NFT advocates often tout the technology's ability to grant the creator a cut of second-hand sales as one of its major attributes. Artists can earn from one of their digital creations years after first selling it. Others are looking at NFTs to earn a buck from the secondary market too, including the publishers of college textbooks.Pearson, which said in 2019 it would focus on digital textbook sales, wants a piece of the action. “In the analogue world, a Pearson textbook was resold up to seven times, and we would only participate in the first sale,” CEO Andy Bird told Bloomberg this week. “The move to digital helps diminish the secondary market, and technology like blockchain and NFTs allows us to participate in every sale of that particular item as it goes through its life."There's an obvious reason why students resell textbooks. They're expensive! Students often have to spend hundreds of dollars on required materials each semester — or even hundreds of dollars on a single textbook. Selling on a textbook when it's no longer needed just makes sense.Turning textbooks into NFTs and banking on the blockchain to track ownership of them (from “owner A to owner B to owner C,” as Bird put it) seems unnecessary, though. Digital rights management already exists and doesn't need to go anywhere near cryptocurrency. Pearson has a $15 per month subscription service for its textbooks as well.Bird could simply be bloviating about a zeitgeisty technology to try and keep Pearson's investors... Continue reading at 'Engadget'
[ Engadget | 2022-08-03 20:10:20 UTC ]
IFC's upcoming The Spoils of Bablyon, a comedy miniseries that spoofs serious miniseries, is based on a book that seems to be sold out in Hudson News stores around the country. The problem with keeping the book in stock, though, is that there were never any printed copies. Eric Jonrosh (and the... Continue reading at AdWeek
[ AdWeek | 2013-11-15 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Most startups will never see anything close to the amount of money Twitter plans on raising during its IPO this week (a reported $1.6 billion) and in fact, three out of four tech businesses fail. Entrepreneurs in training looking to create a successful company, then, might want to know what... Continue reading at Fast Company
[ Fast Company | 2013-11-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Amazon MatchBook, which lets customers who've previously bought the print edition of a book from Amazon score a digital copy on the cheap, is now open for business. Months in the making, the new service is a bold plan by Amazon to convert the world's stacks and stacks of books into digital... Continue reading at PC World
[ PC World | 2013-10-30 00:00:00 UTC ]
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By James Sturdivant I f, as many believe, the future of magazine publishing is niche, then it makes sense to look to niche publishers for clues to revenue models, products and strategies that will carry the... Continue reading at Publishing Executive
[ Publishing Executive | 2013-04-01 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Google has killed off the print editions of Frommer's guide books. And this makes sense, as Google never wanted to be a publisher and only bought Frommer's for the metadata. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2013-03-26 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The spinoff of Time Inc. to create the world's largest publicly-traded magazine publisher may be just the beginning of deals for the owner of People and Sports Illustrated.With analysts estimating an enterprise value of about $3.9 billion—a measure of what it could cost to buy a company—an... Continue reading at Crains New York
[ Crains New York | 2013-03-15 00:00:00 UTC ]
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