There’s an interesting report about Yale University Press’s plans to publish a paperback series of books accompanying the free Open Yale Courses online lecture series. The article debates the question of whether enough people will pay for books when the source material is free.

This is an empirical question, of course, but I’ve always found the doubt about whether the answer can ever be ‘yes’ hard to understand. There are, after all, countless examples in the past of people assuming that goods and services are substitutes when in fact they are complements: telephony and face-to-face contact; online documents and paper documents; perhaps even free music paid-for music. What’s more, the economic theory is set out with admirable clarity in the excellent [amazon_link id=”087584863X” target=”_blank” ]Information Rules[/amazon_link], a 1998 book by Carl Shapiro and Hal Varian.

Free online access to the lectures seems to me more likely to generate demand for a paid-for book than to displace it. It will displace demand for something else, some other activity taking the users’ time and attention, but that displaced demand is likely to be spread across a range of activities. Anyway, I hope Yale University Press (follow them on Twitter, @YaleBooks) will keep us up to date with the results.

[amazon_image id=”087584863X” link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]Information Rules: A Strategic Guide to the Network Economy[/amazon_image]