There are many people who are obsessed with collecting. Witness the late night cable channels selling art, coins, bears, knives or costume jewelry. Wired into some DNA is the near insatiable need to possess and amass large quantities of "rare" objects, particularly those that have a unique identity as evidenced by the 1234567890 sequence of the First Edition book or the "Limited Edition" of many other collectibles, e.g. No. 847 of 10,000 of the Artist's Proof etc..
The world is about to experience a sea change in publishing. Electronic iPads, Kindles, Nooks and Sony Readers and any host of other form factors and content delivery systems are going to make finding a true First Edition near impossible - thousands of digitally identical publishings will exist, each simply a copy, downloaded, of the first.
I would propose that the publishers begin thinking about how to imbed a digital tag in the first X copies downloaded, that can only exist in those copies and somehow continue to imbed in those copies the history of their transfer and use. How wonderful it might be, to some future obsessed collector, to be able to prove that the edition of the next great novel which is stored on his or her iPad, in fact, was at one time, in the possession of the author and there is a unique digital signature tag that establishes that fact which cannot be removed or altered.
Think of the money to be made and the DNA mandates to be satisfied.
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Sunday, February 21, 2010
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In order for publishers to invest in a digital signature and control over distribution that enables application of a signature to the first whatever-count of books, there will have to be something in it for them. Money.
Would you pay more for the right to know that your version was the third downloaded? And could you prove that signature, via some agreed upon cross-publisher authority? And how would you transfer that signature to someone else? That's getting mighty complicated, and I'm not sure people care - or publishers could ultimately agree - about it.
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