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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!
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
Didn't Salon originally run this idea as a cartoon?
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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.
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.
Reading the post article called some of Richard Stallman's writing to mind, specifically The Right to Read. This must be stopped. Now.
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"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?
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Blaming GW Bush for the Iraq war is like blaming Ronald McDonald for the poor quality of food.
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); }
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 cleverI 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
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
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
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.
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.
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