Penguin‘s recent announcement of a new line of electronic editions of classic literature augmented by supplementary materials, starting with Jane Austen‘s Pride and Prejudice, doesn’t impress Jimmy Guterman, the editorial director of O’Reilly‘s Radar blog. His criticisms are specific: First of all, he says, padding a public domain text with more public domain material isn’t really much of a bonus. That’s true, but it’s his second point I find more provocative:
“What’s most galling, of course, is that Penguin isn’t attempting to increase interest in ebooks as a medium by making these classics, long past copyright, available in free, un-DRM-encumbered formats. In an old-meets-new mashup, publishers could use free distribution of still-in-demand classics to generate interest in a form, ebooks, that is still only in the earliest days of its potential public acceptance. Wouldn’t you be more likely to try something new if it was free?”
Now, granted, that’s exactly what Project Gutenberg is already doing, but those files don’t really work with the Sony Reader or the Amazon Kindle. But what if you could buy one of those devices with a good-sized chunk of the western canon pre-installed, or at least available for free download? On the other hand, ebook sales being what they have been lately, I suppose there may not be much incentive to turn around and start giving away a substantial chunk of inventory…