Slashdot Mirror
Cleveland Public Library Readies E-book Downloads
rtphokie writes "C|Net is reporting that the Cleveland Public Library is making ebooks available. Sounds like the 1000 books in the system initially will feature more than just public domain titles including 'the latest from authors such as Michael Crichton, Clive Barker and Joyce Carol Oates.'" The article also mentions that "only a limited number of each eBook will be available, and after a preset number of days, the eBook will lock out the current reader so another patron can check it out." A good time to re-read The Right to Read.
And they'll be all over mIRC channels an hour later...seriously, this is going to make authors the new dying breed of employment, after musicians and actors...
Defender of Microsoft and Communism!!!
Actually, in soviet Russia books get you locked UP, not locked OUT.
Ecce Europa - Web Design for Business
Improved software protection and the table PC market? Someone is living in a dream world.
Wow, I should not post when knackered.
Mom: Stop messing around on that thing. Read a book for once.
Son: I am reading a book.
Mom: Keep lying like that and you're grounded.
Ok first off, yah to Cleavland for at least trying this idea.
But major "why are you pulling this con?" to Overdrive for trying to convince ANYBODY that client side, err, well, heh, anything, is safe at all.
Listen, it has already been proven that without trusted hardware (which is not going to come along until consumers start trusting the companies) that NO DRM solution is secure. No matter what. Worst case, things have to be brute forced, but since the unencrypted data passed through the clients computer somewheres along the line, heck, there is your weak point right there.
Now if somebody figured a way to encase the decryption key in some sort of VGA dongle so the actual decrypted data was only ever sent over the VGA wire, but even then, doing it cheap and such, heh. No go.
Need help treating your acne? Come here!
"...after a preset number of days, the eBook will lock out the current reader so another patron can check it out"
How are libraries going to cope with the loss of 50 cent overdue fees?
"...and after a preset number of days, the eBook will lock out the current reader so another patron can check it out."
in conjunction with
"...including the ability to download books onto PCs and PDAs and create a portable eBook that can be read even when patrons are offline."
I'm assuming that the portable eBook created will be encoded with a 'lock' date.
I think it will work on a modest scale. It will be broken and pirated quickly.
But frankly, there's nothing like holding and reading a real book by the bedside or on the go.
ePaper, where are you ?
The article also mentions that "only a limited number of each eBook will be available, and after a preset number of days, the eBook will lock out the current reader so another patron can check it out."
That's weird. I've noticed many Web pages that Slashdot links to also have this feature. I click on the link and it tells me too many people are reading the site and that I should come back later. So if Slashdot links to every e-book in the library, they won't need to pay for fancy protection systems.
mogorific carpentry experiments
Trying to make the digital world just like the real world doesn't work. Sure it would be great to check out e-books from the library. And it would be great to rent videos on the net. But in order to make it happen you have to take away freedoms.
You see, the internet is just information passing between computers over the phone lines (or what not). In order to get an ebook to you over the internet, that ebook needs to be copied. You cannot transfer a physical copy of something over the internet. Now, since duplication occurs, this falls under copyright.
But wait--what if we were to use technology to lock out the copy at one end, and only allow one user at a time to access the ebook? And after a period of time, technology locks out the information on the user's side? That would be just like a library correct?
No. Because in order to accomplish that, you need to take away a user's control over the information he possesses. This is taking away a fundamental right. In other words, you can make the digital world like the real world, but you can't make it the same. Sure, you open up a new business model or service. But on the other hand, you take away rights.
And that is exactly what a set-up like this can do. Luckily, in America, rights are protected, not business models.
But you can erode rights. A set-up like this comes along at first. Laws like the DMCA are passed to strengthen it. Hell, the DMCA is enough already. Suddenly renting digital information is possible.
And what if one year then, your college decides that it's cheaper to rent ebooks than have you buy real thing? Maybe they don't even publish the dead tree version anymore. Palladium and the DMCA lock out you out from real control of the information. In fact, the ebook manufacturer--given the ease of EULAs with this distribution system, might even decide to make a little more profit. After all who's to stop him? He makes you agree in the EULA not share the information you rent. Suddenly Stallman's vision of the future has come true. Brave new world, what not.
There seems to be a lot of people missing the argument when it comes to eBooks. Publishers and authors have a right to profit from there work regardless of what it is. In principle this would allow you to handle your digital book just like a paperback: you could read it for a time, share your license with a friend so they could too, and then return the book automatically when your rental time is up. No big deal and automation would most certainly save you from a $200 late charge!
Unfortunately in practice a digital system provides far too much power to the provider. Not only are you limited to how long you have a product but how you can use it. It's digital communism where on paper everyone gets exactly what they need but in practice leaves the power so readily exploitable by a select few.
Question is can we prevent a future like that presented in the linked story? With the growing power base among a select group of individuals/organizations and leaders put in power from the old boys club it'll be an interesting 21st century.
-Matt
--- Need web hosting?
You are aware that IRC is a protocol for which many clients exist, no?
To me, the whole reason I *hate* eBooks is that it's entirely counter to the whole reading expirience. I like to be able to sit down and flip open a good smelling book and *feel* the whole thing as I read it.
I also like to not have to worry about batteries, screen glare, squinting at the small screen, etc etc
Plus, electronics are still too fragile. Can you drop your eBook reader 10ft on to concrete without worrying? Not that we do it intentionally, but accidents happen. Paper books are some of the most durable and long lasting storage methods around.
I mean, what's the longest lasting digital medium? CDs? 50 years?!?! Paper lasts thousands of years!
So I'll stick with my grand 'ol paper books.
Let me know when eBooks are practical (if I'm not dead by then...).
(Yes, I had a Palm V. I tried the eBook thing and it was bad. The screen *alone* was hell to read. Who want's to read a book on a flickery screen anyways? Whip out a 5 pound laptop to read a book the size of that laptop's battery? Squint at a bad screen for 20 hours?)
