Slashdot Mirror
Publishers vs. Libraries
John Thacker was the first to submit this news about American publishing companies preparing to wage war on the idea of reading books for free. You see, libraries loan books, and publishers don't get paid -- that's stealing. And libraries even do inter-library loans -- that's stealing too. "We," says Schroeder, "have a very serious issue with librarians."
I mean really!
How can someone even begin to say this? Fuck americans are greedy.
I need to get another citizenship somewhere else, anyone got any ideas?
Fight censors!
"Not my manner of thinking but the manner of thinking of others has been the source of my unhappiness." - M
in the u.k. at least. Think its 2p per borrow.
Let's just concentrate knowledge and power around wealth and keep the heathens from ever learning anything.
I've hit Karma 50 and gotten a Score:5, Troll... I win!
She's adamant that the country needs to focus more on reading to children under the age of 5.
But presumably not in groups, or schools where they don't have to buy their own book.
"don't fall into the fallacy of believing that Perl can solve social problems. Maybe Perl 6 can, but that's a ways off"
I find it interesting that librarians have been used in metaphors for information sharing on the internet, and now they too, are being attacked. I would hope a battle against the white haired woman who likes to keep books in order would finally gain the attention of the mainstream media and point out the insanity of the legal departments of certain large corporations. I have pantented the idea of having an idea to patent a common idea.
So tomorrow Ford will demand royalties from Hertz.
Ford owns Hertz
I've hit Karma 50 and gotten a Score:5, Troll... I win!
"Technology people never gave their stuff away,"
Who the fuck is that?
Clearly she doesnt mean the FSF or any of the open source geeks right?
Man, and I thought Janet Reno was a fucking cunt!
Fight censors!
"Not my manner of thinking but the manner of thinking of others has been the source of my unhappiness." - M
When a library buys a book or a paper journal they it can only be read by one person at a time. So if it is a popular title they will buy several. And each library will buy a copy of major journals. And while you can get it via inter library loan it is still a limited resource. And for each copy the publisher and author get paid.
Now go to a digital world where you can duplicate content with a few presses of a button and suddenly a library no longer needs 30 copies of the most recent Harry Potter book, they just get 1 and copy it. There needs to be a ballence here. The libraries need to be able to distribute information, but there also needs to be a way to compensate those who created it.
Erlang Developer and podcaster
From the Floor of the Secret Corporate Conspiracy Building (Downtown Redbank New Jersey)
Ah yes, libraries helped to bring the joy of reading to the poor who and uneducated. Now, because the poor are becoming as "smart" as everyone else it's about time we start charging them for their education again. Who has the right to education? No one who can't afford it. What a step in th right direction, how about we start to charge for all of the other stuff that those pleebs take for granted. First, health care, oh, we've already done that? Good Job people. Safe Streets, done that too, uh... Private security firms that have better trained staff than actual city police forces, GREAT STUFF! The internet, BWAAAHAAAAA. Broadcast Radio, we owned it before it was born. Air? Hmm, how about we choke the enviornment with polutants then create a "clean air dome" where people come to breate "clean air" And then we open "Oxygen Bars" where people come for air, oh, doen that too...shucks, lets just start charging for tickets at birth...
And uh, oh yeah (From me) The idea that Libraries are stealing is BAD
Hello Kettle,
You, my friend are as black as pitch.
With love, Pot.
I'm surprised this hasn't come up before, what with the Napster mess. I have been able to check out music for over five years at my local library. The same goes for videos, e-books, magazines... libraries have always distributed all sorts of media.
The question is, do the authors care? Both kinds too. For one, I'm sure Stephen King isn't at the forefront of the movement considering he's making more money than God. However, smaller authors might really stand to gain a lot. Curiously, it's the DIYs that seem to be against the whole copy protection thing in the first place.
The bottom line is, if libraries go, book piracy will emerge. Just like Scour, Napster, Gnutella, and every other P2P out there.
Now lets see.... do I buy that quad-processor dream computer or 12 issues of Tetrahedron Letters?
Didn't Salon originally run this idea as a cartoon?
Find funky gifts
But currently libraries already pay royalty fees for items that they lend out to people. See this article for details. So this isn't quite a hot topic as it seems, it's more about the exact details of how it will work...
The real problem is that by changing to digital content the publishers have seen a way to inflate the amount that they get from libraries. Libraries don't traditionally have huge budgets with which to purchase new materials, and if they end up having to pay on a per-use basis then many of them will have to stop stocking as many items. And because libraries have traditionally been free to use, they can't pass their costs onto the public.
However in this case the libraries have something in their favour that Napster users don't - an unbeatable public image. You can't tarnish libraries as thieves and pirates, not without ruining your cause. It may well be that this issue is the single most important thing in deciding exactly how fair use and payment models will apply to digital content.
a story of how Federal Agents had to restrain protesters from outside a library because patrons were "allowed to borrow books" and "read books they had not bought". Up next, Fred talks to the owners of Blockbuster and their experience with protestors who thought it was wrong to rent movies...
Slashdot's summary bears no resemblance whatsoever to the article.
The article is not about loaning copies of books.
As far as I can tell from the article, which is very poorly written, the publishers' beef is that libraries are distributing electronic copies of journal articles (or large portions of the articles) without compensating the publishers.
This is just another GNUtard "information wants to be free" button-pusher. Slashdot sucks. It really, really sucks.
- Have a picture
With digital media, I can check something out but I am getting a copy. So someone else may also check it out even though I am still using the resource. The library doesn't need to buy multiple copies anymore. Sales drop(?) for the media comapany but readership is drastcially up. But the media company is not making less money on more readers. A new business model needs to be made to keep the media company in business, otherwise the media company will stop printing the widely read item and everyone will be pissed.
What will compound this problem more is libraries will (want to) place content on line for free including their digital media they subscribe to making it accessable to everyone (or at least the patrons for that library). This scenario would be very scary for media outlets because content is being given away for free from a gov't entity. That is a hard competitor to fight in market driven by capitalism.
Well, they have something of a point. Does letting people use something for free stifle production? Obviously. The number of people who have the means to set aside a significant portion of their life to produce books, music or art for free is pretty small.
Does that mean that libraries are a bad idea? No -- there is a sale, albeit a small one. I'm not sure that that's the thrust of the article, though...it's more about how the free flow of information and how people can make money in the new economy. (And in case, at least around here, libraries are not patronized to the extent that they were 20 years ago...the one next to my office is rarely busy.)
Someone (RMS maybe?) once said "Information wants to be free." That may be true, but who's going to create the information in the first place if they aren't going to see anything for their efforts?
This applies to the free software movement in that someone who works on an open source project has their own reasons for doing so, but they are generally not financial. Even so, where does the money to pay the rent, food and cable teevee bill come from? I don't know too many programmers who can afford to work full time on something for free.
The solution might be patronage, where those who do have money (gov't, Bill Gates, etc) fund the development of books, art and other stuff that can be given away for free. However, they will generally reserve the right to pull the strings of what's being developed and what it says. What kind of solution is that?
As far as I can recall, free lending libraries were invented in Philadelphia, by Ben Franklin.
Prior to Ben starting one, libraries were typically privately owned, or member supported. Back in the 18th century and earlier, the idea of a citizenry who could educate themselves with open libraries scared the shit out of the governments, books and literacy were fine for the nobles, but they would give funny ideas to the hoi polloi.
Sadly, this idea that common people can't think for themselves is still too common, we've all heard too much about governments that won't allow their citizens to browse certain auction sites because they may contain disturbing historical artifacts.
But this type of thing is really just a power grab.
It also opens the door to freedom of speech issues. in that is speech free if you can stop or impede people from listening, reading, etc because you need your cut of the pie.
It is a the death of freedom by a thousand cuts.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
She makes $370,000 a year. "A lot less than Jack Valenti," she's quick to say.
well cry me a fucking river, I never thought I would hear of a person that wanted to be Jack Valenti matterial.
Sometimes I wish this was rome as I am sure they are christian....
Fight censors!
"Not my manner of thinking but the manner of thinking of others has been the source of my unhappiness." - M
Reading the post article called some of Richard Stallman's writing to mind, specifically The Right to Read. This must be stopped. Now.
.sig: file not found
Apparently individuality, the art of not buying every bloody thing in sight is having a downtrodding effect on artis... er publishers.
You have so pissed off the wrong people.
You people are hereby obsolete.
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
"The publishing community does not believe that the public should have the same rights in the electronic world," Kranich says.
Is there presidence for this?
Dont we have the same rights?
Cant we make a copy of a book we own with OCR software as a back up?
Next she will say that if your learning to speak german from a book from a publisher she represents you wont be able to say anything over the internet in german. That would be giving away information, and you dont want that.
Fight censors!
"Not my manner of thinking but the manner of thinking of others has been the source of my unhappiness." - M
If you read the article a little more closely, the publishers are concerned about "electronic" books and journals (ie more new media hysteria) NOT the classic "wood and hide" versions.
What is music when you despise all sound?
For every Stephen King blockbuster there's hundreds of authors whose books barely sell. Many of those sales (maybe even most?) are to libraries. Won't this cause the libraries to stop buying so many books and wouldn't they most likely stop buying the lesser known, untried authors, and isn't this going to eventually hurt the book publishers more than they gain by it?
All the more reason to keep using books. Online material can be easily locked down (Napster, Magazine subscriptions, etc.). Books, on the other hand, never can be. Buy one, and it's yours. You can do what you want with it. Burn it, give it away, piss on it, loan it to other people, read it over a loudspeaker from the back of your van, whatever. Don't bother with electronic books. They're expensive, hard to use, and you never know if what you're getting is the real thing.
No bullshit, no popups, 100% free porn added daily! NineNine.com
You can smoke till you choke in their coffee shops. They respect human rights. Most of Europe does.
- A Frog in a pond utters an azure cry. -
The proposal of the culture ministry is the following (if I remember correctly) : a fee will be actually paid, but will not be charged to the user, instead it will be paid on a local government budget, and also partly by the bookshops who provide public libraries.
Everyone seems content with that, so it will probably pass as a law.
"Technology people never gave their stuff away," Schroeder says.
Bzzt, go and read some of those books rather than litigating over them and you'll find pretty much anything thats good software wise has been given away.
Does anyone get the impression that most cases like this have more to do with lawyers talking up cases to get cash rather than actual legitimate concerns?
--
Blaming GW Bush for the Iraq war is like blaming Ronald McDonald for the poor quality of food.
Will I have to insert some sort of smart chip to unlock paper books I own at home?
Nowhere in any book have I seen the publisher write "Not Intended for Distribution or Rental". Would their suit apply if I tried to sell old books at a garage sale?
/muerte
I think I will start charging publishers for the CO2 I produce complaining about thier bullshit. That CO2 is being used in the production of trees which in turn produce the paper the publishers use to print their books. So far, they have used this resource I provide them for free. Gone are the days when they can use my air and not pay a residual for the privilege.
Of course, it's all a bunch of hot air anyway...
Sean Brown
Linux Evangelist
"I'll let you be in my dream if I can be in yours." - Bob D.
Do you really think people would stop coding if they had a job?
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
WIPO would never have allowed libraries to be started in the first place. They would claim copyright infringement.
WIPO.org.uk - no connection with, and wishes to be totally disassociated from, the World Intellectual Property Organization, WIPO.ORG - part of UN, payed for (owned by?) by big business.
Now we're getting to the point that publishing companys are being represented by people making six figure salaries and whining about how they (publishers) aren't being compensated enough to pay their mortgages.
Next art museums are going to make you "pay by use"... putting money into jars in front of each painting. Historic Monements like the Jefferson Memorial are going to have huge fences around them and you'll have to slide your credit card to gain access. Let's throw a huge black tarp over Mount Rushmore and little kids donate their piggie banks so they can see it...
Why don't we just cover all the bases. Put a $500/year Universal tax for every man, woman, and child to cover EVERYTHING that ANYONE could write, do, say, publish, create, or interpret for ANYONE else.
