ShareText, the ShareWare book or article

This is a completely original work (a public proposal) by Tod Foley (<asif@well.sf.ca. us>), who bears all customary and legal responsibilities for its contents and arrangement.

Author's suggested compensation = TextTrade: Authors' rights, Intellectual Property, World Literary Law.

For many literary works (especially those compiled or created by students and educators, without care for economic compensation), the Internet has already proven itself to be viable - even vital - as a distribution/exposure system. And with the addition and public acceptance of a simple and suitable procedure, works such as these might be made even more accessible to even more people. In addition (and to slip into marketing jargon), the low cost of producing and distributing these tree-friendly, electronic meme patterns will be passed directly on to the consumer.

The following proposal delineates such a procedure, which I call ShareText.

To release new and original works of literary art, both fact and fiction, into the Global Telecommunications Matrix o a 'ShareWare' basis, meaning that users are permitted to download and read the text freely and decide whether they find it useful or entertaining before compensating the author as suggested.

- Title of work
- Chapter/section/edition/version # (if appl)
- 'E Copy of <title>' (if electronic copy of published work)
- ShareText (Filename Ext) (in parentheses)
- Author's name(s)
- Copyright and rights reserved notices
- Date of Internet release
- Statement of originality.

Plus the following optional information:

- Author(s)/representative's business address/PO Box
- (and/or) Author(s)/representative's Internet address(es)
- (and) Author(s) suggested compensation.

In order to be practical for the largest number of users, ShareText should be formatted in standard ASCII text or compressed using commonly available compression utilities (preferably FreeWare or ShareWare).

They should have a filename of no more than eight characters (standard IBM ASCII set), and should bear the filename extension STF so that browsers may easily identify them as ShareText files.

Tod Foley, As If Productions, 8055 Wakefield Avenue, Panorama City, CA 91402, USA, (e-mail <asif@well.sf.ca.us>).