Everyone here pretty much agrees on the same thing when it comes to eBooks. The DRM in them isn't worth a squirt of piss. Still, even if you had some magic DRM algorithm that was 100% impossible to break (which we all know eBooks do NOT have), the viewer still has to be able to read the damn thing, so it has to be displayed in an unencoded form. Attach homebrewed screenshot app here, insert optical character recognition there, and viola! Instant DRM-free eBook! Time for the usual distribution channels! IRC, 0day ftp sites, eDonkey, FastTrack, Gnutella. Thank you for your contribution to society Hamilton Press! You know we really, uh..appreciate it. lmao!
I suspect that this will last for about 6 months. Then the publishers will start whining 'foul'.
Thinking about this has stirred up an interesting idea though. The only way to make money from eBooks is to devise a method to make people want to pay for information that they could otherwise get for free. So what about providing useful services for a flat monthly fee?
How about the ability to search for text strings throughout an entire library of books. That could certainly make research a little easier. You want to know all about Albert Einstein? SURE! Here is every document he authored, every biography, every newpaper that mentioned him, and every other book or magazine that's referred to him in existance. If done correctly, you could even get search results back in under 2.4 seconds like Google.
Now I'm not saying that full text indexes are the killer app that will make people pay for electronic access to published works, but its a start....
I can't speak to who is the first, but I have checked out an eBook online 8 months ago through my local library: San Diego Public Library.
SDPL uses this company: NetLibrary.
It looks like NetLibrary provides this service for other libraries, but I'm too lazy to look for details.
Why does the law prevent any books from being published online? The whole point of the libraries was to make all human knowledge available to all people - not just entertaining fiction.
Now, I like the idea of a library putting out it's books on the internet, and I agree with the lock out date. If you go and check out a physical book, they stamp a return date on the back in the card pocket. Same general idea.
But, there are a few flaws. One, how long will the readable period be? Most libraries I've dealt with have a two week check out period. That's more than enough time to read a decent sized novel (such as one by Crichton, my favorite author, BTW). Will the lockout date correspond to their checkout period? Or will it be shortened in ebook form to prevent piracy?
And while I'm on the subject of piracy, there's a way that all ebooks can fail in their attempts to curb it. Let's say a guy with alot of free time, hard drive space and patience decides to download an ebook. He can't crack the encryption, can't copy the text directly. But what about screenshots? What's to stop him from hitting Alt+PrScr for each page and pasting them into a run of the mill image? He could then create a PDF, HTML or other collection of files and redistribute the book freely.
Is there a charge for these downloads? Then you get into the issue of fair use of something you've purchased. Libraries usually don't charge for check outs (at least not in my experience), and since this ebook model seems to work much the same way, I don't see the need to charge. The only charges I know of for libraries is overdue fees, which are more than reasonable.
And, is there a limit on how many copies can be digitally checked out at one time? If there is, that puts a waiting list into play. If there is a copy limit, then the lock out date makes sense. But let's say a person downloads an ebook and doesn't get the chance to finish it, and there are limited copies. Would they have to wait to download it again? Or could there be a renewal system to extend the lockout a few days to give the reader a chance to finish?
I've never dealt with ebooks, and probably never will (unless they outlaw physical copies). I'm an old school book nut and prefer to have a physical copy when I do my reading (which means I like to pay for my reading enjoyment, thus doing so legally). So, I really don't know if ebook reader programs prevent screenshots or not, or whether there will be charges and such. It seems like a decent idea, but the whole ebook idea is going to be flawed. Just like music (if I can hear it, I can rip/copy it), text will suffer from a similar ailment (if I can see it, I can copy it).
Blog Prophyts - Right On, Man
They take away your "fundemental right" to share information, too. I don't see /. bitching about that. You can bet that the library in question has new customers sign a document of some kind where they agree to not distribute the precious precious content of the books the download.
-c
I have discovered a truly remarkable proof which this margin is too small to contain.
If you're going to say something, attach your name to it.
A1miras
Take Care
A1miras
Yep, we've had this for at least a year.
Skipping the various examples of Bain , inform it , and etc, Legit e-books have been available for free, or nearly so for quite some time. My favorite being the King County, Wa library system.Mostly tech books, but then it's mostly geeks who will look for and use them at this point.
"If, therefore, any be unhappy, let him remember that he is unhappy by reason of himself alone."
~Epictetus
Heh, there are cases where americans were locked up in their beloved USA for having certain books. F.e. ~1990 hacker crakdown, there where people charged by doing 70000$ damage because they had an issue of Phrack magazine. Well, there should be people who know this stuff better than me, i'm not an american.
--Coder
Law books, those rows of reporters the TV lawyers always have in the background, are still a favorite for many, especially the older lawyers. But the convenience and power of electronic versions -- corrections and hyperlinks and potability and so on -- are winning out, even those the reading experience is inferior. It's pretty hard to juggle 20 of those big books.
The discomfort of the reading is getting better fast. Look at the difference in laptops in the last few years. Now there is finally talk of tablet computers that I hope will be more booklike, particularly if you can touch the screen to move things around. These will get sharper and faster and cheaper and battery life will disappear as an issue and so on.
Give it maybe 15 years to get really big, with incremental increases in the interim. Better screens, the biggest factor, are in the works. These active matrix screens haev only been affordable for a few years, and now they're standard. How about a screen with double or triple the resolution? Sure. Also, imagine having any book from any library available in seconds. Personally I'm getting tired of putting in for holds on new books at the local library, then waiting a month or, worse, spending $25 for it.
This is hardly the situation presented in "Right to Read." RMS's tale is about people who actually OWN the books not having the right to lend them to other people. This is a public collection being made available on the internet (and not just a single computer, as in "Right to Read").