I know this isn't as convenient as a public library, but if there were no more free libraries, here is what I would do: A) read the book at the library (don't check it out); or B) just hop on down to your local Barnes and Noble. They have plenty of seating, tons of books, and a coffee shop to boot. Believe it or not, when I was in school, I used to go to Barnes and Noble to study instead of the university library because I found the atmosphere more conducive (I think B&N was actually more quiet!). Just a thought.
-- yawn. --
Maybe if this gets enough publicity, and people fight it violently enough, it might wake everyone up to the whole shitstorm that's happenning due to the DMCA. This totally sickens me, in some way more than the attack of Napster, more than the whole DeCSS case... because Libraries have been around and available freely in this country for over 100 years. No one has challenged our right to free learning via books until now. This truly angers me!
"Evil beware: I'm armed to the teeth and packing a hampster!"
Lex orandi, lex credendi.
I do tech services in a medical library. The majority of my time is spent doing assorted things with online journals. Here's the problem. Print journal publishers are producing the absolute most terrible online journals possible.
The average online journal is nothing more than a posting of a list of abstracts and a table of contents, usually with a note from the publisher which states "More to Come!" In addition, many major publishers are completely ignoring most of their smaller journals. Those tiny bits of journals that DO get posted usually are fuzzy, terrible scans of the pages of the journal in PDF format. The publishers often go on to charge the library extra fees for the right to get to these, sometimes adding a few hundred dollars to the subscription.
I don't know about elsewhere, but my library refuses to pay more than 20% more than the print subscription to add e-journal access. It's a fair price, but one that many publishers are unwilling to meet.
"Isn't that the sweetest little well-balanced undergraduate-level philosophy of life."
I thought that the copyright/publishing industry was governed by the doctrine of first sale? That once a customer purchases a book/video/whatever that they are then free to do whatever they want with it (including resell it) provided they don't breach copyright? The movie industry has adapted by staging releases of block-busters first through cinimas, then video sales, then TV reruns, then cable, then free-to-air. By staggering the release dates they progressively market to segments with smaller disposable income (which is probably why TiVo scares them). Now this works with movies because the upfront capital costs is high but with books it is almost the reverse direction. It is much easier to write a short-story/novel/fan-fiction than it is to produce a film (though with professional cams and software nowdays you can do a half-decent job). IMHO this creates a surplus of low-quality reading material (steoretypical pulp-paperback) which depresses the overall market (why do you think formula-plots are so popular with publishers?, boy-meets-girl,etc...). Now libraries serve a useful purpose in that they tend to concentrate topics of a particular interest. Whetehr university research, corporate technical reference, or children magnet, they serve a social purpose quite distinct from Amazon which is essentially a catalog service. Perhaps a cluebat is in order in that business apply some critical think (yeah MBA and thinking don't seem to mix well) and really understand the role of libraries/collections and stop treating everyone as a single business model. This might actually force them to *gasp* work for their cushy executive perks instead of brow-beating the techs and firing the editorial-grunts to put the fear o god into them. I suspect that the concept of libraries / archives is going to be radically differnet as museums/galleries/science centres muscle in onto the multimedia scene and start competting for attention with books.
LL
Sorry was updating pages on WoolwichSucks site at same time. I will preview posting next time ;-)
Obviously should be: WIPO.org.uk
Ask any author besides Michael Crighton how much they get paid for their work. Diddly, for the most part. Editing and layout can be a reasonable amount of work/expense, but the fact of the matter is the actual printing press side of books is still a significant expense.
If these guys are planning on publishing books electronically, I don't suppose they were considering passing along some of the savings to the consumer/libraries? I mean, after all I'm not getting as much when I receive a bunch of bytes as when I receive a bound paper/hard back. With journals you have indexing/search capabilities, but that isn't much of a value-add for a novel. What's that, publishers are charging _more_ for electronic versions of books? For some reason sympathy for publishers is not exactly welling up inside me.
Publishers do render a real service both to authors and readers, I don't object to their being paid for it, but I don't see how the 'electronic revolution' is a big threat to them. When people check things out of the library, they still want to get something on paper. Unless libraries suddenly build their own printing presses their still going to have to buy these paper copies from publishers. The only exception to this is electronic journals, and these have been licensed per seat ever since they were invented.
You have no idea how much fun it is trying to complete a biology research project along with 2000 other undergrads and finding out the library has only enough licenses for thirty computers to access the electronic bio journals at once.
Obasan
If a tree falls in the forest, and kills a mime, does anyone care?
It's not a particulary great amount of money, but AFAIK the library does pay the publishers based on the number of books they lend - that's on top of the cost of buying the book in the first place.
How dare they!!! How dare they actually let anybody read without paying for it. I bet you probably right now the writers of Tetrahedron Letters are sitting in the gutters, shivering over the 286 laptops as they type.
"Sorry Tommy, Mommy would read you a bedtime story, but the eBook screen says I am out of Read Aloud End User Licences (RAEUL).
or another:
Sitting down on a nice raining day next to the fire place with a good eBook (TM).
We're sorry, but it appears that you have exceeded your Private Read End User Licences (PREUL) Please click on the Purchase Licences to buy more Private Read End User Licences (PREUL) or Erase Publication to erase this publication.This situation is probably good news for the debate about access to information and pricing of information generally.
Bunch of computer guys waving their arms about electronic information and data flow doesn't make a media story. The little white haired lady down the road who does under 5's story time, after school homework classes, books for your granny and gets in everybody's favourite scifi novel, if she is getting political and upset about something, that makes news. That's a great story to run.
This issue could get the whole issue of freedom of information out and discussed by a very wide audience (including your local politician). People who really don't give a damn about what makes geeks angry may get get curious and want to find out more when the local neighbourhood librarian is getting upset.
No one, she says, wants to go up against libraries.
"That," Schroeder says, "is why we are here."
The entire article is trying to spin away the core issue which it crowds in after a nice little showcase piece on thier sexy little lobbyist. Hidden most of the way down in badly written language that most people probally wouldnt read to far into anyways we find that the publishing companies have a right to kill libraries because ""The publishing community does not believe that the public should have the same rights in the electronic world," Kranich says." What is wrong with me going to the library to read a book. I am not stealing. I gaurentee that I spend more time in the library than 90% of aamericana. I also will gaurentee that I spend more money on books that my library system doesnt have that anyone out there except bibliophiles and college students.
The entire idea of "right to a profit" is scary and seems to be getting more and more of a stranglehold upon our legislatures. Worse, the major media companies seem to take it as a matter of course. This is a big change from years gone by when people had to compete agianst each other. God I need to move to another contry that doesnt have a gun to its head held by corperate interests.
Pithy, yet ultimately meaningless, phrase expressed with gusto!
Why on earth have they used such large fonts. I thought writers knew the importance of words and not their size or are all their ideas of wrong and right are getting merged?
There's always sufficient, but not always at the right place nor for the right folks.
When I look around at the shelves at my home, I don't see 3 ring binders labeled Steven King - The Stand. I don't take pride in a print out of my e-books....a directory list just doesn't do justice to shelves of books.
So What if Libraries are passing around e-books. It's free (or near about.) What the publishers seem to want is for me to pay for BAD books...'cause if I like it, I'm going to buy it.
"Politically," Schroeder says, "it's the toughest issue. Libraries have a wonderful image."
Hello? There's a reason why they have a good image! It gives the poor a place and a chance to read and learn!
"No one, she says, wants to go up against libraries."
"That," Schroeder says, "is why we are here."
Now that you're here, Please leave. Here's the door, get lost...
"Only one thing, is impossible for god: to find any sense in any copyright law on the planet." Mark Twain
This doesn't make any sense, and it looks too much like an evil New World Order than anything else.Fortunately,hopefully they're much too late to accomplish this evil ,erm, thing.
There is no such thing as 'world peace'.
Lets not get out panties in a bunch. Check this link out.
108. Limitations on exclusive rights: Reproduction by libraries and archives
(a) Except as otherwise provided in this title and notwithstanding the provisions of section 106, it is not an infringement of copyright for a library or archives, or any of its employees acting within the scope of their employment, to reproduce no more than one copy or phonorecord of a work, except as provided in subsections (b) and (c), or to distribute such copy or phonorecord, under the conditions specified by this section, if-
(1) the reproduction or distribution is made without any purpose of direct or indirect commercial advantage;
(2) the collections of the library or archives are (i) open to the public, or (ii) available not only to researchers affiliated with the library or archives or with the institution of which it is a part, but also to other persons doing research in a specialized field; and
(3) the reproduction or distribution of the work includes a notice of copyright that appears on the copy or phonorecord that is reproduced under the provisions of this section, or includes a legend stating that the work may be protected by copy-right if no such notice can be found on the copy or phonorecord that is reproduced under the provisions of this section.
Of course, it then goes on to say that libraries can only have digital copies for backup reasons, not to lend. But I think its fairly blatant that the publishers do not have a legal leg to stand on if they decide to go after the librarians. Beware of the wrath of Conan the Librarian.
will be something like this.
After libraries are forced to pay royalties each time a book is 'loaned' out, manufacturers of childrens toys, clothing, and everyh other good will start referring to their product as a 'physical manifestation of the creative work of the designer' and start referring to it as information, rather than a tangible good. Then they'll say that they are being 'ripped off' by the Salvation Army and all those second-hand stores.
Well, you got the point. If things keep evolving the way they are now, well soon be paying royalties to breathe. Its obvious that copyright laws are no longer written in the interest of society, as all laws should be.
Are not public libraries another dangerous idea of that revolutionary type Benjamin Franklin?
threadeds blog
What's your source? Literacy was always the badge of the elite: of citizens in Greece (wealthy men only), clergy in the middle ages, etc. It's only been relatively recently that universal literacy has been a goal, and only in parts of the world.
Likewise, in an increasingly literate and wealthy society, public libraries are less important. At one time they were the only way for most people to get books, now they are mostly just a (taxpayer-subsidized) cheaper alternative.
In an increasingly wealthy society, they should try to fit a modern niche. There are subscription libraries for certain types of specialized information. This is a great idea for those who want to share the cost of many $14,000 subscriptions, for a $20 per month fee.
Publishers have been pushing the french government to establish a right-to-read in public libraries. Nevermind that many library users could'nt afford the books they read there. Of course, they expect the government to cover those fees instead of the users.
The sickening part of it is that the fee they request is absolutely outrageous: they want 5 FF, or abour $0.80, per loan. Now compare this to the cose of a pocket book, or even of a hardcover, factor out the printing and distribution cost ... and with that kind of fee they would make MORE money per single loan than per book *sold*!
Their request is being received with rather unsympathetic responses, but you never know how lobbying can go ...
--
And without any attribution either.
I heard it all on C-SPAN Radio over the holidays.
Hypocrite.
--
"Deep in the ocean are treasures beyond compare,
Deep in the ocean are treasures beyond compare; but if you seek safety, it is on the shore.
It's amazing how nowadays the recurring theme is 'if the law made after-market sale of XXX or lending of XXX illegal, then we'd make more money, therefore, by not having that law, the American Public is ripping us off.'.
It's like.. sure. How about a law that says everyone in the US has to pay my Canadian ass every time they buy something? I mean, by not having that law, I'm being deprived of money I could have otherwised earned if such a law existed.. I should sue!
Of course the cost of this is subsumed into the total running costs of the library, so the user pays via taxes and not at the point of service.
Electronic books provided via libraries don't really fit into the existing scheme very easily. But some arrangement could be made, and of coude it would probably be EASIER to administer, as you could collect data on exactly what was being read rather than just doing a sample.
"What I look forward to is continued immaturity followed by death."
Publishers have a right to profit from the works they manufacture and distribute, and libraries have had a free ride for too long. Libraries can charge small fees for issuing library cards to recoup costs. The only objection one can have to this is if they want a free (as in lunch) ride. The information would still be available and free (as in speech).
Quite simply let us start now by burning all books! I guess since libraries also have tapes, cds, films, magazines, and more - we just need to get rid of all media that holds ideas since ya cant always charge for it. No wait ... we can get a police department to check up on our ideas to make sure we dont have any that we didnt pay for ... we can call them the thought police ...
