Just an idea....

[pzane]

Hey I was wondering if 2+2 ever thought of this....an online poker library of all their books for which they accept subscription fees?

I'm computational physicist by day (just a glorified number cruncher) and I use the "Safari Bookshelf" which is a subscription based service to the best (in my opinion) computer and networking books available. FYI the URL is here (http://safari.oreilly.com/).

If 2+2 offered such a service, I would certainly subscribe to it.

-Phil

[Stephen Gray]

This question has been asked three times in the last two weeks. It seems pretty obvious that this would be a bad idea, if only because the books would end up on every P2P network in short order.

[pzane]

Hmmmm....I wonder how O'Reilly turns a profit with their service then? They aren't a charity....

[fnord_too]

[ QUOTE ]
Hmmmm....I wonder how O'Reilly turns a profit with their service then? They aren't a charity....

[/ QUOTE ]

O'Reilly is an interesting company. I am not sure how profitable their Safari service is, but I don't think Tim O'Reilly is motivated solely by profit.

To the original question, I don't think 2+2 has enough titles to really make this worth it. O'Reilly has tons of titles, and thier books are updated frequently do to the dynamic nature of their subject, so it seems like a good fit for them. (Also, people in the IT industry often need knowledge about a particular subject in short order and for only a brief period of time. For instance, a software developer may need a good Excel reference for a couple of weeks because they have to develop some costing spreadsheets and integrate them with a database. Point is, for O'Reilly, it looks great (though I have not tried it out yet), but for 2+2 it seems dubious.)

As to the P2P (sky is falling) arguement, I don't know about that. Being available in electronic form may or may not facillitate illegal distribution depending on what counter technologies are available and employed. I don't see anyone scanning and OCRing existing books and sticking them out there (I don't use any P2P services, though, so they may be), but someone certainly could right now.