The Friday Project, which I have mentioned before, is experimenting, yet again, with a new business model. I asked Clare Christian of the FP to tell us about it:

Some of you will have already heard of a Creative Commons licence  as many websites and blogs are published under this agreement. There are a number of licences that can be complex in places but essentially a CC licence means that the content provided under that licence can be downloaded for personal and other non-commercial use while the copyright holder remains the author. 

Although many publishers will throw up their collective hands in horror at the thought of giving away content (see the ongoing Google debate) is it really such a bad idea?

At The Friday Project, we don’t think so. On Monday we released the creative commons edition of Blood, Sweat and Tea, a book based on the blog of Tom Reynolds a London EMT who has been writing about his life and work for the last three years. The publication of the online version coincides with the print edition and we believe that by offering the book in this way we will widen its audience and so increase the potential market for purchases of the print version.

Tim O’Reilly once said ‘Obscurity is a far greater threat to authors and creative artists than piracy’ and I agree. Certainly, as far as this book is concerned, obscurity is not a problem. Already the launch of the CC version is generating comment across the web, including the highly influential Boing Boing and the Telegraph blog which states ‘it's encouraging to see a publisher taking such an innovative approach. It's the ones who experiment that will survive the online world, not the ones who stick rigidly to the traditional business models’.

Of course, time will tell if we are right or wrong, but what do you think?

The creative commons edition of Blood, Sweat and Tea can be found here). Download it, enjoy it – and buy the book too.