INSIDER: Many publishers are still struggling with the "free" content issue. What's your take on free?
KENNEALLY: When I was young, I learned a short, quick lesson about “free” from an uncle. “If it’s free, take two,” he told me. I think he was referring to samples of candy. But he never counseled me, “If no one’s looking, or no one’s home, grab what you can and run.” When it comes to copyrighted content (and under U.S. law, any fixed work is copyrighted automatically, whether it’s published on the Web or written on a napkin), the decision to distribute a work without charge to the recipient—in other words, make it “free”—should always lie with the copyright holder. Until the Internet came along, that principle was pretty much taken for granted. As an author myself, I wish it still were, but the open availability of digitized content has upended a lot of the old rules. If authors (Chris Anderson, among them) as well as publishers decide “free” samples—say, book chapters online—will promote a work and lead to increased sales, they aren’t right or wrong. It’s entirely a business decision—but it’s their business decision.
Matt Steinmetz is the publisher and brand director of Publishing Executive.