... its been done
nm
The ultimate network admin tool needs HELP!
Does anyone else have the sense that this was ripped from The Onion and printed in the Post? Right down to the glaring irony of the statement: "Those technology people never give anything of their's away!" Huh? Let just hope that the books don't begin to come with shrinkwrap agreements that explain to us that we're really purchasing an individual license to the abstract text, which just happens to be manifested on pulp -- and that handing the book to someone else constitutes a crime.
She's adamant that the country needs to focus more on reading to children under the age of 5
provided, of course, that you have purchased and can produce a receipt on demand for a "5 listener license pak" for groups of 5 children or less, or, ir you act now, librarians, school teachers and qualified parents can get a 20 pak for the low low price of 10 if you send in the rebate coupon (allow 4-6 weeks for rebate processing). Some restrictions may apply.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
.... is how much longer it'll be before I can turn my neighbor in for borrowing my tools!
--
As a matter of fact, I am a lawyer. But I play an actor on TV.
in order to finally come to some decisions about copyright in the digital age. Libraries are *not* going to go out of business, and we are not going to change the system that they have been using for so many years (lending, etc). Therefore, there must be a decision made about this that will legally allow multi-copy useage of material, and perhaps (*perhaps*) this will be extended to other copyright domains.
I thought it was interesting that neither the article or the Slashdot post mention that Pat Scroder is a former Democratic Congresswoman. Only the democrats could come up with something this lame. It seems that both /. and the Washington Post (both liberal news sources) were ashamed to admit this.
+-- (Score:-1, Moderator on Power Trip)
What would happen if it became impossible to make money publishing books? We'd lose a lot of good and bad books by people who only write for money. But we'd gain a lot of books written by dedicated authors, books that were previously buried under the Grisham/Oprah piles.
I self-published a book. It wasn't a thousandth as hard as it would have been fifteen years ago. I don't expect to make a ton of money from it, but with companies like Amazon, I can probably recoup my investment. If there were no competition from big publishers (actually, in my case there isn't), I wouldn't need to sell a zillion copies to make writing the book worthwhile for me.
To be sure, there are lots of authors I enjoy who would find it difficult or impossible to put their books on my shelves without big publishers. But there are also lots of authors whose work I haven't had the opportunity to enjoy because of those big piles of Grisham. Publishers have been shirking their editing responsibilities anyway. So I'm not ready to get too upset about all the book publishers going out of business.
"Technology people never gave their stuff away," Schroeder says.
Perhaps not the greatest example. If I remember correctly, both linux and BSD are given away.
Perhaps a different example would be Blockbuster and the MPAA. The MPAA don't seem to have a problem with video rental, since it actually increases their video sales (how many of us would actually buy every latest release they want to see?). Maybe they should stop being so short-sighted. I am certainly not going to be able to buy every book I want to read. If I borrow it from a library, and say, 30 other people do, they have effectively sold 1/30th of a copy to each of us, against a like 0 if we each had to buy it.
Moving into electronic distribution, things are going to have to change, but for now, I don't think pressing against dead-tree libraries is a reasonable move.
not_cub
q='echo "q=$s$q$s;s=$b$s;b=$b$b;$q"';s=\';b=\\;echo "q=$s$q$s;s=$b$s;b=$b$b;$q"
Michael, I really wish you'd read the article before delving into making comments on it. The article is not talking about paper books. It's talking about electronic materials (journals, e-books, etc.). And it's not talking about one library loaning it to another library. They're talking about one library purchasing it and then giving it to other libraries (ie. making lots of copies).
Now, granted this is a step down a slippery slope, as in Richard Stallman's Right to Read piece, however that's not the topic of the article, and you shouldn't attribute these things that you've made up to Patricia Schroeder, because she didnt' say them.
You know, as much as we beat up on copyrights around here, people do deserve to get paid for their work if that's what they want. It's just like software licenses (even open source). If you like the program, but you don't like the license, then find another program. If the program is one of a kind, or there are features that you really need, then you have to decide whether this outweighs the cost of a license you don't like. Same with published materials. If you like a particular author/artist's work, but they want to get paid for it and you don't want to pay, then find another author/artist or decide whether you wanting their work outweighs the cost of paying for it.
Open source and free software are a great idea, but it's not the One True Path (tm). If all sofware were free, a lot of us would be out of jobs, or at least not living in the manner to which we have become accustomed. Society's not going to instantly jump to some idyllic state where everything's free, a la Star Trek. The right of people to get paid for their work is a neccessary part of the way things are. Now I'm not saying that the systems by which we protect these rights are perfect, or the systems by which people get paid are without grift. But you can't do away with these systems.
Yes, fair use is disappearing. Yes, the DMCA steps way over the line. Yes, companies like the MPAA and RIAA are trying to erode our freedoms more and more by making us pay and repay for things and then still not letting us access in a way that would be legal. But the key is not to fight the system and have it eliminated. The key is to reform the system. If you try and get rid of it completely, you won't win.
-Todd
---
"The details of my life are quite inconsequential..."
... of course, there was that Tom the Dancing Bug strip from last August.
- Mike
But is it such a bad thing. Take an extreme example: imagine if copyright laws didn't exist at all... would the world be too horrible a place for people to live in? Is copyright law the only thing that stops civilisation from descending into chaos? Would all artists stop producing works?
Sure, things would be different: some people might not be able to earn 'slightly less than Jack Valenti' salary by keeping their current jobs. Lots of things might change. But I don't the world would end. I definitely think people would continue to write songs, books, software and make films. There will always be ways to make money from them...
A few years ago, it was looking like the Internet might threaten newspapers. Nowadays, you can get copies of most newspapers online for free. They are voluntarily giving their stuff away, and yet people still go out and pay for the printed versions. Sure, it's not $10,000 for a year's subscription; but the point is, rather than crying about it and demanding news laws, why not try to go with the flow and see where it takes you.
Computers have always brought the threat of redundancies and unemployment, but they've also tended to create new jobs and new opportunities. I strongly believe that the threats to society created by the Internet will prove just as non-existent, if we give it a chance. The more worrying threat in the current climate is that those crying for new laws will get their way, and the people will suffer.
-- Andrem
There has been a major scientific break-in
i work at a library, and occasionally have the dubious pleasure of filling out order forms for books. here in Canada libraries don't pay a borrowing fee for each time the book is used, they just pay a higher price to buy the book initially.
libraries pay through the nose already! even though they are ubying from te publisher directly, canadian libraries pay exobirant prices for books. i've seen soft cover, 80 page books with a price tag of $50 or $60, just because they were written by some big-name post-modernist.
admittedly, movie rental stores pay a fee every time a movie is rented, but putting movies on the same level as books is ridiculous. if pulbishing companies want to start charging for books, make the charge apply to crap like danielle steele and all authors in the 'bored-mentally-challenged-housewife' market. that way universoty libraries, that have *real* books, and real financial problems, don't get shafted.
!-- wit --!
The issue is one of displacement of income. As long as libraries do what they do it will displace income and thus profit. This is the issue with copying software not that I am stealing from the company but that if is displacing a sale that might other wise happen. IF I have a library of movies on my network and let anyone see them over the network as long only one sight sees the movie at a time. That is what libraries do. With napster one can see this happing soon, and the library argument may make it legal to do. One can sees what they are trying to stop. What things are really going to boil down to is do publishers have the right to profit greater than our right to read and loan books.
The whole idea of the internet is to expand your horizons and learn more than you knew before you go online (each time you get on - even if only more graphic pictures in your memory :) ) - if the publishers were smart - they would figure out a way to change with the internet as opposed to whining about how they are being left behind... the publishers could become a strong hold in a "information age"... hopefully the world realizes soon that with the internet we can have a free information system for everything and stop paying for the information alone... new economic ideas florish in my mind... but that is a different topic :)
Libraries lend out video tapes and one could argue that it would be much cheaper for libraries to buy one and make copies for the branches, but they don't. If the books are on media like CD's, I don't see a library burning copies. They will purchase books on media just like they purchase the videos now. (or get donation copies, but those are originals and have been paid for).
Memo to all librarians:
As of June, we will no longer be able to allow unrestricted access to books. Patrons will be charged a $5.00 fee upon entrence to the library. In addition, anyone who returns a book late will be prosecuted.
Also, all books relating to engineering, geology, or anything "METALLIC" are banned from the shelves. Thank you.
"Isn't that the sweetest little well-balanced undergraduate-level philosophy of life."
Oops, my bad, somebody else DID already post it, I missed it on my first pass through the messages. My apologies for the redundant post.
- Mike
Here's what I don't get: why are the publishers trying to shut down libraries when they could sue them for copy write violations.
Seems to me that libraries need a document management system to know when an e-document has been checked out. After the due date make the document availible again and charge the person who checked it out the cost of the book. Problem solved.
"Only one thing, is impossible for god: to find any sense in any copyright law on the planet." Mark Twain
I happen to be married to a librarian (yes, no kidding).
We were discussing this a few weeks ago. She is planning on a proposal for a spacialized library, non-profit style, and all that.
She has discovered that libraries, for anything that they have available (from the local newspaper to a flashy CD-ROM), are already paying more than you and me will pay at Barns and Noble for the same item. Much more. They pay more because this information will be available to lots of people.
Now, if publishers want libraries to pay for every people reading the book, for any interlibrary loan... they should get first huge discounts for buying all the stuff that the publisher is carrying.
Silly lawyers, because this is a publisher's lawyers idea for sure, a publisher that is having disminished revenues and tries to make that missing money in the courts.
The technical librarian description of this is "it completely sucks".
Regards,
opkool
Must be experienced in the maintenance of fires large and small. Knowledge of flash point temperatures for various materials a must, including paper, plastic, and wood. Combustion containment a plus. 2-3 years experience with "firefighting" equipment. Those with excellent long-term memories need not apply.
inquire during normal business hours at primary fire brigade office, or tel. 44-245-22
Blech. Signatures.
Let's see if they have the balls to go after this library.
"See, we plan ahead! That way, we never have to do anything now."
I was thinking of the Library of Alexandria. I am also sure that there were other national libraries such as in Babylonia and Rome.
while literacy was limited, those who could read certainly had access.
The argument is not about who hand access to literacy, but rather, who has had access to libraries, which generally was/is anyone who was literate. A slightly different thing, and a point that should not get muddled.
A is similar to B, but A is not identical to B.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
I don't know about most people here, but once I could afford to own the books I /wanted/ to read, I stopped going to libraries.
The only time I'll go to a library now is if I'm forced to read something. If it wasn't available this way, I doubt I'd even be forced to read it.
I think libraries do the publishers more good than they know. Without libraries, fewer and fewer people would read as a hobby, at all. If kids had to pay for the books they read, they wouldn't be reading them. And, more importantly, they'd never pick it up as a hobby and won't *buy* books when they can, later.
I do think that every copy of a book available through a library should be paid for. Libraries should not be allowed to distribute copies, even temporarily, or within the library's walls, unless they've paid for each copy.
One thing libraries can, and should do, is excerise control over the copying of publications done by their customers. Taking a current journal to the copier, and paying the library 10c/page for someone else's copywritten work should not be allowed. If you need it that badly, go buy it. On the other hand, if it's Out Of Print (i.e., the copyright holder won't sell it,) then you should be allowed to copy it. Generally speaking, libraries know which things are in/out of print.
These publishers should realize/remember, that loaning books, particularly to people who cannot afford them now, is the best way to promote what is essentially a leisure activity. Like drug dealers, they should be happy to have the first one be free if it stands a chance of hooking the addict. I've watched paperbacks go from $1.50 to $7.50 in my 32 years and have bought a lot more near the $7.50 end of the spectrum after borrowing a lot of the $1.50 ones from libraries as a kid.
--
Some people have a way with words, and some people, um, thingy.
Well, Schroeder seems to have called our bluff. You got us. Open Source doesn't really exist.
