eBook Lending Library Launched

An anonymous reader writes "The Open Library has launched an eBook lending program. Patrons of this Internet Archive-led group of libraries may borrow up to five books at a time, for up to two weeks. Like print books, the eBooks may be on loan only to one patron at a time. The organization perceives this model providing more bang for the libraries' bucks. The books are mostly 20th-century titles. Some librarians have books that are too fragile or rare for lending and will scan them for eBook lending."

Comments

Project Gutenberg with DRM

[vlm]

Patrons of this Internet Archive-led group of libraries may borrow up to five books at a time, for up to two weeks. Like print books, the eBooks may be on loan only to one patron at a time. ..... The books are mostly 20th-century titles.

So... its basically Project Gutenberg with added DRM?

Re:Project Gutenberg with DRM

[tanders]

And I thought the days of Advertising on ./ were behind us..

Re:Project Gutenberg with DRM

[Ancantus]

And I thought the days of Advertising on ./ were behind us..

When did you start thinking that? A few hours ago?

Re:Project Gutenberg with DRM

[gad_zuki!]

Not exactly. It looks like a competitor to the Overdrive system many libraries use. Overdrive is a sharepoint-like portal that delivers DRM'd ebooks (usually PDFs) to library patrons. Its kinda kludgy but popular and the defacto standard for this kind of thing.

Gutenburg is only public domain books, this system would deliver purchased ebooks and most likely apply its own DRM like Adobe's PDF DRM. If it didn't use DRM the library using it would most likely get in some kind of trouble.

Oh well, anything that competes with Overdrive is good with me.

Re:Project Gutenberg with DRM

[Anonymous Coward]

To be fair, library lending has got to be the situation where DRM is the most justified. You *really* don't own the product. If that's what it takes to get more titles (including those not in the public domain) available, then so be it.

Re:Project Gutenberg with DRM

[MarkvW]

I don't think you RTFA. They're talking about 20th Century books--books that are subject to copyright. This is a very good thing.

Re:Project Gutenberg with DRM

[MoonBuggy]

Gutenberg is only for public domain titles (so mostly 19th and some early 20th century work), this library is for lending of in-copyright works. If it's well implemented, it makes a lot of sense - as I've said before, enforcing a short-term loan seems like one of the few valid uses of DRM, and since many libraries now offer eBooks it seems far more sensible to have all the content available from one central resource than to have it tied to geographic location.

Re:Project Gutenberg with DRM

[Fizzol]

It's not a competitor to Overdrive at all since its non-PD loans go through Overdrive.

Re:Project Gutenberg with DRM

[blue trane]

I'm of the opposite opinion. The reason libraries have to put time limits on lending is because the resource is scarce. But books can be replicated digitally for practically nothing. Putting lending limits on e-books is a clear case of creating scarcity where none need exist. Technology has given us the tools to provide information for free to all, but our psychology limits us to thinking in terms of scarcity and imposing it if it doesn't exist.

Re:Project Gutenberg with DRM

[cyber-vandal]

The number of decent authors is a very scarce resource. Having to work for nothing would make them scarcer.

Re:Project Gutenberg with DRM

[davester666]

So, 1 library buys 1 'copy' of a book, then 'loans' it to everybody for as long as they want, simultaneously?

Let's get this thing going. It sounds great. Well, except for authors/publishers.

Which library shall we designate the 'master', which buys the one copy of the book, and then loans it out to everyone?

Re:Project Gutenberg with DRM

[commodore6502]

I think it's rather cool.
(searches)

Year's best science fiction - nope
Red Mars - nope
Hyperion - nope
Foundation asimov - nope
mary higgins clark - nope
Ender's game -nope

Okay well that was a fun experiment but I don't think I'll be coming-back any time soon.

Re:Project Gutenberg with DRM

[Anonymous Coward]

Really?

You do know that except for a priviledged (and lucky) few, most authors need a day job to live. Writing is just a side activity.

On the other hand, scarcity (the paper book model) ensure that there won't be any change to not earning anything because knows an author, nor will they ever hear about him or her.

Re:Project Gutenberg with DRM

[jsnipy]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_SharePoint Microsoft Sharepoint is a Web technology based server that can be used to build portals, collaboration sites, and also content management sites. It is very versatile in a number of features and support various enterprise and Web scenarios. It is also popular for document management solutions. [3] Sharepoint can also be used as a building platform to build systems atop its framework.

Re:Project Gutenberg with DRM

[betterunixthanunix]

This is a very good thing.

Except for the whole DRM part.

Re:Project Gutenberg with DRM

[Aggrajag]

So... its basically Project Gutenberg with added DRM?

The books are quite a bit more recent, check William Gibson's available books:

http://openlibrary.org/authors/OL26283A/William_F._Gibson

Re:Project Gutenberg with DRM

[hawguy]

Oh, that explains it, it's very versatile in a number of features and supports various enterprise and Web scenarios.

Others here on Slashdot are very familiar (perhaps too familiar) and still aren't sure what features of Sharepoint lend themselves to this sort of eBook lending system, and what exactly a "sharepoint like" portal is. Is it similar to a Drupal like portal? Or a Wiki like portal?

