Submissions/Funding free e-books with donationware

After careful consideration, the Programme Committee has decided not to accept the below submission at this time. Thank you to the author(s) for participating in the Wikimania 2014 programme submission, we hope to still see you at Wikimania this August.

Submission no. 2510

Title of the submission: Funding free e-books with donationware

Type of submission (discussion, hot seat, panel, presentation, tutorial, workshop): Presentation

Author of the submission: Juan J. Jiménez-Anca

E-mail address: juanencremento.com

Username: encremento

Country of origin: UK

Affiliation, if any (organisation, company etc.): Encremento c.i.c. / Aston University

Personal homepage or blog: Encremento

Abstract (at least 300 words to describe your proposal)

Open cultures have the potential of becoming an alternative to just-for-profit modes of cultural production. Innovative forms of funding should, therefore, be devised, tested and developed for this purpose. In the case of open access e-books, the generation of revenue for authors committed to open culture still remains a challenge.

In the publishing industries, authors often struggle with quasi-monopolistic publishers and distributors. In the case of e-books, the lack of competition and openness is even more prevalent. New trends in self-publishing are disrupting this status quo, but these trends are not necessarily about the empowerment of the free culture movement. Authors who publish their work need a source of income, and alternative business models are required to support authors who may be committed to the development of open cultures.

There are already successful crowdfunding initiatives to support authors and release their work to the public domain. Yet, there may be another possibility to release open access ebooks earlier and faster.

Encremento is an initiative led by the scholar Dr. Juan Jiménez-Anca to set in motion an alternative business model for free e-books. It is based on donationware for authors as developed for open source software. Donationware is not a common business model for legal and free culture initiatives, yet the successes of open source software suggest that it may be transferred to open access ebooks too.

The main goal of Encremento is to become a platform for e-books in which readers can either download works for free or donate to authors and charities. Encremento is still in the development stage, but, thanks to the support of UnLtd and Aston University, it is expected to be operating before the Autumn 2014.

During this session, Dr. Juan J. Jiménez-Anca will present the main features of the platform and the business model of Encremento.

Track: Legal & Free Culture

Length of session (if other than 30 minutes, specify how long): 30 minutes

Will you attend Wikimania if your submission is not accepted?: Yes

Slides or further information (optional)

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