Ok my karma is maxed out. When do I become Enlightened?
fair use does allow copying of large portions of books for interlibrary loan purposes. i've seen 2 or 3 chapters of a book photocopied and sent out for loan.
libraries can't control what theor patrons do either. one of my profs came to class last week with a complete, photocopy of one of dostoevsky's novels (albeit, D. is a special case, because copyrights surrounding his work in the original are non-existent in North America, and only the specific translation is copyrighted by the translator). i've seen patrons copy an entire book before. in fact, its hardly unusual, but i can't say that i agree with it.
!-- wit --!
Sure, libraries may cost publishers some money, but look at the bright side... libraries encourage people TO read, which increases there intelligence, scope of reference, and makes them want to buy MORE books/magazines etc, therefore libraries buy more copies to meet demand... or the people buy their own copies
Not that this is necessarily a big issue... I can't honestly say I've overheard ANYONE in years mention anything about libraries, except when I went on service calls to one.
DOS is dead, and no one cares...
DOS is dead, and no one cares...
If there's a Bourne Shell, I'll see you there
you're right on target. electronic journals usually look crappy, work only sporadically, and over-charge. considering the quality of work in most of the journals i read on a regular basis, they shouldn't even be charging a fee. they should be paying me to read that tripe!
!-- wit --!
The article being quoted deals with libraries copying electronic versions of journals and such to other libraries without paying for it.
The publishers are not trying to stop libraries from lending real books, it's the electronic stuff they're worried about.
And when it comes to acquiring electronic documents what do we need libraries for anyhow? Sure if you need to select from thousands of books in print, you're going to need to go to the library; you don't have room in your house for all of those physical objects. You don't need a library to get electronic documents anyways; and you can store ridculous amounts of documents yourself.
That is what they are afraid of. We have created great ways to share wealth as never before, and the publishers are attempting to prevent it because they make extravagant salaries by having a shortage. One can not help but believe that the same thing will happen once someone develops a way to create food for nearly nothing, and that is the sad part. We would rather have people starve (for knowledge, food, whatever) than share.
I have come to a conclusion that one useless man is a shame, two is a law firm, and three or more is a congress -J Adams
The open source community wants to make program source as accessible as books. But now the publishers want to make books as restricted as closed proprietary software? The big publishers already have enough power by controlling what gets published. You just cannot allow them in addition to control content flow afterwards.
By forbidding libraries to loan books, you are keeping knowlwdge from a big part of the society.
But this seems to be the intention.
Just because I can imagine doing a hippopotamus, doesn't mean I'd like to do it.
Last I knew, public libraries weren't free. They have a mandatory membership program enforced by armed personel and a system that can take your property for failure to pay. That is they are funded by taxes. If the budget is low, the taxes can be increased. I propose a tax on publishers & booksellers as the logical source for increased revenue for libraries.
For what its worth, libraries have many exemptions in copyright law. They are not held to the same standard as others.
the real irony about metallica is that james hetfield used to go over to lars' house all the time and copy his lps and tapes of euro-metal. in fact, there's an interview with hetfield in rolling stone from a few years ago where he lapses into a nostalgic monologue about spending his youth copying Lars' music collection.
!-- wit --!
The idea that libraries are "free" is a popular misconception. The public library I work at is supported by township property taxes, and to be eligible to borrow from the library, you need to be able to prove you are a resident of an eligible township OR purchase a card (which costs about as much as the library would have received from your taxes.) Not too long ago we had a case in which a local township opted against library service because they didn't want higher taxes. Even today, after a highly publicized battle, residents don't understand that libraries are not a free god-given right. Residents pay for libraries, just not overtly.
I'm still not entirely sure what all the uproar is about, though. The technology is very much in place to enable e-books to be loaned for a specific period of time. It's a simple matter of patron authentication and timed decryption or access, not altogether unlike the much reviled Divx format. Really, I think it's much ado about nothing.
----------
Something clever"Likewise, in an increasingly literate and wealthy society, public libraries are less important. At one time they were the only way for most people to get books, now they are mostly just a (taxpayer-subsidized) cheaper alternative."
Uh, a cheaper-alternative for *rich* people, maybe. For those of us who don't have the leisure income that you apparently do, libraries are the *only* source of books. I'm glad you're so freaking bourgeois that you think public libraries have outlived their usefulness -- do you feel the same way about public schools, public transit, and public utilities?
--J
I'd be a Libertarian, if they weren't all a bunch of tax-dodging professional whiners. - Berke Breathed
I can see the publishers point, too. Just not very well, that's all.
Ask yourself this: what do the publishers gain out of publishing electronically instead of on dead trees? Greatly reduced production and distribution costs, that's what. It seems that the publishers want the advantages of the digital distribution without the disadvantages - or worse, they want to turn the disadvantages into advantages, removing some essential rights and freedoms along the way.
So my message to publishers is this: If you're worried about copying the electronic version, publish a paper version instead. Most readers would probably prefer the dead-tree edition for sheer ease-of-use reasons anyway.
--
Every bloody emperor has his hand up history's skirt [Peter Hammill/VdGG]
I find this article not surprising in the least, nor should anyone.
In regards to media (in general), our country (and to an extent the world) is suffering a kind of slow-motion nervous breakdown. There are changing issues, changing technologies, new opportunities, and missed potentials.
Instead of rationally looking at the big picture, people are busyily scrabbling in a mixture of Cover-Their-Backsides and Exploit The New thing. The end result is a kind of bizare insanity where our Public Libraries become evil pirates, insane copyright laws are enforced, no one's happy, everyone's afraid, and layer upon layer of technical and social limits are conjured up with no thought of the future.
I say this article, this situation, needs to be shoved in the face of the public as much as possible. PEOPLE ARE ATTACKING LIBRARIES, treasured public institutions. Copyright issues have gone completely insane.
I take some comfort in knowing these moronic legal acrobatics will eventually produce such an unenforceable mess and lead to so many ridiculous lawsuits, they'll be scrapped. I'd rather it didn't come to that however.
"The Sage treasures Unity and measures all things by it" - Lao Tzu
Well at least for books there is no violation of copyright. The libraries do not coppy the books, they just store them and make them avalable.
Erlang Developer and podcaster
Just what we all need : more ignorants.
If I had a nickel every time I felt like punching someone, i'd be moving into Bill Gates' house by now.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
As the article mostly discusses scientific literature, I don't see how the AAP can have a case. When I go download an online article from a publisher today, it is not conceptually different from when I go and physically "download" same article from a shelf, only much more efficient. It is speedier for me, and at least in theory it is more efficient for both libraries and publishers as they have to deal with less papercopies. I can do this both in academia and in a corporate environment and they typically have their paper subscriptions "upgraded" to online access.
Where do the publishers loose money here? People rarely hand around PDF files, so I don't think there is much pirating. It is probably less PDF-copying around than papercopying, simply because the PDF files are much more accessible than the paper versions.
In fact, if the publishers keep track of downloading, they have more control on the journal distribution and usage than in the "old paper world" where they would have no idea how many paper copies a library have made from an article.
Lars
__
Reality or nothing.
When missy Pat Schroeder was in office she spent A LOT of time trying to take away the rights and benifits of the Vetrens. Now she is trying to take away EVERYONE's right to read! Typical Democrat! I am ashamed to say I am from Colorado, again! I was glad when she LEFT office, now the B**** is back! I sure hope this movement is stopped hard cold. But I am willing to bet the AAP will win this - why, look at the MPAA/RIAA successes. Face it folks it is comming to a world where corporations will bleed you for every dime you have.
How are students going to be able to afford going to school anymore. Tuition is getting rediculusly high, book costs are skyrocketing and now they want to CHARGE to use the libraries. OOH BOY!
But, that's what the rich and powerfull want, to regain the control they once had over the people. Research back to Europe in the pre 1800's.
Gee maybe Karl Marx wasn't so far fetched in his ideas of what would happen to capitolism in the book "Communist Manifesto".
I guess the crooked Democrats and Republicans should start to be scared - REALLY scared!
The Truth is a Virus!!!
International conflicts are best resolved by declaring war. You should get a bunch of canadians together, claim America's ripping you off by not having this law, and then declare war. Then bomb the Baldwin residence...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Benjamin Franklin actually started a subscription library. People paid to use it.
"Sadly, this idea that common people can't think for themselves is still too common, we've all heard too much about governments that won't allow their citizens to browse certain auction sites because they may contain disturbing historical artifacts."
Hell, you have the entire Internet at your disposal and didn't bother even to do a simple search on "Benjamin Franklin library." I wonder, do you consider yourself one of the "common people?"
When will libraries start lending e-Books? With all the content protection, they'd probably have to lend you a reader as well. And you have to bring it back to the library to have them wipe its memory or they have to charge you late fees.
They've put a tag halkf way through the document.
We protect libraries because they give information access to anyone, regardless of income level.
We deplore shoplifting because it raises prices for everyone else and puts small stores out of business.
We as /. users are a conflicted bunch. We want everything for free but want to be over-paid at the same time. We often seem to confuse free beer with free speech.
The amazon.com honor system won't work- we singed up just to prove it
Really! About 10 years ago, I worked in a computer room at Camp Pendelton. As part of an Armed Services Committee tour, she was checking out the place I worked (I guess because someone had trumpeted how great the app was, written by two guys[not me], compared to a huge mega project that failed). The computer room was a tiny, cramped place with several contractors jammed in with the hardware, and I had no idea she was coming. I just happened to have a Government Computer News which had published a letter I had written comparing GSA procurement with Sgt Bilko. So I showed it to her and the director giving the tour. She must have thought it was a setup, even though it wasn't. She seemed nice enough. You might imagine how the politics of the mil oriented folks differed, to put it mildly, from hers, though.
Oracle and unix guy.
"Western" civilization is pretty much defined by the commonplace ability to read. It's what sets us apart from the Ancient Greeks. Whilst reading was the reserve of a tiny elite, and all innovation depended upon discourse in some Socratic forum, society stayed static (and almost moribund) for millenia.
A reading society is a society in which anyone can learn enough to invent new technologies, and that's a society which soon becomes industrialised.
Before commonplace reading, we (in the West) were trailing along in a post-collapse version of Roman society, with a few communities of scholars (usually either dedicated monks, or dedicated heretics) being the only source for innovation. Once reading took off as a mass occupation, we went through the Renaissance and the inevitable industrialisation and shift to a technology-driven society.
Where's that crystal ball RMS has been hiding?
I never did think we'd find ourselves moving towards a Stallman-Ray Bradbury world.
Of course, I'd never have read Farenheit 451 if it hadn't been in my elementary school's library.
If that isn't irony, I don't know what is.
A host is a host from coast to coast, but no one uses a host that's close
On paper all that headline text is expensive to print, but online, it costs them nothing! (except readers)
Until I copy the e-document to my local drive and check it back in with the library. Free document at no cost.
Problem not solved.
This is a very tricky issue. Inexpensive duplication of information will reduce the income potential information providers, perhaps to the point of deterring production.
How many people would go to to the theatre to see a movie if they already downloaded/copied and viewed it at home? A few movies with cool special effects, probably, but some very good movies do not have elaborate effects. There would be less incentive to see them on the big screen where the providers can collect money.
The solution is in the middle somewhere. The average guy has to give up some of his rights and the big companies have to give up some of their control. Otherwise Jonny Haxor is going to rip his movies off of a russian website and Omni Consumer Products is going to charge everyone else a mer-minute viewing charge, even while they watch the now-mandatory 20 minutes of promotions.
Remember, You are unique...just like everyone else.
What is this woman? Some sort of twisted sadist? Sticking people's fingers in light sockets?
"Homo sum: humani nil a me alienum puto"
(I am a man: nothing human is alien to me)
My only political goal is to see to it that no political party achieves its goals.
From what I note in the article, the people who are really getting hot under the collar about this are the publishers.
Perhaps, this is because, like the music industry, they're beginning to see that anybody can go direct with their content in a digital format, and bypass them completely.
As soon as this is really understood, then nobody, or at the very least far far fewer people will be relying on them, and thus paying their huge cut of each book paid for.