I actually think this is a good idea, and if this model persists, then I think we'll all be in good shape. Think about it, in real life, when you borrow a book from your local library, you have to bring it back. This is for the simple reason that other people can read it too. If you don't bring it back, you have to buy a copy for the library to replace it. Of course we don't have the same problem here, but without getting into the debate about who gets more money, the authors or the publishers, books are a commodity that need to be paid for to support the authors who write them.
yes, there will be casesof authors releasing their works into public domain, and these individuals should be hailed for their contributions. And works that already ARE in the public domain should be made available online for free, but consider the ramifications of a newly published book by an autho suddenly made available for download without any restrictions. Anyway you slice it, the author is not going to make as much money as from a sale of the book. I grant you, there will always be people (like myself) who prefer the paper version for casual reading, but I do believe that the creator of a piece of art, literature, music, etc., is entitled to decide whether they should be compensated for possessing their work.
Yes the publishing companies are a bit tyranical in their price fixing, copy protection schemes etc., but just as we look forward to the day when people can download a song off of the internet, paying a fair price for doing so, and compensate the artist directly, I think we should also look forward to the day when the same can be done with books. But to support "full time" artists, there must be a system of compensation.
Simply allowing anyone anywhere to get and keep the book is just not a valid option. Yes, I know, these will be posted all over the net by their first check out. The debate of 2003 will become online book sharing, and the coalition of publishers will get together to crush programs like this. But really, it is a GOOD idea. You have the ability to keep the bhook on your computer for weeks without having to pay for it. If you don't finish reading it, you can just check it out again.
Honestly, I think we should be so lucky to have most major libraries doing this by the end of the decade. This, ladies and gentlemen, expands your rights online; make no mistake about that.
A book is tangible. It's different from text on screen. Buying a book will give you a distinctly different product than what you could get for free on your computer. Music is never tangible. Once you have an mp3 there's no reason to own the CD. You're getting the same experience whether you're listening to it on your computer or your mp3 player/burned cd. (and don't give me any 'well I could print the book' b.s.)
If you have nothing to say, take a good sip of STFU.
Holy shit! What the fuck is that??
Holy cybernetic guacamole! Does anyone need anymore evidence that RMS went off the deep end years ago?
Go the fuck ahead and mod me down, but jeez, somebody has to say these things.
Looks like a decent system and definitely a boon for libraries. I won't use it, but then, I don't use libraries at all. I like to own stuff.
Really, it's the perfect use for ebooks. Nobody wants to pay for them, because they're inferior to paper books* in so many ways. But the libraries don't want to make money, they just want to let people read things for free. This system makes that possible at a lower price for the libraries, and publishers can feel good about themselves by giving the e-version away to libraries if they want to.
It won't take off, though, until the libraries come up with a cheap, incredibly durable ebook reader that they can lend out with the books. This will serve as a stopgap until the time when (and if) most households have a reader of some sort.
(Remember when video rental places rented VCRs?)
It's Slashdot's evil twin... SlashNOT
"only a limited number of each eBook will be available, and after a preset number of days, the eBook will lock out the current reader so another patron can check it out."
That must be one of the most idiotic things I have ever hear in my life. The whole point of a library is to provide books for people to read - not restrict access to them. They have multiple (physical) copies (which cost money) so that more than one person can read a book at the same time. The only reason that a physical copy is not purchased for every person who uses the library is due to cost - it would obviously not be feasible for the library. Now an electronic alternative is available that could service every reader simultaneously and what do they do? Cripple it.
Yet another classic example of a perfect use of technology being crippled in the name of greed.
I suppose I better start working on my auto-book-renew script.
But frankly, there's nothing like holding and reading a real book by the bedside or on the go.
...This is what I always used to say...
I love books. I started reading at 2. I worked at an independent bookstore for three years in high school. Then at a library in college. I love books.
Why would anyone ever want to read an ebook? Paper is so much nicer.
Then I tried reading an ebook on my Clie. At bedtime. I've got to say -- reading a book on a small bright handheld, no need for a reading lamp, being able to put it down and nod off... WOW. Reading in bed has never been so nice!
Moral of the story: Don't knock it 'till you try it.
I would have to say that explosives are the most abused technology in all of history.
If all books go into ebook format, won't it make it that much easier to just "Edit" "Find" phrases and paragraphs in a book, rather than actually reading the entire book? Believe me, the Internet Classics Archive has been a godsend this semester for me, however, I confess that I also didn't read much the material I should have, rather just searched for the phrases I needed to write my thesis. Being a philosophy major, its come to a point where I barely buy books because they're almost useless in book format (just like music not in .mp3 format for me is also useless).
I'm sure to people who do indepth research it'll be a godsend, where people actually read the material but need to find key topics quickly, however, I think it's going to help provoke a world of undereducated undergrads.
"In a Democracy, people get the kind of government they deserve." -Winston Churchill
I bought my grandmother some books for Christmas. All of them are old enough to be out of copyright. One of them didn't have any copyright notice in it at all. Another had this edition copyrighted, and the third had a plain copyright. The third being all of shakespear's works. How can any company put a copyright on public domain material like this? These works were over a hundred years old (books were new).
What we see depends on mainly what we look for. -- John Lubbock Now search for that bug slave!
I was just sitting here wondering, I wonder how this latest news on /. would play out in Soviet Russia.
I read ebooks. I buy ebooks. I pay for them. I only buy unencrypted, public format ebooks. Anyone else can bite me.
--GrouchoMarx
Card-carrying member of the EFF, FSF, and ACLU. Are you?
I've been waiting for hours for a new article to come up so I could get fr0st post, but alas the fucking dick-weeks of slashdot don't see fit to post one. God I hate fucking slashdot so much. The editors are a bunch of consipracy bullshit. YET WHY DO I STILL READ IT?!!
Oh well. Props to poop bot.
Wow. A cortical implant that lets you read e-books while you are asleep! Cleverland, here I come...
Yes, a pulmonologist I saw had a palm or equiv. with lists of all the drugs, dosages, adn which would flag interactions on the spot. He said he'd like to use a Mac but "there's no software for it." Sigh.
:)
Imagine a wireless connection on that handheld for checking medical records and entering orders. No more of the *&^@$*! physician handwriting. I'm sure you've heard of the people who died over handwriting (although arguably some were pharmacist error -- and they've had computers looking over their shoulders for a while).
