>Some salient facts:
>
> * Walnut Creek's compilations are available online -- ie _for free_
> if you happen to have free net access. (Find the controversial
> compilation here: <URL:ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/pub/internet/>.)
What relevance? If you happen to have free net access, you can
get the most recent material direct from rtfm or other sites. Anyone
with net access doesn't need the cdrom.
> * to gather all the information available on one of the Walnut Creek
> CD-ROMs, a subscriber to a commercial net.service would have to pay
> _significantly more_ than the price of the CD-ROM.
False (and irrelevant, to boot). All a person needs to gather said
info is an e-mail address, which can be had for free in many places..
>Mike Meyer puts the whole argument more succinctly:
>> Walnut Creek sells ACCESS, not information. They make no claims
>> about what's on the CDROM, other than that it contains the contents
>> of one or more archives that are freely available on the net. Walnut
>> Creek and the ISPs both profit by making large collections of bytes
>> more readily accessible. The only difference is the delivery media.
Succinct, but again false. WC sells access all right -- to a
specifically chosen set of documents. And selling access to a
specific document or set of documents is *no different* than selling
the documents themselves.
The difference between a CDROM and even *E-mail only* access
is comparable to the difference between a video cassette and a
television set.
Ron Carman
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