It looks like another outmoded dinosaur is desperately thrashing around with tooth and claw (read litigation) in an attempt to protect their revenue streams in an age when they're no longer required.
About the only way they can stay required is if they make it near enough illegal for anyone to publish their own content and not go through them.
And this looks like the first step in that direction.
Just a pondering,
Malk
Actually, I have it from good authority (Raymond E Feist) that used book stores are illegal under current copyright law. However, the law is not enforced since they are so much accepted by people. Raymond E Feist is a best-selling author if you were wondering.
I'd love to see some proof of that assertion, please. If you have to explain to us why he could be considered an authority (and I'm sorry, but being a "best-selling author" doesn't make you an expert on copyright law) than I'd like to see some attributable essay or column that can be defended or rebutted.
Jay (=
Well Joe Q. Public understands libraries, if you are looking for a way to explain to someone just how evil some of this stuff is, use this as an example.
If Godzilla did not exist, man would have had to create him.
What would you think if your local Barnes & Noble or Borders start to sell ebook on their shelves with shrink-wrapped color boxes?
You'd say "stupid!". Isn't the whole point of ebook idea is that the book can be downloaded directly to your computer or reader, without you going to bookstore or LIBRARY? Why should your local library stock one copy of ebook at all?
We have to approach a problem first in term of whether the problem has a solution at all. Paper book has a physical contraint that once the book is checked out, the next person has to wait until the book is returned. If we want ebook to follow the same model, then new software has to be written to emulate that physical model, namely control access to viewing of ebook from library. This involves same techinical problem as SDMA and music industry are trying to solve. (Read MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE).
I do not have the answer. Maybe a book can be published in two editions, paper and ebook.
Maybe library should not be allowed to loan ebook at all, instead they could stock paper version of the book. If an ebook has interactive content, then maybe it should be instead be categorized as software instead of "book".
Now let's worry about something more urgent like global warming and over-population.
--- You make things foolproof, and they'll find you a damn fool.
Now that you're here, Please leave. Here's the door, get lost...
I can pay for her ticket to somewhere where any knowledge is controlled: China. Please contact me to agree on the departure day.
I guess she'll love it down there: censorship, controlled internet, controlled knowledge, all belongs to the government...
Regards,
opkool
In Australia, public libraries have paid royalties to copyright holders for years. Every 12 months, they pick a number of authors at random and see how many of their books are on loan.. the amount paid is in relation to this.
:/
It just seems to wrong tho.. arrrg.. I hope I die before we end up in a pay-per-use world
Electronic media is not a loophole for the fat, wealthy media companies to continue fleecing the public!
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Also you might want to check out the Baen Free Library and read through the introductionary letter by Eric Flint, First Librarian ;-)
It's a bit long, but has excellent arguments in favor of free books online.
Offcourse, there's also the Gutenberg Project, but I don't really like that one myself...
As a librarian, I have no problems with publishers making money at what they do. However, I think the reality of how libraries deal with e-books is mis-represented. The e-book products that I am aware of involve buying a set number of 'copies' of each e-book. If you buy 3 'copies' only 3 people can use it simultaneously and for a limited time only.
As far as journals and magazines are concerned, the library I work at pays in the neighborhood of $100,000 a year for access to databases that can be accessed inside the library by the general public and through the internet by authenticated students, faculty and staff. Some of these databases involve a cost of 64 cents per database query for finding citations of articles, not the articles themselves.
Now given that I work for a fairly typical small to mid-size library, with hundreds of peer institutions across the country with similar setups, I think publishers are probably getting a fair shake, and probably more than their fair share from libraries.
Keep in mind that if the government is picking up the tab, in the end the end user (the citizen) is paying, since he or she pays taxes. In the proposal you cite, the government merely becomes a middleman.
Your gut reaction may be to say "so what, you are merely arguing semantics," but keep in mind that it is far easier to sneak cost increases into government budgets than it is to raise the price of a product at the local supermarket.
How long until these "symbolic fees" become less symbolic and more concrete, and taxes are raised accordingly. With precedent on the publishers side ("after all, the government has been paying these fees for years") any court challenge by the government, or the people, would presumably face an uphill battle.
Everyone seems content with that, so it will probably pass as a law.
That is the most insidious danger of such a ruse. Everyone is content, because it doesn't appear to affect them immediately. The publisher's can take away a right the people have had for decades if not longer (the ability to lend and borrow books free of charge), begin gouging them via the taxes they already pay. Publishers become a subsidized industry, enjoying both a government enforced monopoly on their products and a government underwritten revinue stream paid for by the taxpayer, whether or not they use the product and irrespective of whether or not they agree to it.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
It says a lot that this dear lady is representing *publishers*, not researchers. This isn't about making sure Doctor Not-Altogether-Evil gets his money for his research. That's what grants are for. These people want rich people in suits who own printing presses to get richer. While not a bad thing, they can pry my library card from my cold, dead corpse if that's their logic.
Now my charms are all o'erthrown, and what strength I have's mine own... - Shakespeare, "The Temepest"
Couldn't anyone setup a library, buy a bunch of books, and start loaning them out to people, w/o charge. As I understand it, the current fair use laws allow a person to loan stuff out, give it away or sell it. Why would a public library be any different? It's merely a community sponsored loaning orginization. For those of us who pay taxes, we own part of those books anyway. I agree with those who mentioned that this is just another industry crying for every penny they can get. Wake up and stop whinning. Then maybe you can make a product people want to buy. Then maybe you'll make some money!
"I have a sinking feeling they will concentrate on latest-trash-of-the-week books though"
:(
Actually, what you describe is happening in reverse - the above is what most libraries are full of now. The computer sections of a lot of libraries have `graphics programming for the acorn electron` etc
Historically publishers and bookstores liked libraries. They encourage people to read from a very young age. These people in turn by MORE books than they would without the encouragement of a library. When was the last time you went to a library? For a lot of you it was probably less recently than when you actually purchased a book. Of course, given the current state of the US logic and rational studies have no buisness in lawsuits that rely on Ricki Lake upsetting fans.
Slashdot's summary bears no resemblance whatsoever to the article.
The article is not about loaning copies of books.
As far as I can tell from the article, which is very poorly written, the publishers' beef is that libraries are distributing electronic copies of journal articles (or large portions of the articles) without compensating the publishers.
This is just another GNUtard "information wants to be free" button-pusher. Slashdot sucks. It really, really sucks.
- Have a picture
This is exciting news! Thank goodness. All that reading for free was just irritating me. People sitting around a public area, loitering, thinking they are all that, reading and getting a big head. I mean, sheesh, why encourage intellectual thinking, then they might actually come up with some ideas of their own... then how will we control them? No, no, cannot have the libraries free. If we do that, then anyone can claim to be a library and we will lose sales... In fact, wait a second, what if someone tried to make virtual areas libraries, what if the WWW was claimed to be a LIBRARY... then, all those copyrighted materials would be protected and used and we would lose all our IP cases... Then there would be no more IP in Cyberspace problems.... Can't have that! NO MORE free LIBRARIES!!!
He's the head librarian for a large county library system in Texas. Last time I was visiting my parents, I dropped in on him for a chat. He mentioned that based on his observations the average income level of library patrons has dropped a good 50% in the last five years - especially among people who use the library for research. The lower income research patrons mainly use the free net connections. The library used to be full of high school students researching any number things, but that number has declined sharply since so much of their research gets done on the net.
Now, how interesting is it that libraries come under fire when they no longer serve a large section of the populace that buys stuff.
But I agree with the posters above, this will raise quite a stink if the publishing house(s) push to hard.
Don Negro
Don Negro
Perl 6 will give you the big knob. -- Larry Wall
But this case will create a backlash against IP law perhaps slapping it down once and for all. Woo hoo!
Seriously though, do they really think thats going to change as people get older? Things like this just prolong the death of an obsolete distribution and revenue medium, only to make it much much worse in the future when it *does* die.
-
BECAUSE OF H1 TAG
okay now I am putting lots of lowercase letters in this post because of slashdot's terrific censorship RE: all-caps. It doesn't matter that the point I'm trying to communicate is best communicated in all caps. Instead, I get this juvenile "Lameness filter encountered. Post aborted" message. You should warn, not prohibit.
Don't post on slashdot. Get back to work.
How do we stop such madness? Sadly, we'll probably stop it the same way the French did, the Boxers did, the Bolsheviks did, and the way so many, many others. With a big assed gun.
Who ever said paks could spell, anyway?
I can currently go check out the new Steven King book for 2 weeks from my local library. They only have 30 of them, so only 30 people at a time can read them. If I'm number 31 I wait. So, it's very simple really. Sell libraries electronic licenses. My library buys 30 licenses and lends 30 electronic copies. The library could set an experation date of 14 days from checkout (done all the time in demoware), at which point they could "lend" out another copy. If I'm number 31 I still have to wait. The best part would be no late fees cause if you forgot about it your book would just expire and you'd merely have to check it out again, assuming one of the 30 licenses was free.
This is another of those moronic, lawyer loop hole, stupid management decisions. This ranks right up there next to the stupid 'crawler' copyrights of Alta Vista. I'm sorry but can we get back to the basics of shared knowledge? I mean, thousands upon thousands of years of knowledge transferred to descendants. Now to take away the medium that accomplishes this great task (the library). Let's file suit against a few industries as a whole, let's start with the publishers, siting the 'dilbert clause'. File for exploitation of the rights of everyone to learn and know what they want and when. We wont even get into the recording industry. What do the publishers hope to accomplish with this? Do they really think that people are going to stand for this? Do they really think that their PUBLICATIONS wont be PLASTERED on *countless* web sites ALL OVER THE WEB just to spite them!
:-( --- argh. Despair, I owe again.
Now folks, please be respectful and treat her as the distinguised person she is. A considerate and well thought message will make more of an impact than a flame. Don't write anything you wouldn't say in person, and if you say foul things in person, please do the cause of liberty a favor and let other cool-minded person's do the writing. Okay, I'm stepping off the soap box.
-- Solaris Central - http://w
I just donated about 10 of my books to a public library. Poor people have to read to. When I didn't have much money I used to go to public libraries quiet often. Now I buy the books because I can afford to and it's a way of benefiting those poor authors. They won't make much out of a sale but it's better than nothing.
My prediction for the near future, most software coders will be as poor as most authors mostly due to Open Source people who like to give away stuff for free. Don't come in complaining afterwards. Coders and authors are much too charitable.
But who in their lives in the USA has *not* used a library?
It's like seeing a fight in the parking lot- most people just watch and root for a favorite- until someone shoves my little brother. Then it gets PERSONAL.
I welcome the APA's attacks on libraries. Pat Schroeder will do for the media industries what Jerry Falwell's attacks on Tinky-Winky did for the Religious Right.
Bryguy
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
Going to a movie is an event. Its more than the content, its the ambiance. Its part of dating tradition. Compare a fine restaurant to the doggie bag you take home. Which one gets you laid?
And I thought Fahrenheit 451 was the cheesiest, most ridiculous view of the future that I had ever seen. Guess that movie/book is becoming a little truer to life than I first thought.
From the /. blurb:
>American publishing companies preparing to wage
>war on the idea of reading books for free
Damn! This makes it sound like publishing companies are finally fed up with libraries loaning out _paper_ books, when the real issue is e-books. And, yes, that _is_ a potential issue for publishers.
I know a couple of decent TV news desks looking for Sensationalist Writers...
"These people have mortgages," Schroeder is quoted as saying in the article.
Answer: so what? The people who made buggy whips back when horse-drawn carraiges were all the rage had expenses too. Then their industry went obselete. Should the government have passed litigation that insured that their industry would survive, to "save jobs"? No, people adapted. They found something useful to do for society.
The MPAA, the RIAA, and now the publishers try to focus everybody on the creative people. They try to use the scare tactics that the musicians, writers, and so forth will not be paid unless we have all these draconian controls on digital distribution. But that's not what this really is about. There are lots of people in the distribution industry who have jobs that will become obselete as the digital world takes hold. Some of the people at the top of this chain of jobs have a lot of money and a lot of power. They don't want to lose it.
