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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."
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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).
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); }
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.
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 --!
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
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.
The entire idea of "right to a profit" is scary and seems to be getting more and more of a stranglehold upon our legislatures.
Amen. "Right to profit" is about the best way I've heard it put. It's a ridiculous notion, and the fact that it's even CONSIDERED by our government is a bright red glowing indicator of thorough corruption. There are reasons why our forefathers didn't want our government to take part in profitable industries, but these reasons have been tossed aside, and now we have the people who compose our government benefitting from profitable industries.
A lot of good scientific papers end up online for free anyway. A search in google can be as productive as a search through a library. The only difference is that the official journals have established referee systems. Well, referees don't get paid, and media distribution costs for online works are very low, so how long do you think it will be before there are refereed scientific journals that are only online?
It's only a matter of someone organizing it.
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.
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Something cleverSomeone (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?
We have this wonderful thing called "capitalism" that has a habit of being self-regulating. When the people who are making information don't get enough money for it, those who were doing it for the money will stop doing it, leaving only those who do it for self-gratification, the betterment of humanity, or other such motives. If that doesn't end up creating enough information, then suddenly there is a high demand and a low supply. Whenever such a state exists, then there will be a lot of money thrown into producing the information that people crave.
The problem with the current situation is not that they can't make enough money by selling information, it's that they're currently making MORE money than the market wants to give them, and they're trying to find artificial non-capitalistic ways to sustain their inflated income.
"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 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
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.
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?"
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
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
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.
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.
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
Your post is information. Did you get paid for creating it?
Obviously people can create more information when they are paid to do so. But that doesn't mean that no payment = no information, or that a pay-per-copy or pay-per-view scheme is practical or moral.
Same problem applies in a market system, though...the masses "pull the strings" by voting with their dollars for check-your-mind-upon-opening thillers and romance novels rather than "Quality Literature". (Insert your own definition of "Quality Literature" here.)
I believe that the best model for rights and payments would be similar to the current one for musical performance; I can sing any song I want, but I can't claim that I wrote songs I didn't, and if I am (or someone, like the bar owner, is) making money from it, the songwriter is owed a royalty. I would replace "copyright" with rights of recognition of authorship and royalties on for-profit copying or distribution.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Yeah. Right. Of course not. They're just trying to phase out "real books" in favor of e-books, which they will be able to charge per use. Same thing as VCR --> DVD.
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
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
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...
"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?
Greatly reduced production and distribution costs, that's what. It seems that the publishers want the advantages of the digital distribution without the disadvantages.
But they do not want to pass this advantage on to the customers. e.g. DVD's are cheaper to produce and ship than video cassettes, but cost more.
Also it's most likely the "publisher" who gets the additional markup rather than the original content producer.
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'.
I've seen books with the disclaimer "this book is licensed, not sold." I've also seen people at the Library of Congress copy every page of such a book.
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.
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
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.
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
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
If people feel like compensating them at all, which is a whole other story. I'm all for the creators of information being compensated fairly for their works. A book or movie or album has up until recently been tied to a physical object which was bought, sold, and transferred as an object with the limitations on price and proliferation that come with it. But once it has been reduced to information how much is it really worth, and since it can be freely copied how can that worth ever be realized directly? I hate to say it, but I only see a few options here:
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
I'm familiar with Tetrahedron Letters. It's a journal of inorganic chemistry articles. Some really useful stuff, if you are into that kind of thing. I had to copy articles out of it for some chem class I was taking in grad school. It's pretty obscure material, which naturally would make it expensive, but... $14000/year? That's crazy!
The actual production cost for a product like that can't be more than $2/copy, and that is making a huge allowance for the expense of the quality paper. (a typical 32-64 page gaming book, with a color cover, costs less than $1/copy to manufacture. Not counting staff costs, of course.) I wonder how many subs they have?
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
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.
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.
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?
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.
Oh wait, the DMCA is overriden by fair use, the Constitution requires it and the DMCA SAYS it doesn't affect fair use.
Wait again, since the corps have bought at least one judge (with Internet prosecutions and lawsuits - since your action is "everywhere", they can prosecute you ANYWHERE - i.e. jurisdiction shopping. You have no choice, and thus lose) to say the DMCA outlaws fair use whenever the corps don't like it, I guess fair use is still dead. Maybe we can see libraries shut down with the RICO laws and the people running them and working there get 20 year prison sentences.
The USSR became free, and we are losing (already lost much of) our freedom. How ironic.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
I actually did send her email, however I haven't heard anything back. One can only hope...
-- Solaris Central - http://w