Re: Apple II Reference Manual ("Red Book")

[pausch@saafNOSPAM.se (Paul Schlyter)]

In article <38f64bc6.582460856@news>,
Jeff Blakeney <CUTblakeney@home.com> wrote:
 
> On Wed, 12 Apr 2000 18:49:52 +0900, Paul Guertin <pg@sff.net> wrote:
> 
>> I doubt it. People who pay that kind of money for a Red Book are
>> collectors, not techies, and scans (or photocopies) are worthless to
>> collectors. 
>
> Yes, but if you reduce the number of people who want to get that Red
> Book, you have much less leverage to charge a higher price for it.  If
> you decide to auction it on ebay, you will get a lot less bids if a
> bunch of people have downloaded it for free and don't particularly
> care if they have an original or not, therefore the bidding won't go
> as high.  Ergo, a lower price for that item than you would get if it
> was available for download.
 
So it's a matter of what you give the highest priority: should as
many people as possible who want to learn about the Apple II get
access to that information?  Or should those who are furtunate enough
to own a Red Book be able to sell it at the highest possible price?
 
I have one of those Red Books myself, and I had no idea these books
nowadays sell at such prices.  For me it's perfectly OK if the
contents of this Red Book is scanned and distributed on the Internet
-- I think it's more important that anyone who wants to get at the
content of this book can get it than that I may be able to sell my
copy for a higher amount of money than I expected.
 
You could compare this to a public library: at the Royal Library here
in Stockholm I am able to look at many old and rare books.  I'm not
allowed to borrow them home (they're too valuable for that), but I
can order copies of any pages I want in any of these books, and all
I'll have to pay is the cost of producing the copies.  If this
service would be cancelled, it's possible that these books might get
still more expensive in the market of old, rare books among
antiquarian book sellers.  Do you think this service should be
cancelled, or continued?
 
-- 
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Paul Schlyter,  Swedish Amateur Astronomer's Society (SAAF)
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