The creative people will not become obselete. All this technology can't replace the creativity of writers. What it can replace is the full industry that's in place to "publish" and distribute the writer's work. If these people really did care about the creators, they'd be trying to figure out how best to find a niche and adapt to the digital world. Instead, they're trying to insure that those who have the power base in the analog paper world maintain that power base once it has become unnatural for them to do so.
I have full confidence that the writers, musicians, etc., will find a way to live in the digital world, given the chance. We value them, and they will still be valued in the digital world. (I don't know it will work; I could spew some ideas, but I don't claim to have the answers. But I do know that the right answer isn't to clamp down and hand the keys to our minds to the executives of the RIAA and publishing industry.)
However, we don't value the recording and publishing industry. We've only valued them because they were necessary for the creative people to communicate their works to us. Those industries are becoming dinosaurs. We should let them die. The people with mortgages in that industry should find something new to do. That may sound harsh, but it's the way things go. Buggy whip makers had to find something new to do too. It's ridiculous to strangle individual freedoms across the world in the name of protecting jobs that are becoming useless.
Hey, maybe some of those trying to preserve their positions in the recording and publishing industries could instead try to find a way making a living by helping writers and musicians be recognized and known in the digital world, where information can flow freely without being blessed by a huge corporation, and where it will be that much harder for a really good writer or musician to become widely known! Maybe they could be on the forefront of inventing the new distribution model in a world where it's easy to freely copy content! Naaah, much easier to legislate the continued existence of their obselete industry.
-Rob
Sueage is the American pastime.
Don't be so naive. Few laws are written in the interest of society. Look at who funds the lawmakers and you will see why. Hell, the Americanian public didn't even get the president they voted for.
And we do pay "royalties" to breathe. Your taxes fund the EPA. Yes, another well-run and powerful Americanian institution.
Why is it that many people who claim to support standards have such atrocious spelling and grammar?
Although, technically I don't think she ever mentions authors. She says "These people", referring to "those in the room", ie. publishers.
Truth to tell, the publishers may make money off of the journals, but the authors (if I understand correctly) generally have to pay a fee to get their articles published. So what's the big problem?! The authors are getting paid by their research grants. The publishers get paid by libraries at least once (and I don't know of a library that makes their own copies of these huge journal archives from other libraries rather than buying their own), not to mention getting paid by the universities and other research institutions where the authors work (and where you're most likely to find people who are actually interested in the journals).
In Particle Physics, at least, almost all papers are also available on line in a huge database called Spires -- and as near as I can tell, it's supported by the publishers. It's certainly supported by the scientists. I'm surprised Pat isn't going after Spires, too...
-Erf C.
-Erf C.
Cthulu always calls collect...
Uh oh, and you better watch out book clubs and teachers, reading a book aloud to others might violate "fair use".
This article upsets me on so many levels. I've always stood a middle ground on the topic of the rights of copyright holders vs. the right to fair use. However when big business starts to target libraries my blood begins to boil.
The western education system is one of the cornerstones of our society, and public libraries are one of the most important parts of that system. They represent the right to learn, to grow, to expand the mind, and to cultivate excellence. Unrestricted access to education and knowledge has always been pivotal to the destruction of class barriers. Destruction of class barriers is the most important means of assuring consistent, fair representation of individual rights and freedoms. Protection of rights and freedoms, in turn, is the goal of the political system we call Democracy.
This is not a tenuous link.
We can't afford to take for granted the efforts put forth by generations before us to protect our freedom to learn, grow, and excel. Libraries are crucial to this freedom -- be they traditional libraries or online libraries. These rights take precedence over everything else. If some copyright holders miss their chance to get rich in the process, I'm willing to take that chance.
---
One of two things will happen.
1) Content consumers will rise up and assert their rights to get, use, and disseminate knowledge in a responsible manner. Publishing companies will profit by the great increase in appetite for knowledge.
2) Content controllers will keep the consumers locked into proprietary and exclusive contracts and technologies. Consumers will be heavily burdened with worring about if they have made a "mistake" in desimating and using knowledge that they gained in this "contract". Producers will make the same amount of money. A given since they set up the rules to mirror the current environment.
It is my greatest hope that content producers wake up and see that there is far more money to be made in a open environment than a closed one. I also hope that basic economics come into play and the "open" content providers are far more profitable than their closed counterpart, and thus making "open" content not only a ethical choice, but a sensible economic one as well.
Time will tell.
As open content providers ourselves, we just need to continue to prostylitze (bad sp) the advantages of open content, use open content, and protest content from producers that "lock in" the consumer. But it is hard, given that closed content providers produce a lot of "interesting" content. Content that can entertain (think DVD) and inform, (in the case of books with insane publishers like most large American publishers)
I continue to believe that people will do the right thing, and economic arguments are on the side of the "right thing". Hopefully it is only necessary to be vigilant.
If not, it will be necessary to protest these "closed" producers and the legal institutions that make this possible.
As for what will happen, we shall see. We shall see....
That's why the home rental market is actually making a huge loss for the MPAA, and why, due to the fact that I have been able to rent music from my local library for many years, all the record companies are making huge losses. The business model is changing, adapting is the key, not taking away rights in the name of 'stopping piracy'.
A number of factors are in play here. Consider who buys them - namely, university libraries, and corporate libraries.
Consider also that publishing a periodical like that takes a lot of money - peer reviewers need to get paid, production costs can be high for really nice paper and graphics printing, the distribution jobbers need money, etc. etc. etc.
The costs of production are spread over relatively few subscribers, when compared with periodicals like Maxim or even Scientific American, so the prices get very high.
University libraries get less and less use as the internet grows as an information resource, so their funding gets squeezed.
With the advent of large-scale interlibrary loan sharing via computers (for more than a decade now), libraries have been able to (informally) band together to reduce the number of journal subscriptions they carry. Can't afford a dozen journals at $10K a year? Library X agrees to maintain subscriptions to 6, and Library Y agrees to maintain subscriptions to the other 6; and they both agree to share articles as needed between them.
Both libraries save money (temporarily), but the publisher's subscription base gets even smaller, and the prices go up even more. Pretty soon those six subscriptions each are too expensive to maintain.
Factor in how easy it is to move documents around on the internet now, and it's easy to understand both why journal subscriptions are so expensive, and why publishers are running scared.
Just don't know where it ends.
... because the first time I met Raymond Feist, he was working at Comic Kingdom in San Diego - a rather large store that sold lots of "pre-owned" comic books. That was before he was a bestselling author, of course.
Just for the record, though, Feist seemed to be a pretty nice guy, whatever his view on copyright law. I never actually knew his name until a few years after he left the shop, and Magician had been published. All I knew was that he was involved in a role-playing group that included some people I knew at school. I bumped into him years later at the San Diego ComicCon, and he apparently recognized my face, and we had a brief chat about nothing. Later I came across a copy of Magician and saw his face on the flap.
Nowhere is this more applicable than where textbooks and reference books are concerned. Why teachers at all levels have not collaborated to produce universal, free textbooks is utterly beyond me. Given the technology available -- content could be included conditionally to suit the requirements, pedagogical and ideological, of each school district or university, for example -- and given the hideous cost of textbooks, it seems like the only reasonable solution. Likewise with things like encyclopedias. God knows there's at least a few people with expertise in every subject area who would be willing to write a quality article for free. The overpriced training materials that go with lucrative technical certifications are another obvious target. Are you certified by Oracle, Cisco, Microsoft, etc? Help out those who aren't yet.
I know this isn't an all-inclusive solution, but at least in this one area, it would eliminate the political influence of textbook and reference publishers by putting them out of business.
Knowledge is the collective property of the entire human race. Yes, that's an ideological stance, but it's one that has seen the sacrifice of millions of lives on battlefields around the world. If Hitler and Stalin couldn't stop it, it would be a shame to see fnarking copyright lawyers succeed.
--
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
1) Microsoft president Steve Balmer claims that the biggest threat to his company is an alternative operating system that is given away for free, and which (due to the nature of its copyright) will always be given away for free.
2) the majority of web servers on the internet run on Apache web servers, which are given away for free. For an example, point out that her organization's web site is running Apache
3) the email you send to her probably goes through a sendmail box on the way to her, and sendmail is opensource
4) 90% of the internet's DNS servers run on BIND
The entire internet is dependant upon software that technology people are giving away for free, and that has been true since the 70's. The internet never would have been able to grow to become what it is today if technologists didn't give software away for free.
Ancient Athens had public libraries. Of course there was Alexandria, governement owned, and publicly accessable for the specific purpose of forward the arts and sciences.
Julius Ceasar founded a public library in Rome, not actually built until after his death, but built, and public, none the less.
The Islamic world of about 1000 A.D. had an extensive system of public libraries, particularly in Spain. Europe largely recovered teh idea of the public library from the Spanish network, which even included the idea of interlibrary loans.
I've traveled a fair amount around the world and have NEVER had any trouble finding a public library, not even behind the iron curtain during the height of the cold war.
Hell, I just recieved e-mail from my mother, 2500 miles away from me in a "third world" country, and she dosn't even own, or know how to USE, a PC. She gained access to a computer, an e-mail account, and got free training on how to use them. . . at a public library.
For those afraid of goat sex: http://www.salon.com/comics/boll/2000/08/24/boll/i ndex.html
- subsolar
The idea of Intellectual Property was invented on the premise that it is feasible to create an artificial scarcity of information. If it is feasible to do this, then IP is a great idea, because it allows creators to sell IP as though it were tangible property, and thereby make a living just like any other person in a manufacturing trade. The consensus is (or was) that this is a Good Thing, and that it why the people chose to create copyright law.
But this artificial scarcity isn't really feasible anymore. They're trying to keep it that, with ever-increasingly-draconian laws. But these aren't really working, and more importantly, the side effects and other costs of these efforts are beginning to get very high. Libraries aren't just a geek thing; a much larger portion of the population uses them. If they are threatened, then society is going to lose its consensus that information scarcity is a Good Thing. When that consensus is lost, then IP will no longer exist, because there won't be laws that protect it.
Thus, intellectual creators are damned if they do try to keep information artificially scarce, and damned if they don't (due to technology). Either way, IP is on the way out. No wonder they're scared.
But this doesn't mean that society doesn't value what intellectual creators make, or that they are about to lose their means of making a living. They're just going to have to change what they sell. Instead of an artifically scarce resource (information), they're going to have to sell a naturally scarce resource: their creativity and labor. They're going to have to switch from manufacturing to service.
In a way, I'm already facing this in my software job. Most of the revenue that I generate for my company isn't in the form of products; it's in the form of billed time for custom programming. The customer is really paying for a service rather than a product.
And you know what? It's tougher. I have to keep on my toes and actually work every day, instead of making a product and hoping that it "goes big" so I can sit back and take it easy while the money comes in. Poor me, having to work for a living! Poor publishers!
Frankly, if a lazy slob like me can do it, then these so-called "businessmen" can handle it too. The harder they fight, the more I become convinced that they're either 1) Stupid, because they don't see the big picture or 2) Unethical, because they want something for nothing.
---
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
I don't know of her religion exactly, but I'm pretty sure you have placed her in about the most opposite category you could.
For instance, an ardent pro-choice and womens rights supporter. While I agree with those views, she has lots of other ideas (like supporting the publishers against the libraries) that are breathtakingly misguided.
I also have to say other than the (also misguided) crack at Christians, I totally am with you about her seeming to want to be Jack Valenti - she even comments about how whistful they are that they do not have the clout of the MPAA!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
It is truly sad when things I would have thought were absolutly absurd that it must be a joke turns out that no one is laughing. Libraries- the highest institution of enlightenment; the place for a curious mind to be fed, is under attack because publishers want higher profit margins!
I am really depressed.
I miss the Karma Whores.