With hardware like iPod (practically a computer in its own right) and writing recognition software like Inkwell out I would be very surprised not to see an Apple handheld in the near future. The way Newton was handled was bizarre, but then it's not easy being a trailblazer, and those were the "dark days" for Apple. It is rumored that Jobs' ego is simply antagonistic to anything he didn't invent. an interesting article They should leave the low end of the market to Palm etc., I doubt there's much money to be made there; same strategy as the iPos v. al those other MP3 players.
Hey, I wish they'd stayed in the web browser game, too.
If what the library is doing holds up in court, it would set a good legal precedent for the legality of some kinds of file sharing...
Repeal the DMCA!
Sound all to good to be true? Just can't be right? Well fret no longer boys and girls and walk on down to your LOCAL LIBRARY.
It's very common to be able to read a book/magazine/newspaper or listen to a COPYRIGHTED music CD, or watch a COPYRIGHTED DVD, or surf the internet on a rather large pipe all for the low cost of NOTHING at your local library.
The previous arguments of "This will never work people will just find a way to circumvent the security" make just as much sense as checking out a book at the library will never work because no one will bring it back. You want to make an illegal copy of a book, then walk to your local library and use their copy machine and whamo you've got a copy of the book, AND you've violated a copyright law, when all you really had to do was check it out and then renew it or check it out again at a later time.
It boggles my mind how many people who have commented seem to have no idea how the library system works. Here let me put it in "Spent Too Much Time In The Dark In Front Of The Computer" terminology. Libraries are publically accessible databases of all the information in the entire world, it's like a leech ftp server where anyone can get one and reep the benifits of it. You never have to pay for anything so long as you follow the rules.
The difference between p2p and the library is a lack of hardcore porn.
Ignore the "p2p is theft" trolls, they're just uninformed
Fucking infant shit smoking moderators!
Does this mean that we'll start seeing laptops with ebooks on them left on trains and busses? Hmmmmmm.....
If you leave out the last sentance of the first paragraph (what you got -1'ed for), it's mostly correct.
---Do you think authors work for free? I think not.
If they do, they probably want to eat. If companies fork up money for editing/printing/advertising, they would probably like money too. There is the other choice is actually enjoying to write. Still, the time it would take to write the book is probably quite long. And of course, you aren't guaranteed diddly for profit, but you are guaranteed copy-limitation (that little thing called copyrights).
Still, after reading comments, I totally agree with the last quip. Reading slash off and on also backs it up.
All of those are copyrightable, presumably also other things as typesetting and whatever, as long as it's the publishers work. If you want an edition free of copyright, you could get the actual text electronically from project Gutenberg or similar.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
The public library of Stockholm, Sweden, has also been offering this service since July 2002. I have tried it, it works well, and the selection is quite reasonable. More info (in swedish) can be found here
P2P has gone to shit. I remember 'back in the day' on Napster when half the MP3s you'd get were crappy. Now, however, it's up to at least 80%.
Some people have songs in excellent 192kbps or 128kbps, but mostly are VERY badly encoded 128/112/96/64kbps. What's worse is that Kazaa 2 encourages people to rate these as being 'Excellent' integrity files!
Many MP3s of popular songs on Kazaa now are recorded from low quality radio streams, or off of TV. Seriously, I think so few people are buying CDs nowadays that no-one on Kazaa has a proper well-encoded rip of anything.
I used to download tons of music a few years ago. Now I'm buying CDs out the ass instead, the quality of MP3s on Kazaa is absolutely crap, and I just use them for sampling CDs I want to buy.
mogorific carpentry experiments
I wonder if they'll make my book: How to Circumvent Cleveland Libraries' Time Restriction Mechanism available, too. :)
You also can't grep an encrypted text. So what's the point. This is not an unencrypted text file.
I think it will only be readable on some protected (not open) client on a protected OS (not Linux). Don't expect to read these books on your Linux handheld until after the DMCA is broken.
The truth shall set you free!
Don't you think that maybe, just maybe, the Library ISN'T allowed to make lots of copies of books for free ? Otherwise they could copy all of those paper books too.
Sheesh
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
will they work/run for "options"? will they be billyuns in debt, before they're out of school? why not? because we're all going to be billyunheirs (again) any daze now?
be careful whois in charge of the "books".
"1) Earnings Management: The first and most important tool Microsoft (see also: the hole mess) uses is the manipulation of ?earnings? to ensure analysts' expectations are met. According to an ABC News 1/22/99 article by Michael Martinez, Microsoft's own internal auditor, a respected 30 year veteran and former partner of Deloitte and Touche, was fired in 1996 after informing management that their earnings manipulations were illegal and violations of the SEC and FASB laws. He was given the option to resign or be fired and later settled for $4 million after suing under the Federal Whistle Blowers Act.
2) Speculating on Their Own Stock: Microsoft issues a massive amount of put options. During the same quarter ended 3/31/99, Microsoft sold put contracts on their own stock for $400 million, basically betting that the stock will not decline. They need not worry because they are allowed to "cook the books." Of Microsoft's significant cash balance, it is also a financial fact that more than 65 percent of that cash did not originate from product sales but rather from tax benefits associated with the exercise of stock options, employees prepaying their own wages, and the sale of put contracts on its own stock. Microsoft's financial innovation is making a mockery of financial integrity, ethics, and the securities laws, just as Insull did in the 1920's.
3) Convincing Employees to Take Less Real Wages: Microsoft aggressively markets stock options to new employees in an effort to take wage expenses off the books. They also know that they can pocket the exercise price employees will be required to pay to take ownership of the stock. What also seems clear is that Microsoft is still aggressively marketing its stock option program to new recruits. To quote an email received, "I am about to begin employment at Microsoft and the stock option was the selling factor. Does your article overall state that it will be bad for me and will fail me in my retirement planning?" Is Microsoft fulfilling its disclosure obligations to its own employees, especially those that have put their entire 401K balance in Microsoft stock? This explains how 22 percent of Microsoft's massive cash balance has actually come from its own employees in the form of them prepaying their own wages through stock option exercise prices.