Re:Project Gutenberg with DRM

[iamhassi]

It looks like a competitor to the Overdrive system many libraries use."

That's exactly what I was thinking. My local library uses Overdrive, and I've downloaded many new audio books to my ipod from the comfort of my home for completely free.

But thanks to this article I found out that Overdrive offers an iPhone app so I can download books and audio straight to my phone. This is great! They even made a video explaining how it works.

They also have an Android version and here's a video by a user.

Re:Project Gutenberg with DRM

[WillKemp]

Sharepoint's a hideous nightmare monolithic monstrosity. Typical Mircrosoft.

Re:Project Gutenberg with DRM

[Phoghat]

I don't think so. DRM yes, but Gutenberg doesn't have much in the way of popular 20th Century titles. BTW the same Adobe Reader Software is used by all the Library Systems in NY State to lend e-books with the same terms as Open Library. It's a great money saver.

Yawn

[hsmith]

Can we stop applying old world methodologies to current technologies? Libraries could only lend one title out at a time BECAUSE IT WAS WHAT THEY HAD. There is not a single reason to "only lend one digital" copy out at a time, other than to force some insane business model down the throats of people. Ok, fine I can settle with the "You need to read the books in 14 days" kind of thing to entice people to read it or buy it, but that is even stretching it.

Re:Yawn

[Ancantus]

Perhaps a better solution would be to only allow one book to be taken out per user. Makes more sense and most people don't read more than one book at a time anyways. If they want to keep the ebook they can buy it.

Re:Yawn

[Americano]

I have an honest question: How is an author going to be paid for their time writing the books if we allow one person to purchase the book, and then lend it to an infinite number of people at once? Musicians can go out on tour and perform live, and make a reasonable living doing that, making their studio recordings less critical a part of their income. Authors can't (generally speaking, I suppose some poets and spoken-word types could) go on tour and perform their craft for a live audience.

Yes, they're forcing a business model down peoples' throats, and it seems dated and silly given that you can make infinte lossless copies of a book with a close-to-zero cost. The real (and earnest) question is - what's your proposal for a better solution, specifically for the publishing industry, which will allow authors to - at the very least - make a comfortable middle-class living? Most authors do not write books that sell at volumes that would allow "2 cents per electronic copy" to be a maintainable business model. Do we tell those writers, "tough shit, start waiting tables and give up the writing thing if you're not popular?" And bear in mind that if you actually would suggest that, you've just neatly gutted the bulk of the sci-fi and fantasy genres, which I believe tend to be pretty popular around this part of the intartubes.

Re:Yawn

[elrous0]

Publishers want to make money. If they allowed libraries to have a "checkout as many copies of this book as you like" policy then popular books wouldn't sell any better than unpopular ones (since the library only would need one "copy" of everything). Likely, a library licenses the right to have X number of copies "out" at any given time. If they want to have more out at one time, they have to pay more. So popular books make more money that way, the same as they would if the libraries were buying actual physical copies.

Re:Yawn

[mybecq]

There is not a single reason to "only lend one digital" copy out at a time, other than to force some insane business model down the throats of people

There is this little thing call copyright law. It has to do with the RIGHT to COPY something. They have a right to loan out their single copy, but not more than one.

Re:Yawn

[JamieBedford]

Blogs with advertising where they can regularly add content, and/or specialized subscription-type content.
Sales of physical copies of their works (people still buy physical books, and probably will for a long time).
Sponsored book signings / speaking engagements / web lectures, etc.
Contract gigs writing material for medium/large corporations that need or could find creative use for skilled writers (think Penny-Arcade's video game manuals).
Participation in and/or collaborative hosting and moderation of web-based communities for discussion of the domain in which they work.
Socialized or private grants for furthering the arts, or research, or social commentary.
.
.
.

It's rare for anyone in any field to make a comfortable middle-class living doing only the thing they most enjoy doing. Sure, it happens, but most folks trudge through quite a lot of work that isn't entirely thrilling in order to get to the point of comfortable middle-class living.

Re:Yawn

[godrik]

As we used to fund art before with Patronage ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patronage ).

I actually am pretty serious. I do not see how one can expect to fund a production per copy when cloning such a production is a virtually free operation. The funding needs to be done beforehand. I would totally chip in a few hundreds bucks a year to fund arts I like.

Re:Yawn

[Anonymous Coward]

I have an honest question: How is an author going to be paid for their time writing the books if we allow one person to purchase the book, and then lend it to an infinite number of people at once?

Not my problem. How is a person who sits around and does logarithm tables to 300 decimal places going to get paid when they are done? Oh, you mean we don't want or need 300 decimal place logarithm tables?

That may be a bad example, but all of them are. There is no inherent right to getting paid. Many things that society values (eg, scientific research) is primarily done through tax money. Scientists don't pass around a hat, and they rarely direct charge for their research.

I have great respect for authors, and I read books, and I'm grateful for what is available, but its not my place or anyone else's to make sure they get paid. I can assure you that information will exist in such quantities that no single person can digest it all in a lifetime.

