Symposium for Teaching and Learning with Technology

I think the most shocking part of Lessig's speech was this table about the copyright status of items in the Google Books inventory

16% - public domain (older works)
9% - copyrighted and in print
75% - copyrighted, but out of print (aka "Orphaned Works")

I've been aware of the issue of orphaned works, but I had no idea that it was such a large percentage. Apparently the vast majority of content produced is considered commercially non-viable over the long haul. But how can we make sure that these works aren't locked away just because they generate enough of a revenue?

This is especially critical for academic institutions because scholars are notorious for wanting access to those obscure books that few others need. Not being able to access them easily leads to either extended checkout times from the library (for years at a time) or to rampant photocopying.

Heaven knows I don't want to put any publisher out of business, but I think it would be nice if they could be persuaded to release some items back to the author or into Creative Commons...or if they embraced an iTunes distribution model where you could download PDF books for a reasonable cost (I'm thinking $.99 to $4.99 myself).

I'll just tell one story - I was really interested in buying a research book on multicultural mathematical systems...but it was $300! Still haven't bought it, and I imagine that most purchasers are university libraries.

Imagine if I could download it for a fraction of the cost for an unbound copy. I bet that there would be plenty of researchers or math/anthropologist junkies would get it. An instructor could justify asking students to buy the book instead of reading chapters via Electronic Reserve (or having the instructor upload a scanned copy in some file space). Imagine the extra revenue that might be generated.

Am I just dreaming?