4) Publicly touting the stock: In a recent earnings release, CFO Greg Maffei jokingly cited 10 reasons why Microsoft is a $1 trillion company. A common strategy here is to have top executives issue conflicting statements, one talking up the stock and the other talking it down and then within a few days financial analysts all come out with buy recommendations on the stock due to a small decline. They are making a mockery of financial integrity, ethics, and the securities laws.
5) Controlling the media. After issuing several press releases on PR Newswire, Microsoft told the service to stop issuing my press releases. Microsoft is PR Newswire's largest client. PR Newswire is owned by Miller Freeman of the UK, a large media company that publishes many computer related publications including Information Week in addition to Microsoft focused journals such as the Windows System Developer. Miller Freeman does indeed function as if it were a department of Microsoft itself.
6) Stock Option Accounting: It is important to note that any discussion of stock option accounting must address two completely different and independent situations. The first is to analyze the impact of options exercised and already retired and the second is to analyze the remaining options debt outstanding. This study focused on both whereas most media coverage only focuses on the remaining options debt outstanding."
tell 'em robbIE. they bulleave in you.
Only 0.1% of those that checked it out would bother to RTFEB...
Karma. Moderation. Is my
It doesn't matter if its secure or not.
Cleveland needs to TRY to make it secure. It doesn't matter if YOU can break it, as long as Joe Sixpack can't. They need to tell publishers that they are offering security as good as any other available in order to even try this experiment!
Someday people will look back and remember thinking:
"Today they go electric.
Tomorrow they discard the paper books because everything's electronic.
One day the data disappears suddenly and all that was electronic is lost.
Woe is me."
eBooks may be an interesting format to read books in though I only hope the paper books are preserved.
This put Dan in a dilemma. He had to help her--but if he lent her his computer, she might read his books. Aside from the fact that you could go to prison for many years for letting someone else read your books, the very idea shocked him at first.
I knew this story was going to be kitchy, moralistic piece of crap after I read the first couple of paragraphs.
Firstly, this scenario doesn't make any sense! When we first read the above paragraph, we think "How does the computer know who is reading the books?" Stallman later explains that the computer has a centrally-administered username/password login. So if that's the case then WHY WOULD THE LLENZ USERID HAVE PERMISSION TO READ THE BOOK???
And this "story" is supposedly written by a UNIX expert. Sheesh! This is almost as bad as those red "Warning: Unauthorized Access" messages that appear on the protagonist's computer screen as he hacks into a computer system in a Hollywood movie. You know the ones where the message flashes on your screen but it doesn't actually prevent you from accessing the site...
-a
The Toronto Public Library offers a similar service to read a selection of eBooks online.
Even better, they also loan Rocket eBook readers!
And you thought I was kidding about control of all information?
With this little trick, once people adjust to the idea will give people in power complete control of information.
Sure it will be cracked, but that wont help the common man that isn't capable of doing such a thing. Their entire view of the world, and history will be controlled.
It will take time, but this is the next logical step in the progression.
20 years ago if I told you people would be paying to listen to radio, or that you wouldn't be able to copy your music from your house to use in the car, possibly tossed in jail if you try..you would have laughed. Today the practice is pretty much accepted.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Imagine a wireless connection on that handheld for checking medical records and entering orders.
Oh, I would go further than that. The current state of medical management software for patient management, medical records etc... is abysmal and the costs are mind bogling. I have often thought that a Mac based medical managment package could be put together that would scale from a single doctors office (rare these days) to large hospitals. Handheld devices could be both 802.11 aware for wide area access and Bluetooth aware for synching with patient info when medical staff walk into a patients room. That way, access to all information including radiological would be available at all times even at the patients bedside.
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Cleveland needs to get with the time... access to eBooks is NOT new. All libraries in Michigan have had access to eBooks via netLibrary from the Michigan eLibrary for over a year... and it's a MUCH larger selection than Cleveland appears to be bragging about... as usual... folks in Ohio are years behind their superiors in Michigan (even when it comes to National Titles... we win in 97... you wait till 2003.)
libraries are deemed ehtical over their free book distrubution because there are a limited amount of copies available and the time available to check them out...
:D
:D
now why isn't there a music library full of some "e-music" files that you can freely download any song, but there are only a certain amount of "copies" that can be "checked out" at any time, with a limit on how long it will stay playable?
making online music "piracy" just like a public library
OR
radio stations play songs legitimately, the reasoning behind that is you as an individual can't choose when your favorite song plays, although the radio does give you different stations to listen to tailoring to your music tastes... maybe some sort of secure (hahaha) software could be written to allow users to check which artists they like, and randomly hear songs by those artists... minus the commercials of course seeing as the user would be incurring the expense
-judging another only defines yourself
"How does the computer know who is reading the books?"
The computer is trusted hardware, the successor to the Palladium/TCPA combo. It uses its onboard biometrics scanner to pull an eyeball id off of anyone in front of the screen. Anyone who looks at the screen too long becomes a reader.
The computer is the successor to the systems distributed by this company.
Public libraries across the country have already been doing this for years. The news is that C/Net is far enough behind the curve to just discover it.
even at the patients bedside
;-) (I used to work at a hospital, as an MRI tech; MD's vary in bedside skills ... a bit. :)
Since when do doctors go to the bedside any more?
Now, in your tech fantasy, shouldn't the portable whip up its own nanobots and inject them via hypospray? Actually, if you make this fancy enough, you could cut out the middleman (doctor) and put the whole thing on a robot like the Roomba....
Yes, I do agree with anything that will improve care and somehow keep costs down. Or is that too much to hope for?
What is so bad about this? This is only an electronic form of checking out a book and then returning it after a set period of time. Are you all going to complain next about having to take back that real book you borrowed?
I just can't believe that I am seeing so much whinign about what is a valid use for an e-book. Its not like you are buying the thing and then being locked out after a few days, you are BORROWING it. So what is the big deal?
