John Sculley vs. West Publishing on Free Information Access (Notes from NII Advisory Committee Part

[David Farber <farber () central cis upenn edu>]

Date: Thu, 10 Feb 1994 20:39:17 -0600
From: djw () eff org (Daniel J. Weitzner)


Scenes from the National Information Infrastructure Advisory Committee...


The following is relatively accurate reconstruction of an exchange between
John Sculley and Vance Operman (president of West Publishing) on the
subject of free information access for schools and libraries.  Sculley and
Operman were joined by VP Gore a bit later.


Sculley:  I want us to think seriously about assuring that schools and
libraries can have free access to information resources.  Not just the
transport, but the content as well.  Certainly this has a cost attached to
it, but it would be an invaluable investment in our nation's future.


Operman:  John, you couldn't mean that.  If information is free than it's
worth nothing.... I would be horror-stricken if the result of this
committee was a consensus that all library resources were available for
free anywhere around the NII.  That would put an end to the US information
industry.


[Some time passes, VP Gore arrives to make some brief comments, and the
raises the subject of free access to the NII for schools, libraries and
clinics.]


Sculley [in response to Gore]: We don't the high price of information to be
a barrier for classroom and library access.  We have to talk about more
than just putting wires in schools and libraries.


Gore: We should talk about free connect time as well for classrooms.  I
know that this has a cost, but it's so important that I'm not prepared to
talk it off the table just yet.  It would be a very important investment.


Operman:  Well I'll give you an example of a way that market forces all by
themselves have provided free access, without any government involvment.
Both West and Mead provide law students free access to their legal
information services, at very high cost to the companies.  That's millions
of dollars of subsidy right there, resulting from competitive market forces
alone.


Gore:  Well, Vance, professional schools are different from elementary
schools.  (Operman interrupts: "law schools aren't much different from
elementary schools)  It makes some sense to have a loss leader there to
build a market for your services amoung law school graduates.


Operman: Well, certain well known computer companies [he turns to Sculley]
have been known to put a lot of computers in classrooms for similar
reasons.


Gore:  I really don't think that we're talking about the same market.  One
is computers and the other is information services.  Unless you believe
that Nintendo will come up with some kind of Euclidean geometry game that
they would give a way for free.  But until you see this happening, we still
have to ensure free access for schools.


Bob Johnson (CEO Black Entertainment Television): There are also some
markets, regions, that no one competes for.  These communities need
information access, too.


[I'm not representing this as a word-for-word transcript, but it's a pretty
careful paraphrase of the main points made with a fair amount of direct
quotation.]


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Daniel J. Weitzner, Senior Staff Counsel              <djw () eff org>
Electronic Frontier Foundation                        202-347-5400 (v)
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