishing. The conglomerates were and still are a powerful adversary
for New Media (which, at first, were only a loosely affiliated group of electronic
enthusiasts, technologists and small start-up e-publishers). In the heady early years of
the first New Media boom, 1998-2000, digital enthusiasts blind to the stark realities of
markets, didn’t understand the blunt, even brutal, market instruments the
conglomerates would use in order to destroy New Media’s growing market power. Old
media had to destroy new publishing technologies, leaving their trump card for last -
blaming the market collapse of 2001 all on New Media. By 2002 New Media seemed all
but beaten, neutered almost to extinction. Then out of nowhere came Google, a
company Old Media entirely misread. New Media was back as a force once again.
POWER OVER PUBLISHING
table of contents

Introduction: Publishing in Digital Crisis 11

E-BOOKS: the first commercial phase 1998-2004 15

EMPATHIES AND ANTIPATHIES 1998-1999
THE E-FRENZY OF 2000
PARADIGM HIATUS 2001
LEAN TIMES 2002-2004

STRATEGIC COMPETITION 42
CORPORATE STRATEGIES
20TH CENTURY SUPPRESSION OF MEDIA
AM VS FM AND THE DELAY OF TELEVISION
ABSORPTION OF RIVALS
MURDOCH VS GEMSTAR

LEGAL STRATEGIES OF CONTROL 63

COPYRIGHT AND CONSUMERS IN THE DIGITAL ERA
COPYRIGHT OR COPY THEFT
DMCA – ANTI-CONSUMER LAW
FAIR USE & FIRST SALE
THE LIMITS OF PIRACY

THE POWER OF CULTURE 89

THE POWER OF ENTERTAINMENT
THE SAGA OF TIME WARNER AND AOL
CONTENT VS. CONNECTIVITY
GOOGLING BOOKS

POWER IN PUBLISHING 116

MICHAEL MOORE'S POWER OVER MURDOCH
CHRIS PATTEN STALEMATES HARPERCOLLINS
PUBLISHERS, CONSUMERS AND THE E-BOOK
THE E-BOOK POWER MESSAGE

Footnotes
Bibliography 164

The writer:

Richard Guthrie has followed New Media developments and the growth of new electronic reading
technologies for over a decade. He has an MA in publishing studies from City University,
London and a PhD from Nottingham Trent University in the economic, cultural and technological
developments in electronic publishing.

http://elephantearspress.com/poweroverpublishing.html