--Won't that be grand? Computers and the programs will start thinking and the people will stop. - Dr. Walter Gibbs
And have been pretty happy with it. It uses the Zinio Reader and is pretty functional. Links are clickable, which is really nice in a magazine of this ilk. It's bookmarkable, searchable and you can write notes on it. The only complaint I've got is that it's too faithful to the paper version. It includes all those annoying subscription and other business reply cards and they have to be turned like any other page.
Not that long ago, I worked for a company that builds library automation software. I built a prototype version of our web based catalog searching application that integrated the contents of Project Gutenberg into the system. It gave the user the ability to view books available in Gutenberg online. Included pagination, bookmarking, and searching.
Showed it to the cheif architect on the project and got rave reviews, showed the marketing department, they loved it. Showed the CEO and he proceeded to chew my ass out for wasting my time and his. I showed it (secretly) to a few customers and half loved it, half hated it. But nobody was willing to try it. That's just dumb.
The moral of the story? While many prefer the feel of a book in hand even the smell, some are willing to try other things.
The SCMS protection on Minidiscs have stopped bands and other content creators from legitimately making digital copies of their own work.
Because it's not their work. Assuming that the band in question is a cover band, recording a performance of a musical work without the permission of the songwriter is an infringement of copyright. In general, the license to record somebody else's work isn't bundled with the standard ASCAP/BMI cover band license.
At this point, you're thinking, "What if members of the band wrote all the songs?" Prove it. Prove that your band didn't pull a George Harrison and unconsciously plagiarize an existing song. Prove it in court against a music publisher whose legal budget is 1000 times bigger than yours. Under such conditions, I'm not sure how a songwriter could prove that he didn't copy something else.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Attach homebrewed screenshot app here
Not if the kernel goes into a special graphics mode where video memory is write-only. Microsoft Windows already does something analogous for audio, not allowing unsigned drivers to play secure streams and not allowing trojan drivers (Total Recorder, What-U-Hear) to be signed unless they turn themselves off when the Secure Audio Path is open.
Will I retire or break 10K?
But what about screenshots? What's to stop him from hitting Alt+PrScr for each page and pasting them into a run of the mill image?
How about a full-screen reader that disables Print Screen and other methods of copying the image from video memory? See my other comment.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Since when do doctors go to the bedside any more? ;-) (I used to work at a hospital, as an MRI tech; MD's vary in bedside skills ... a bit. :)
At our hospital at least, most services round in the mornings with attendings and residents and medical students are routinely interacting with patients. Another business I am associated with is an independent practice and patients come to us, but we do have an inpatient sleep lab and extended EEG monitoring service, but even in that practice we tend to spend more time with patients than usual to give a higher quality of service.
Yes, I do agree with anything that will improve care and somehow keep costs down. Or is that too much to hope for?
No, it in not too much to hope for. The problem in medicine for the past decade and a half has been HMO's and insurance companies. They were a con foisted on the American public that absolutely did not keep medical costs down. All they did was make the delivery of medicine into a big business and they transferred much of the money that went to doctors, nurses, technicians etc... into the pockets of middle managers. In fact, if you were to go into the parking lot of most hospitals, the expensive cars you will see do not belong to physicians. Rather they belong to all of the middle managers and hospital administrators.
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To date no good solution exists to entice authors into creating and preserve freedom at the same time. Street performer protocol and similar things do work in some cases but only in "niche" cases. For instance many authors have only written one good work in their lives (e.g. Steinbeck). They would starve with SPP. Many singers have had one or two hits (e.g. Billy Ray Cyrus (sp?)). Those guys would starve too.
... but arguably that would be a good thing in some instances as well (consider the dreck produced by the paid writers in the last two Star Wars episodes and the last Star Trek movie, and contrast that with some of the excellent, and vastly superior, fan fiction that has been circulated for free, at no cost, with no profit incentive whatsoever.
... much of the best work is available online, at no cost, with no profit motive. Whether it fits your particular taste or not, the allegation that "people would not go to the grouble of creating stuff" if it were free (the assumption implicit in your statement) is simply false.
... this is not the consiqence of a regime designed to foster creativity and productivity, it is the result of a regime designed to facilitate censorship and foster a profit motive above love of the art, and we as a culture have paid a heavy price in seeing our culture diminished and privatized to a point where singing "Happy Birthday" to your child is a technical violation of the law, punishable by fine and, if you send such a greeting to your college bound child over email, by 5 years imprisonment.
Nonsense. They would work day jobs like the rest of us, and practice their craft as a hobby. The best authors are those who do it for love of writing, not for cash. The downside would be that they would spend less time working on their writing
Worse, people would not go to the trouble of creating stuff if they knew in advance that they would have to sustain their production over long stretches of time.
You mean, be productive over long stretches of time like every other working human being on the planet? Why is it content creators, and their purveyors (the publishers, who are generally the ones receiving the vast bulk of the profits) feel they are entitled to rest on their laurels forever, and never work another day in their life, or at least only as much as they deign to choose, for creating one work, while the rest of us accept that we will work, and work hard, until retirement?
This entitlement mentality must end, and the notion that we should destroy the internet, hobble libraries, shred the constitution, and turn every digital device in our homes and on our persons into a governance device that monitors and reports our usage of digital data is not only offensive and appalling, it is simply, flat out asinine.
The myth that people will only create valuable and worthwhile art is not only provably wrong, it has already been proven wrong countless times, not only by myself, but by many, many others. Peruse USENET or any number of Free Media and Free Literature sites
Content creators will have to give up the notion, and assumption, that they are entitled to be paid for creating content if we are to have anything other than a draconian, Orwellian society in the digital age, in which a police and surveillance state is instituted in order to enforce digital copyrights (and even that will likely prove insufficient, though I'm sure the effort will further overpopulate our prisons and destroy thousands, perhaps millions of lives in a misguided effort that will make the War on Drugs, and the former Communist East, look like a liberal , democratic picnic in comparison).