How is research going to be impacted if every researcher has to pay for the articles he/she reads before doing research? If we start having to pay for epublished materials, it will have the net impact of decreasing research. Imaging, everytime you run into a computer problem, having to pay for an article or book to find an answer, because the content is licensed, not owned - like a book. The quiet world of libraries has changed. Now, instead of a peaceful place where you could read materials for free, we have Internet terminals with government imposed filtering software, ebooks with royalties for each use, radio talkpersons declaring us distributers of pornography, patrons screaming for more services without raising their taxes, and politicians not seeing the need for libraries - "everything's on the Internet!". If this trend continues, I don't think we'll have to worry about it for long, public libraries are being squeezed out of existance. A librarian's perspective.
I'm not a criminal.
Content providers, otoh, who have the audacity to maintain that a digital stream of a work passed through a router's memory is a unique copy do have to change. And they can start by treating by approaching me as a customer first and potential criminal last.
If I go to a store and they treat me like shit I don't go back. I should suddenly be forgiving because the product is now digital? I don't think so.
I don't want knowledge. I want certainty. - Law, David Bowie
Wow! You went to college?! It amazes me that any admissions board would let a mind as soft as yours into their institution.
"War makes me sad." - Me
If this get enough attention, people will start to realise how stupid these companies are being. The idea that book publishers are going to sue Libraries is stupid! I wish these companies were not so stupid!
At the next eco-hypocrisy-meeting, count the private jets used to get to the meeting. Should be interesting to see that
What's next? Will they be pursuing legal action against private users who loan their books out? Will they have little self-destruct, "This book is liscensed to be read in 48 hours and will self-destruct aftewards" messages in fine print on the book? Are they going to prevent people from staying at the library and reading the books for free their also? And then there's the Electronic Books and E-Journals. Are they going to be suing every university and organization that has such a service "for free" online? And what if I buy an E-journal, and then cut&paste the text for certain articles -- or the whole journal -- and e-mail it to a friend? Are they then going to sue me, and everyone else who does such? Or are they going to start trying to offer the E-Journals on fancy looking Java applets(hence their excuse for the unnecessary bloat) which prevent any use of the copy function? Really, this is nothing but blatently disgusting. They want to use their "information" as a way of keeping power in their hands -- and those who pay for it. It is a manipulative, and no different than the way in which the Royals during the middle ages kept information out of the hands of the poor. Information is not something that you can own. I dont' give a flying fuck what the law says -- knowledge and ideas(other than paparazzi-like stuff) is something that the public has the right to. What these companies want to do is hold up scientific and intellectual progress, so they can make money. If they had their way, there would a mirage of liscenses and end-user-agreements that scientists would have to go through just to get the necessary preliminary papers for lab work. The vast sweeping "intellectual property rights," that companies have -- from book companies rights to the books, to biotech companies "rights" to genes they discover -- hold up progress, and force it to be filtered through their narrow perspectives. Everyone has the right to information. Information wants to be free.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
In case you couldnt tell, i was being sarcastinc
-H. Simpson
Well duh
-M Simpson
With the RIAA, MPAA and now the AAP pushing the fight of intellectual property to such an extent that they are targetting libraries, I have to wonder if this extreme dose of capitalism is going to further widen the bridge between the have's and have-nots.
...
If Schroeder has her way and gets to charge libraries, that cost is going to trickle down to the basic person in form of higher taxes etc to pay for the public libraries. Soon many of the libraries in the smaller towns will begin to die out and soon the only ones who will be able to go and read will be the ones who can afford to pay. Even in America, there are families who cant afford books and those students who need to go to the libraries to study or do some reference work. My books cost me over 500 bucks each semester. In every civilization in the world, the presence of a community library has helped civilization to progress, since having an educated populace has helped to move forward. Its kinda ludicrous that they would target libraries since they are attacking one of the basic blocks of education.
First our freedom, then our education.
The number of the beast
See - our (US) government will protect something like libraries because librarians have a special intrest group where those HOT HOT HOT Librarians sleep their way through congress.
The ultimate network admin tool needs HELP!
For example we are the largest (i believe) medical library in the state of Alaska. Alaska has a lot of small bush communities with only a few thousand (or few hundred) residents, not nearly large enough to afford every journal that may contain crucial medical information. But they do have dialup 'net access. So they will either search our holdings or put in a search request for our people to do the research (for a fee, but free typically free to patients or others who can't pay) the relevant articles are then scanned and distributed over the 'net as PDFs via a perl script that only allows a limited number of downloads (for copyright reasons.)
While I have seen some PDF's generated by ILL reach 60+ pages we by no means duplicate and distribute the latest harry potter book this way (or any other novel.) Having said all that we also don't do electronic dupes of materail we hold for local patrons, they have to wait their turn to get their hands on the printed version.
"Listen: We are here on Earth to fart around. Don't let anybody tell you any different!" - Kurt Vonnegut
A library allowing the re-reading of a book or magazine is akin to going to a used-book store and picking up a cheaper copy. The publisher doesn't get a penny of that resale, and potentially loses a new sale.
Granted, book reselling isn't the biggest industry in the world... But it sounds to me that corporate greed (The inability to reconsile the fact that diminishing increases in profit hurts stock value, or even, gasp, that profits some times go down) is going to undermine freedom, since the new economic aristocracy (which sadly includes the middle class investors) demands tithing from us all. Like a virus, lack of growth means death in this ever consolidating society - The black hole of evolution (once critical mass is achieved, everything gets pulled in until you are left lifeless).
It is only now that I'm realizing the genious of old-school American regional segregation laws, such as with banking. Encourage the mom-pop stores, since they're not dependant on growth - just consistency. Sure it meant random qualities of service; but before mass travel you wouldn't even know you were getting lousy service.
-Michael
-Michael
What the publishers don't seem to appreciate is that if copies of information (a book, a song, a movie, or whatever) can be distributed at no additional cost, then there is no need for a publisher. They cannot provide any tangible benefit to the creator. There may still be a need for intangibles like promotion and editing, but those are separate issues. The creator can now be compensated directly without having to deal with parasites like publishers, copyhouses, or record labels. The industry just needs a little restructuring first. Good riddance.
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
One more for the lynching tree.
All proponents of copyright, patents and other control of knowledge dissemination are going the way of the dodo.
It just doesn't add up. "Give me money for the knowledge I've created". It sounds good to those of us that sweat over creating knowledge, but the world doesn't agree.
The world doesn't agree
Results is what counts, not ideas. Physical results delivered into waiting hands.
That includes books;
wake up.
Obviously you have never been poor or lived among poor people. Public libraries are one of the ways that poor people can educate themselves. Education is one of the surest ways out of poverty. Andrew Carnegie understood this.
Born into dire poverty Andrew Carnegie spent the first half of his life becoming, at the time, the richest man in the world. He then spent the remainder of his life giving his wealth away. There are hundreds of Carnegie Libraries still operating in this country. Most of these were buildt in small towns that did not have a library. Places like Bayliss, Ca. and Boswell, In.
Another day closer to redwood heaven
I object to that article, and to the next reply.
Oops! Forgot to mention that I was playing devil's advocate here. I for one think that companies need to rethink their business models. This applies to software, movies, literature - anything that can be digitized. The emphasis should not be on the creation of content, but it's use. A previous thread mentioned that movies are an event. The money can be made there.
Software is similar. As computing devices become commodities, so will the code that runs on it. Software used to push hardware to the limit as we rushed into the age of the Graphical interface. Now that that has been done, there is no major push for faster hardware. There also is no major push for new software. What more does a user need? A 3D paper clip? Support for a new file type? Once people have what they need, it is hard to convince them to buy a new version of an old tool that does essentially the same thing.
The question is - How do software engineers, actors, musicians, writers, etc. make a living if their creations are forced into the public domain by the fact that they are digital? I don't know the answer to the question, but I know it isn't in "content protection".
P.S. One of the reasons I love DeCSS was the fact that I could filter out the 15 minutes of Disney advertisements on the DVD I purchased for my kid. When a company forces the to watch something, they should not be suprised when the people find a way around it.
Remember, You are unique...just like everyone else.
What about reverse-engineering restrictions on the DMCA?
It don't matter if they have those rights if they cannot exercise them.
I've posted this before, but I'll repost it here (with some changes due to responses). Basically I think the publishers have brought this mess on themselves.
There was originally a balance struck with copyright. People granted authors the privilege to have control over their work for a period of time (then 14 years). This allowed the author (and publisher) to make money from his work. In return, at the end of that period of time, the work would become part of the public domain, free for all to use. That bargain is long dead, broken by publishers. They continually lobbied for more control and longer copyright terms, and they got them. Now copyrighted works don't go into the public domain for at least 70 years, and that's only if the author dies right after creating the work. Is it any wonder that many people have no respect for copyright anymore? We haven't seen anything go into the public domain for decades! We're going back to the times before the Statute of Queen Anne in Britain where publishers had perpetual copyright control over works they published. That was stopped by the Statue of Queen Anne, and US courts acknowledged that copyright is a privilege, not a right, and that there were no perpetual rights granted to authors or publishers for control over the works they create and publish.
Today, publishers are still seeking perpetual control over the works they publish. People should understand that if there is to be a bargain, they must keep their end. Why should we create laws that serve only to enrich a few at the expense of the freedom of the rest of us? We grant copyrights so that authors will continue to create new works for us to enjoy and learn from. They will continue to create these things whether we give them 14 years of copyright protection or 1400 years of copyright protection. It is in the best interest of most of us if we limit the term to something reasonable such as 14 years. As things stand today, anything created in our lifetime will likely not go into the public domain in our lifetime. That's just not right and illustrates how the scales are tipped heavily in the publishers' favor. What we need now is copyright reform. We need to roll back the copyright term to the original 14 years (plenty of time to turn a very nice profit). There will be a fight. Highly profitable corporations do not give up money without a very big fight. But we need to restore a balance between the creators and the public. That alone could go a long way towards restoring respect for the copyright system and ensuring that the creators will profit from their creations. Yes, the publishing industry will have to resign themselves to not being able to milk a creation for all eternity, but there's really no reason they should have ever had such a right to begin with.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
If you're around Mad City, WI from May 6th-9th there is this conference being held on IP. I originally saw it on the OpenLaw DVD mailing list and after looking over the speaker list thought about staking out some pavement and protest^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hvoicing my opinion. I probably won't be able to make it (my son will just be over a month old then :) but I do encourage anybody who can make it to go and let your views be known.
I don't want knowledge. I want certainty. - Law, David Bowie
I have to agree that a library only having to pay for one copy of a piece of material, and then having 30 copies being read at the same time, is kind of ridiculas. Normaly things thrive or die based on their popularity, and such as been said before by other posters above me, and said much better at that.
What I think should happen is that a balencing system should be updated. The system should keep tabs on how many times different people print out/read/access/look at/quote/etc the document, and the price that the library is charged for the next months copy is then increased realitivly. Actualy, having a two month observation period would probebly be better for monthly magizenes, of course quarterly Scientific Journlals could use a quarterly observation method.
The point is that it could be done transparently in the background, and if a piece of work was accessed so many times in a month, so much so that the library was in risk of it's next month cost going out of the budgets bounds, the librarian could then choose to make that work of litature unaviable, just as a book that is in high demand becomes unavaible because people already have it. Compare one copy of an (electronic) magizene going around to fifty people in a few weeks and then be cut of, tothree copies (of a physical) magazine being backordered to wazuu. There really is little differnce in the number of people who get to access the material.
Of course, after a basic fee is paid, the authers are paid, and the company has a profit, they should shut-up and let everyone read the magizene as much as they want. That's why I am opposed to charging money to old issues. especialy in digital format, if the library is responsable for upkeeping a full collection of archived material, and it is the libraries resources that are being spent on that maintence, then there is no reason for there to be a charge associated with back issues. In fact, I would wholeheartedly support an internet accessable archive of all major scientific journals. The current pay system is ridiculas, (you want me to pay HOW MUCH to access a 5 year old article? That's re-fricking-diculas!)
Need help treating your acne? Come here!
Libraries are different in that borrowing a book does not require reproducing it. Copyright is still enforced.
Interesting to note her first quote,
"They're terrified."
