In today’s world, money seems to be everything. Whenever and wherever there is a possibility numerous groups or individuals jump to monetize it. One can find various instances where people have stolen ideas from others and passed it off as their own, earning big bucks in the process. Not to mention the companies going ga-ga over copyrights, patents, trade secrets and all those stuff.
Companies want to protect their trade secrets, marketing strategies and even go to world’s end just to keep the public from knowing their modus operandi. While coming to the section of money minting machinery which comes under copyright protection, especially publishing houses one can hear them always fussing and complaining about piracy. Now is piracy really doing what they say it is?? I guess not. It is just greed and ignorance of various groups and industries what makes them say what they say. Now,
http://paulocoelhoblog.com/2011/04/28/who-deleted-the-song-in-my-profile/ was something I came across and found that it makes perfect sense.
In the present scenario, the main purpose of dissemination of information through books and other literature has taken a backseat. It is all about how much a publisher can earn out of selling those books. It does not matter how much, the author will get as royalties for it will be usually a very small percentage unless he /she is well known and holds multiple degrees from various elite institutions.
Ever thought of the driving force behind piracy? What makes hawkers sell those pirated copies of well known titles on the streets? If you ever thought along those lines then you will observe that most of the pirated books are the ones which comes with a huge price tag and written by some well known authors. No one really cares about the quality of content or the quality and importance of the information available in it as long as the person who wrote it is famous.
But things are changing, It is the world of ‘wiki’ or that’s what they call it. It is people who are generating content, revenue and even sophisticated technologies, innovations and discoveries by the collective effort of people online as well as offline. There are various open source, open access content as well. Linux as well as Android are the best examples for open source software. The open access digital content on the internet allows people to use it for free and also share it with others without thinking about copyright infringements. All they have to do is give credit to the creator of the work.
Now, all I wanted to do was to share some information about a website I came across where one can download open access books on almost all fields of science and technology. I was so overwhelmed that I started writing lots of necessary as well as unnecessary things.
The following site is worth checking out. It may prove helpful and come of some use when in need of some material
. http://www.intechopen.com/. I would also wish to express my gratitude to all the authors who have got their titles on the website and to the Intech Open team as well. I hope more and more people will do the same and let books and other materials become the medium of dissemination of information as it was earlier than commercial commodities of the current world. I would also wish to express my gratitude to Mr. Johannes Gutenberg as well as without his printing press these things may not have been possible at all.