Copyright initially reduced the number of books printed to 1/3 of their former numbers
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
you suspect that but I doubt it. as a public library they have a responsability to make them available to all who want to read them.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
My experience with this library from a distance, going back to the 1970s, is that they have a most unusual assortment of books, often quite eclectic, and don't necessarily go down the beaten path. In Montana, I had access to an interlibrary loan program of which Cleveland was the eastern terminus, and it was amazing how many rare and oddball SF/F requests they filled for me. (And they're one of only 3 public libraries in the entire U.S. that carry the AKC Stud Books, definitely a specialty/niche item.)
My guess is that as Cleveland goes, other libraries will follow.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Overdue fines are not a significant source of revenue. They exist mainly to encourage people to return the books, hopefully in a halfway timely manner. Most libraries have regular "amnesty" periods when you can return books fine-free, no matter how much overdue time it has. They'd rather get the book back than collect the fine (itself trivial compared to the price of a hardcover book).
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
I don't have a problem with *library* ebooks that evaporate after a fixed timeframe. After all, you didn't *expect* to be able to keep a =hardcopy= *library* book after it was due; why should you have different expectations for an =electronic= library book??
Now, if I'd purchased the ebook, then I would bloody well expect to have the same rights as I would for a purchased hardcopy book.
I'd reasonably assume that the Cleveland library is paying the publisher X-much per available copy of the ebook, just as they'd have to for hardcopy books. So they can't realistically be expected to provide unlimited use.
What would be sensible from a revenue standpoint, is to let patrons buy the ebook outright, should they so desire. That would be the best of both worlds -- the ability to read before buying (just as you would with any regular library book), and to buy a copy you want to keep it. (I'd expect that in this case, the library would be acting as the publisher's sales agent, so would get a commission of sorts.)
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
My local library (Oakland, CA) has e-books available one page at a time (irritating, but I have DSL, so the wait isn't very much) through someone or other...I used inter-library loan to get the paper copies.
Is Cleveland doing something different in that the WHOLE book is available at once? Is that it?
County library support costs me around $400/year in property taxes (about 20% of my total tax bill). Considering the state of the Los Angeles County library system, I am definitely NOT getting my money's worth, no matter how much I use the library (it's simply not that good a system, and has relatively poor selection -- I get more good books from their ongoing donations and discard sale than I ever find to check out).
Maybe if they had ebooks available for checkout, they'd have a better selection and I'd finally feel like I was supporting something worthwhile, instead of getting ripped off at tax time.
ISTM that interlibrary loan programs (the biggest weakness of the LACounty library system) could also vastly benefit from ebooks. Don't have the book your patron needs? Just download it from some other library, where it would be "checked out" in the normal way for interlibrary loans. No need to pay postage to send and return the book, either.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
No they don't. They have only convinced you that it is wrong to share and that electronic copy is theft. By the way, I would not give two dollars to own a donkey, much less try to bring one to court.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
The crux of the Right to Read is that publishers would use technology to own all information. The idea is that you are so greatful to have access to that information that you will give everything that you create back to the publisher. In order to do this publishers have to make copying their information difficult and convince us all that sharing infomation is moraly wrong, that our own intelect is not worth much and most importantly THAT THERE IS NO OTHER WAY TO SHARE INFORMATION. Compared to the vast wealth of everyone else's intelect one person is not much, so the publishers will always win that one. The other notions are absurd, moraly reprehesible and must be fought every day. We can publish information ourselves for free if we wish and there are other ways for publishers to get along.
The Clevland library should be ashamed of itself for working for disreputable publisher who demand more than their due for an electronic copy. Electronic information is easier to publish than any other form of information ever. It can be coppied efortlessly, editied easily and transormed into many forms. Reputable publishers will have to find some way to use their reputations for profit and libraries, which exist as you point out to share information, should work to support and encourage them. Where's the link to Project Gutenburg and other free libraries on the Clevland site? The over simplified and distorted globe that sits on their front page is appropriate to the way they are running themselves. Yeah, they use M$ crap, it figures. They are so greatful their computers sort of work that they are willing to relinquish control of them when there are superior and cheaper free alternatives. Get with it, Clevland.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
The King County library system in Washington State (that's Redmond, Seattle, Bellevue, etc) has had this for ages.
Coming soon - pyrogyra
A MUCH better system to prevent infringement-by-performance would be to record the date and registered owner of the recording device
I see your point here. But I'm still curious as to how a songwriter can prevent infringement-by-songwriting. In fact, I feel afraid to publish songs that I have written for precisely that reason, because I don't have the $$$ to defend myself against a derivative-work lawsuit brought by Warner Chappell Music's army of retained lawyers.
Will I retire or break 10K?
please!
Their entire view of the world, and history will be controlled.
As I read the parent post a sharp chill went down my spine...
1984, anyone?
'Who controls the past, controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.' - George Orwell.
... and then there were none
I have the right to do as I please. Artists do to. Copyright, however, is a created right which requires government intervention and protection. Natural rights require no such protection and are only violated by unbearable governments. The exclusive distribution you seem to love was created by the framers of the constitution to promote publication. As publication is much easier and cheaper, there is less protection needed.
Electronic copy is not theft. Republication of an electronic work is copyright violation and might be persued that way. A publisher might be due lost sales, proved in a reasonable manner and punitive damages if the copy was willful or malicious. Me making a few copies of an ebook for my own use represents no loss at all. Sharing with a few frinds and family may actually promote sales. If I can't have reasonable control over electronic works that I purchase, I won't buy them. The best things in life are not made for money anyway.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Hmm. Well, if this is a troll, it is a clever enough one that I'll respond anyway.
... except that 2/3rds of their voices were silenced in the process.
... the same publishers who had fought the author rights and limited terms introduced into copyright by the Statue of Anne tooth and nail for decades previously, through bribery and litigation.
