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Publishers vs. Libraries, round 2
CBNobi writes: "CNet's News.com has an article about book publishers' attempts to block the public from accessing free material from - where else - libraries. Publishers fear their copyrighted materials will be freely distributed in a digital form." Nice article. We've covered this before, but it isn't going away - publishers want a pay-for-use library system so that you won't go there to escape high prices elsewhere.
It might be funny if it weren't happening today. Various municipalies in Texas have outsourced the drafting to technical laws (e.g. building codes) the 3rd parties, typically contractor's associations. These third parties have copyrighted their work, and claim that citizens must pay to make copies of the law. Although a copy is on file at City Hall, citizens are not allowed to make copies of the master document. Citizens of course _can_ be put in jail for violating that law.
Peter Veeck (son of the late baseball maverick Bill Veeck) is fighting this through the courts at the moment.
sPh
In the process, the scientific and academic communities (along with the poor) lose access to source materials, lose basic free speech "fair use" rights, and we all wind up forced to pay again and again for the most basic information one needs to be an informed citizen; in perpetuity. I can't imagine anything more destructive to the fundamentals of democracy than destroying libraries for the sake of publishers profits. A great deal for the plutocracy, a rotten deal for us rabble citizens.
Write your congressman, write the President, MAKE A STINK!
--Maynard
Anyway, on another note, this marks the further progress of a disturbing trend. Some time ago, like, say 1997, copyright holders were reactive. That is to say, they waited until Napster was in use, and was allowing people to trade songs. Now, they seem to be going after parties that they suspect may one day plan to engage in something less than total protection of their copyrighted material. In other words, they're on the offensive.
However, the more aggresive they become, the more reviled they'll be. I expect that if anybody engages in a large scale legal assault on libraries, they'll have the public up in ferocious arms. After all, libraries are one of the few things that people (without a finiancial or religous interest at odds with their purpose) almost universally support.
Inaction is tantamount to assistance. If our government lets private consortiums lay our libraries bare, they'll be no better (and arguably a good deal worse) that governments like China. At least they don't pretend to be fair.
Yes, I'm still a junky. Are you still a bitch?
We need to show the publishers that we won't tolerate them trying to roll back the clock 200 years!
Let's burn their product! Yeah, that's always a good way to draw attention the cause!
It worked with bra-burning in the 60's.
It worked with draft card burning during the Vietnam War!
Let's all assemble in front of the library and burn a big pile of the publishers' books! They'll get the message!
...no wait, something seems off with this analogy...
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
This is becoming more and more obvious everyday: If something is technically possible and profitable, someone is going to want to do it. It is profitable to use the legislation to restrict other people's freedom in ways that allow you to sell more.
I don't begrudge authors and publishers a living. I actively support it by buying an enormous number of books, including printed books of material that I can get online.
The publishers are feeling threatened by technology. Sharing of books online is easy and cheap. It takes less time than buying a physical copy and costs less. Electronic copies of texts allow you to cut and paste what you want to quote with ease. If they are on the Web, they permit hyperlinking to the full version.
The problem here is that we don't have an acceptable model for how content is to be sold online. Subscriptions and broadcasting offer excellent models for information that is time-critical such as news,weather, stock quotes, even video feeds of live sports. Neither model is good for books.
We have grown used to buying a copy. When I purchase a book, I don't own the rights to the words, but that single physical copy is mine. I can read it, sell it, give it away, loan it to a friend, mark up the pages with notes, or destroy it. I have the right to read it today, next week, next year, or on my death bed 500 years from now when nanotechnology can no longer rebuild my failing body. My right to read it does not require paying an ongoing license fee, and is not subject to the continued availability of special hardware or software to make the pages readable.
Who would want to give up that flexibility and receive nothing in return?
Instead of writing a reply here, write one (on paper) here:
Senate Address Lookup and House of Representative Address Lookup
We heard about it, read about, whined and cried about it. What about doing something about it? Like singing to the choir we complain about how the government is letting big business get away with.... Everyone is taking our rights....yada yada yada... If we do not care enough to actually put pen to paper, we are not really serious. If we are not serious why should we be taken seriously?
Wake up, smell the JAVA and act!
- Online piracy -- while it is definitely illegal and immoral -- is, as a practical problem, nothing more than (at most) a nuisance.
- Losses any author suffers from piracy are almost certainly offset by the additional publicity which, in practice, any kind of free copies of a book usually engender.
- Any cure which relies on tighter regulation of the market is far worse than the disease.
And he puts his money where his mouth is. He has 3 complete novels online, along with 15 other authors.// TODO: fix sig
This was at a time when the United States was in a struggle for its own survival as a colony in the harsh American wilderness. Freedom of information, Franklin understood, was the only way that people would quickly learn the things they needed to know.
The same principles apply today, though with some modification. Now there is so much free information that the embarassing pay-for-knowledge era of our history is nearly finished. The internet brought back what Ben Franklin started.
What does this have to do with libraries?
Well, as the vast number of books published each year eventually forces libraries to go all- or mostly-digital, some of that content is going to find its way online in one form or another. It will leak out, or users will leak in.
It's coming. Publishers will try to fight it, of course, but they have no chance. They're just trying to keep their jobs for as long as they can.
Got Rhinos?
If (very theoretically speaking) we had never had libraries until the current day, and someone tried to start them, I think that the newfound libraries would be sued into the ground.
A library does exactly what Napster\Gnutella etc do, or try to do... allow people to pool their resources to have access to a large amount of copyrighted information.
And much like P2P, libraries don't seem to cause a large dent in the sale of books. There are enough realtivly wealthy people around who enjoy owning books and would still rather pay 20-30 dollars a pop then take a trip to the library.
I made this entire point a little bit more humorously at http://ursine.dyndns.org/~mnoelharris/warezportal. html
Hopefully I didn't put any [] around my words.
Libraries are how napster got the idea in the first place! Sharing music is like sharing literature. If its illegal for music, it *must* be illegal for books! Watch out, everyone, the internet is next.... then your phone.... then talking to people....
;-)
Moderators, please note the extreme sarcasm in the way I'm typing
--
"That's one small step for man..." "STOP POKING ME!!!!"
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
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This is nowhere in the article. If a library has an e-book, what do the publishers think is okay for the library to do with it? I think a one person at a time per license agreement seems reasonable, provided the license is a one time cost, good forever, and transferable to another body.
Wouldn't it be funny if the government decided to copyright every law it passed, and then didn't allow anyone to publish them? Then you would just have to take the word of the Police, FBI, NSA, etc. that you had broken the law.
I can see it all now:
"Officer, what did I do wrong?"
"You turned left onto Jefferson St. on Friday the 13th. That'll be a $3000 fine, payable to me."
If it's supposed to move and doesn't, use WD-40. If it moves and it shouldn't, use duct tape.