The first job of a parasitic lobby is to sow
fear.
Schroeder does this to the tune of 370K/year. Nice for an ex-public servant.
__________no--do__________
The simple fact is to duplicate a book you need a bunch of real world stuff.
Uh oh... I suppose in a few months we will hear about a new paper tax, requiring a portion of the profit from all blank paper media sold to go to publishing companies to help recoup their losses from all of those copyright violations. In related news, Congress will outlaw pens, ruling them as circumenvention technology under the provisions of the DCMA. Then we'll all be safe from those evil pirates...
You're wrong, the American people DID get the president they voted for.
vote counting and recounting will simply demonstrate itself as a futile excercise in statistics. This was a close race, no doubt about it.
The American public DID vote for Ronald Reagan in 1980, he lawfully appointed the supreme court justices who played the pivotal role in the final decision of the 2000 presidential election. That that decision was purely political was a sad commentary on the state of US politics - but the decision, and what has followed, was a lawful progression, rooted in constitutional practice.
Personally, I will happily watch as the US goes to hell over the next 4 years. I watched a Brookings institute conference on CSPAN a few weeks back, and they said that the #1 lesson Bush should have learned from Clinton was - well, aside from THAT, not to over-extend yourself in the first two years, or you'll suffer a voter backlash in the congressional elections, and be powerless the next two years. Bush apparently didn't see that conference.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
And as usual, she's so wrong it's almost funny. The one thing about this statement that offends me more than Schroeder's obvious ignorance is her obvious arrogance. She says things with perfect confidence that she is right, yet she is obviously and blatantly wrong.
Her obvious "money, money, money" attitude is also quite offensive, and I can't believe this fool has the gall to call herself a Democrat.
The only way the typical /.er can pick up a chick is with a forklift. -- AC
So how much less than the common people are you for not knowing the difference between "your" and "you're"?
Virg
They have "for the chIIIIldrun".
Now, we have "for the lIIIIbraries".
Only to be used with people who can't think logically, of course. But, realistically, there are a lot of such people out there, and convincing them of our cause will be necessary if we are to win.
When firewalls are programmed by clueless suits, "porn" gets blocked but pr0n doesn't. It's probably not the original reason, but it works here.
Virg
OK, here is the idea you have outlined in such mindless terms in order to miss the point:
A library is a public resource! People get together to buy books so that they will be available to everyone at a reduced cost. Why should everyone buy an encyclopedia set every year? Well to keep current, of course, so they do, but only one copy! Duh! A great indirect benefit of this is that people of ability but without means can further their educations and enjoyment.
This group of publishers has just declared war on libraries and the whole idea of public resources. They would prefer you pay for each read of their book, forever. This violates the whole purpose of copyright, which is to encourage widespread duplication of work that will eventually belong to the public!
That, my friendly little child and goat eating friend that must live under a bridge, is the big deal here. The only way someone as dumb as you could get a job working in a public library is on community service or inside inside the big house! Next time you go to work, I suggest you check out Thomas Jefferson.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Here's how University Libraries (which are the really the one's being targeted in the article, not Public Libraries) usually deal with electronic material.
Purchasing: We buy access to electronic journals for a yearly fee (usually 10% above what we would pay for the print). This grants us access to the current issues as well as whatever backfiles the publisher makes available. Some publishers have a scale of fees to determine how much of the backfile we get access to. If, for some reason, we have to cancel our online subscription, we lose all access, including for years that we paid for (there are a few publishers, usually scholarly societies that promise perpetual access for years paid for, but they are the exception.)
This access is controlled by an ip based authenication scheme on the publisher side. Anybody can come into the library and get access and members of the University community can get acces off-campus through our proxy servers. In general there are no limits on number of simultaneous users.
So far the model for electronic books is similar. There are several e-book services available: Books 24/7, ITKnowledge, NetLibrary, etc. Books 24/7 and ITKnowledge work like electronic journals - we buy access and our ptarons can use it whenever and for however long they need to. NetLibrary requires use of a non-browser based reader and requires books be 'checked out' for periods ranging from 2-6 hours or so. The length of time a book can be checked out is negotiated for in the contract and the library pays more for a longer check out period.
Document Delivery/Inter-Library Loan: Whether or not we can provide copies of an article to another library depends on the license terms of our access contract. In general it is allowed. However we are not allowed to provide an electronic copy. We must print off the article then fax or mail it to the requesting institution.
For e-books, ILL is pretty much straight out, except for providing a few pages or a chapter.
In either case the requesting library has to pay two fees: they pay us for our labor/costs and they pay the publisher the copyright fee for the copy. Typical document delivery costs are 25-50 $US per article. Some publisher forbid document delivery of copies even from print journals and other s charge copyright fees in excess of 100 $US.
Indexing: Just having electronic access to journals is useless unless our patrons have the ability to search for articles. This entails the library purchasing access to electronic databases that index a particular discipline for an additional yearly fee.
So if we consider the case a mid-sized American public research university and look at what we pay yearly for the Computer Science field:
Print books: ~5000 $US
Electronic books: ~6000 $US
Print Journals: ~36000 $US
Electronic access to journals: ~20000 US$
Electronic indexes: ~50000 $US
Total: ~117000 $US
Now publishing in the computer science field is dominated by two scholary associations: the IEEE and the ACM, which explains why these costs are relatively low.
Biology, by contrast, tends to be dominated by the large commerical publishers like Elsevier, Gordon and Breech, Springer-Verlag, Kluwer Academic etc. The yearly costs in biology would probably be approximately 3-5 times those in computer science.
Quite frankly, the commercial publisher do have a problem in so far as most libraries have inflation limited budgets while commerical publishers tend to increase the costs of their journals by about 10-25% per year. This leads to libraries having to engage in 'cancellation projects' every 3 years or so in order to stay on budget. This lowers the publisher's profits and forces them to raise prices while simultaneously forcing more libraries to rely on document delivery for access to the research literature being produced by the faculty at their own University.
Librarians are most assuredly not taking this sitting down. We have our own political attack dog, the American Library Association (whose views I can't say I always agree with, but I am a member and do support their lobbying efforts.) Also library's are funding projects like SPARC: Scholarly Publications and Academic Resources.
Hopefully this has been more or less on topic.
Stephen W. Fairfield
Engineering/Mathematics/Statistics Librarian
I can be a smartass because I read and know facts. Else what's the fun of knowing anything?
I've hit Karma 50 and gotten a Score:5, Troll... I win!
Many public libraries have state-wide subscriptions to online databases, i.e. electronic periodicals, with use restricted to registered borrowers only. Example: http://l2l.org/library/power.htm
Sure, you can prohibit something, just like you can prohibit drug addiction. Now, let's look at the costs.
Civil forfeiture, which lets police steal from people they arrest, but do not convict or even charge with a crime. A massive prison population. Eroding of civil rights. Is the cost worth it?
Ask the same question about copyright. The only way to 'enforce' what you need is to have technical AND LEGAL access controls on all digital content. We will have the DMCA, we will have UCITA, and they will be vigorously enforced. People will be made examples of.
Is the cost worth it?
Perhaps, this is because, like the music industry, they're beginning to see that anybody can go direct with their content in a digital format, and bypass them completely.
is when the industry in question behaves like assholes.
I check out music on Napster, because with CDs at the price they are, I want to make sure they're worth the money, many are not.
If they're so worried, maybe they should take a good hard look at the way they do business and how their customers see them.
Are these publishers just like Metallica? looking for someone to blame for their decline in popularity and sales?
Where's the unabomber and the trench coat mafia when you really need them?
I am joking of course, I don't advocate anyone bombing Pat Schroeder or gunning down publishing execs while wearing stylish black trenchcoats. It is awfully fun to imagine though.
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
I work for a nonprofit publisher, and we're faced every year with the opposite end of the "increasing returns to scale" equation - if libraries cancel subscriptions, the high value of our information content (relative to the cost of printing the books, and even more so for purely electronic distribution) means we have to charge our remaining customers even more money. Which means more people feel they need to cancel the following year - it's a vicious cycle. What we all need is new markets that we can sell our content to, or new non-content services, but it's hard to see exactly what services we can provide as a publisher, beyond selecting and publishing particular bits of content!
But we have taken one big step with a new product, scanning in 100 years of our old content and selling it relatively cheaply - it's already gaining a sales base close to the size of the current content, and growing very quickly. If we can transition to that as a new revenue source with a much larger subscription base, we might be able to get out of the vicious cycle. But it really is tough to be a publisher in this climate!
Energy: time to change the picture.
I find it very hard to believe that Mr Feist said any such thing...
The publisher say, "We don't do this for money, but to protect the authors.". The speaker say money claims from the court case will be donated to poverty elimination project and the poverty community. "To service the community", the publisher closed the word.
or are you satisfied just complaining in here?
pschroeder@publishers.org
and yes, I have sent mine. If I get a reply, I will post it in here, with her permission.
If you're a University library, you'll need to get the big name journals where a lot of important research is being published. They simply can't afford not to, without abandoning their academic function. Researchers can't afford not to have their papers published in the big name journals - if they don't, there is less chance people will read it, and less chance readers will trust the peer-review process.
Publishers then rub their hands in glee. Article authors don't get royalties - instead, in many fields, they themselves pay to have an item published. With electronic distribution, the publishers certainly aren't spending much money. Bits are cheap, and practically free to reproduce. So why do the prices of jounals increase by over 10% per year?
There are some initiatives to provide online journals from within the academic community itself. As the financial pressure increases, these will of course gain recognition and increase in number. The rise of pre-print servers is another nail in the publishers' coffins. This seems like a last clutch at maintaining their obscene margins for a few more years. In the meantime, it is of course libraries and the academics who use them that suffer.
The people responsible for filing and recording copyrighted material, possessing full copies of said copyrighted materials, and making said copyrighted materials available for attorneys researching copyright infringement cases, is known as the LIBRARY of Congress, right? The copies of material they distribute are similarly unprofitable...
For that matter, why not close down the patent office as well? They make their patent information readily available, leaving everything open for RE experts to come up with their own exclusive patented products...
Technically by their very nature, the US patent office AND Library of Congress are in violation of the DMCA to boot...
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
Yea, sure. Why learn from the past?
Improvement in technologies were done thanks to the availability of information. But now we're better than all the men who came before us put together.
I wonder what would have happened if Galileo had to pay rights to the Dutch scientists who discovered lenses to see objects far away, or if Newton had to wait to get the right to see Tyco Brahe's studies, and so on (was it Newton, right?).
Am I wrong or the culture in the whole world during the Middle Age was kept by monks that *copied* it for *free* to preserve it and elaborate it?
-- There are two kind of sysadmins: Paranoids and Losers. (adapted from D. Bach)
Its out there.
--
And I'd be a Libertarian, if they weren't all a bunch of tax-dodging professional whiners.
Berke Breathed
.. on my computer. Get a good, flicker-free monitor, a good, clear font, and a comfy chair, and it works out rather fine. I read a lot of books, like all Dune books and Douglas Adams this way, coz the paper books are hard to get here, and ordering them from abroad was way too expensive.
Reading on a monitor is no problem. Printing it out if you want to take it somewhere is extremely easy also. Just Do It.
I may disagree with your opinion, but I will defend to death your right to speak it.
I sent an email to Ms Schroeder, giving my point of view, and bringing up a few points that were mentioned in /.
Her email response is as follows:
Thanks for your comments. You are right, the article overstates. When I was in politics we always said journalists are really fight promoters! NO we do not want to shut down libraries. They are great customers. We do want to be sure a thriving literary community continues to thrive and I think Librarians want this also. We need to work together to do it. Pat Schroeder
I actually did send her email, however I haven't heard anything back. One can only hope...
-- Solaris Central - http://w
is here
and was as follows:
Thanks for your comments. You are right, the article overstates. When I was in politics we always said journalists are really fight promoters! NO we do not want to shut down libraries. They are great customers. We do want to be sure a thriving literary community continues to thrive and I think Librarians want this also. We need to work together to do it. Pat Schroeder