And the reason why copyright reduced the number of books is because it got rid of those publishers who were making money by simply not giving the author any as they were just reprinting the novel themselves. So yes, we got rid of the leeches who were simply coasting on the coat-tails of somebody else's effort and the number of books printed dropped
Go study the history of copyright (hint, contrary to the myth proponents of copyright promote, copyright came into existence a century or so before the Statue of Anne). You couldn't be more wrong in your assertions. Original copyright didn't grant authors any rights whatsoever. It granted certain publishers the right to publish, and denied those rights to everyone else. The publishers who had been granted the right to copy by official sanctioned of the British Crown quickly learned they could make more money by not competing with one another. So they got together and formed a trust, something that would be illegal if it were to happen today, creating what they called the "White Book" in which a publisher would register a work and the other publishers would then refrain from publishing competing copies. It began as a gentleman's agreement, and later was encoded into formal, professional rules publishers in the cartel abided by, and later still into law. The authors and artists had no part in this
It was cartel politics, pure and simple, that led to the monopoly regimes adopted by the Statute of Anne and subsequently the US constitution, a cartel created and formed with the express purpose of controlling what was published, facilitating censorship, and controlling who could gain access to publishing equipment. Much like the FCC does with modern radio and television today, and much like what Microsoft and the Hollywood cartels are trying to do to the Internet through Palladium and DRM (Digital Restriction Mechanisms).
Publishers who published their own works, unsanctioned by the Crown, were even drawn and quartered for their offense. The decrease in public materials came about directly as a result of the stifling and chilling effects of copyright, not because Authors suddenly had new monopoly entitlements that allowed them the privelege of ceasing to be published and read, but instead to demand publishers pull their works from the public eye and fade into historical oblivion.
This is the consequence of a regime designed to foster creativity, productivity, and fairness to those who use the limited time in their lives to create something that betters all of us.
Only someone completely ignornant of the early history of copyright could assert with a straight face that copyright was ever designed to foster creativity, productivity, much less fairness. The US constitution included copyright because, quite frankly, the founding fathers were hoodwinked by publishers
Copyright was established to provide a simple mechanism for the British monarch to censor the printing press. It has come full circle, returning to its roots, in that it has become, by far, the most effective means of censoring the modern internet and stifling a variety of otherwise protected speech. This is not what anyone without an agenda (c.f. the BSA, MPAA, RIAA) would characterize as "fostering creativity, productivity, or fairness."
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Guess I had time to think enough :) It will be long though, I just can't see anyway around that. (sorry)
/. moral majority. "
/. I mean 'we', in general, the users and builders of the internet.
/. does present the comments, but there is always logged out browsing. For me it's about 70 / 30, the majority being logged in and thus biased browsing of comments. Slippery slope to be sure. Not sure what to think of that other than I am aware and will see where it goes.
;)
:( Very quickly, that also seems to be the way things are heading. Either you invest time and download and assemble your OSS software, or pay someone to do the work for you. Again, value adds can generate revenue if the value is true.
"but have "we" really? Firstly, by "we", I assume you mean the
I really don't mean the moral majority of
"/. is a refuge where geeks can share in a mass delusion for awhile, until it inevitably proves false. The moderation helps ensure this, especially that new foe of a friend BS."
Agreed. BTW, I use the foe/friend stuff to mark people I want to read later, or whose opinion I would like to see play out for a while. This does change how
"At the peak of the bubble, about half the ads I would read on the Internet were ads for other businesses that make money selling ads. This is not a way to make money."
You make some good points here in this paragraph.
Your assessment that ad revenue is limited is correct, to me, as is your assessment of the basic problem with many internet ads today.
However, that does leave some ad revenue and it does not take into account potential revenue that could come from value adds. People want to reach others, but they want to be able to see results so they can judge worth. People also will pay for things they find of value.
Adding value to the process will get the bills paid if one works hard at it. Not very many sites on the internet do that right now and things are changing because of that.
I will agree also with your idea that the current ad revenue pool will not support all the takers right now. Sites that are not adding any real value will eventually change, or wither away as a result of this.
Not a bad thing, just a growing pain. For what it is worth, I believe an awful lot of the Internet today does not really add a lot of value. Things are going to continue to change, for the better I hope.
I am not sure of the best order to continue, so take this next bit as you must to make sense of it.
I chose ARS, Lwn, and pr0n because I see them doing things differently.
I did not include RedHat because I am not sure they are going to be a success yet, why is another long thread...
Google is also on risky ground, though I believe their general position on things is very good because they add a *lot* of value. Brin is a sharp guy. He should be able to make something of that.
Ars adds value with their informed commentary on many technical issues. They know they cannot survive on ads alone and said as much. They provide some good information along with general news and discussion. To me, this is interesting because you can get news and discussion everywhere, so that ends up being a promotional cost partially covered from general ads.
The good information though has value. Those that see that will pay because they can see worth, not because they want Ars to continue to exist or because they are altrustic. Limiting content via subscription turns many potential readers away. Indexing and formatting that content as reference material for subscribers adds value without turning away casual readers.
Lwn does a similar thing, though their approach is not as good. They make non-subscribers wait. So they don't have to work any harder, with their model, but they do turn away readers.
Ars has a better chance than Lwn does.
Not sure what to say about pr0n. Lots of people pay, maybe the nature of the content itself will continue to support that end of things. I will leave that one alone for now
I did not catch the story last week. (Link?) If your summary is correct, then I agree. And again, that is not a bad thing. Consider though what I said about value adds. Perhaps the content itself can be the ad given a reasonable value add to support the ongoing production of it. The technique Ars is using right now makes me wonder about the viability of that.
Same with the various authors trying the open content models.
BTW, the story about the new novel posted yesterday got me interested. I downloaded it and read some. I will likely buy his book because I enjoy reading stuff like that away from the computer. Funny thing is I would have likely skipped a review, and maybe I would have been hooked by a sample chapter. Hard choices for authors to make.
Same goes for the Neil Stevenson essay "In the Beginning was the Command Line". Purchased that one because of the online essay.
These things lead me to believe that the content can be the ad in some cases.
I find your two laws interesting.
The first seems to indicate that successful web enterprises will be those that can partner with each other and form communities of loyal readers and participants. These sort of communities are valuable from a marketing point of view. They also can be somewhat localized.
The second means fewer free Linux downloads.
Sorry again for my long replies, know that I appreciate your part in the discussion because it has value to me. That is at the core of why I post. Good things are learned over time this way.
Blogging because I can...