Re:Yawn

[Anonymous Coward]

Do we tell those writers, "tough shit, start waiting tables and give up the writing thing if you're not popular?"

Well.. yes?

Or, more specifically, we would suggest that if it turns out that being an author of written stories is no longer a suitable profession in terms of making a reasonable living income, that it be reserved as something to be done by those who do so out of enjoyment for the art - possibly as something done in spare time next to 'waiting tables'.

Remember.. the popular mantra here is that people are not entitled to an income. Just because a person chooses to become a book author doesn't mean they're entitled to an income any more than if a person chooses to collect navel fluff and suggest that it is performance art.

As it stands, however, those involved in the art of making movies aren't exactly put out of work by the fact that their creations can easily be copied.. plenty of people still go to the theater, buy the video release, etc. I'm not seeing any reason to believe that this would be, or is, different for e.g. novels.

Re:Yawn

[denzacar]

Authors can't (generally speaking, I suppose some poets and spoken-word types could) go on tour and perform their craft for a live audience.

Sure they can. It's called "a reading".

"tough shit, start waiting tables and give up the writing thing if you're not popular?"

And that is different from the current business model how exactly? Sure, it ain't as bad as in music industry, but still...

Unless you are selling at least tens of thousands of each book - you're not going to be making a living from writing alone.
At 10% royalty a $20 hard copy owned by a publisher and a $2 self-published, self-marketed e-book make the same amount of money per book for the author.
Granted, minus the advance, promotion and various other services that the publisher would provide. Also, minus any copyright limitations.

If anything, authors need to demand a larger piece of a smaller cake for the e-versions of their books.
Most of the publisher's costs are non-existent for e-books, just as most of the risk. Author would probably be better off self-publishing through amazon.

Re:Yawn

[Sabriel]

Physical libraries already lend to an "infinite" number of people, where "infinite" is a number limited only by the book's popularity, durability and the length of time the book is held by each reader, and - at least in my country, don't know about yours - also already pay the author based on a combination of the number of times the book is borrowed and the amount of funding allocated to library lending in the government budget. This money comes out of our taxes, which I don't begrudge as I consider it part of buying civilization.

So an electronic public library strikes me as a great idea. The books don't wear out, you can store an immense amount of text for very little outlay these days, any given book can be borrowed by more than one person concurrently, and the authors can still get paid. The only people who "lose" are the middlemen. And while I respect many who work in the publishing/distributing industry, it is ultimately as subject to automation as any other.

Re:Yawn

[blueZhift]

I'm not really sure if the idea of a lending library even makes sense any more with eBooks. When I first learned that I could borrow eBooks from the Chicago Public Library, I was a little shocked because from the publishers point of view it doesn't really make sense. Even over a period of 2 weeks, I have access to the entire book which I may read completely, or perhaps hack so that I can lend it to millions of "friends" on the internet. Either way, the publisher is likely losing a sale. I would not be surprised if the publishers started pulling back the number of titles that can be loaned as eBooks until they figure out how to make money in the new digital environment.

Re:Yawn

[Mr. Slippery]

How is an author going to be paid for their time writing the books if we allow one person to purchase the book, and then lend it to an infinite number of people at once?

Why would someone who buys a copy be motivated to set up the expensive web infrastructure needed lend it to an infinite number of people at once?

The only motive I can see is that they have some way to make money off of it -- they either charge for the lending, or are making money off of ads. In which case, the author ought to get a cut -- I've been suggesting for years that a royalty right, modeled after songwriter's royalties, should replace copyright.

Absent that, remember that time is money. Let's say that I can either spend $2 to download a DRM-free e-book from the author, or I can spend fifteen minutes searching for and downloading a copy. For anyone whose time is worth more than $8/hour, it's cheaper to buy a copy. Adjust those numbers as you like -- $1 versus five minutes and the cutoff becomes $12/hour, and so on; the point is that at some point, it's cheaper for the reader to buy a copy than to hunt down a "free" copy.

Plus, of course, a significant fraction of people will pay for something even if it's available for free. Public radio, PBS. Radiohead made $10 million from an album available for free downloads.

Do we tell those writers, "tough shit, start waiting tables and give up the writing thing if you're not popular?"

This is already what we tell most writers and musicians. Very few make a living at it.

Re:Yawn

[hedwards]

As we used to fund art before with Patronage ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patronage ).

I actually am pretty serious. I do not see how one can expect to fund a production per copy when cloning such a production is a virtually free operation. The funding needs to be done beforehand. I would totally chip in a few hundreds bucks a year to fund arts I like.

That there is the problem. A lot of what's turned out to be incredibly influential work wasn't liked at that time, much of it was outright banned for being offensive to portions of the population.

Not to mention that in many cases you don't know what a work is going to look like until after it's finished.

This is why charity based welfare and assistance programs don't work very well. If you're a battered wife, you're far, far more likely to get help from charitable organizations than if you're a man in a similar situation, because it's not popular. Same goes for other programs as well, if it's a popular cause it can work, but there's a lot that needs doing that isn't glamorous or popular, but the need is just as significant and real.

Re:Yawn

[hedwards]

It doesn't make any less sense than selling ebooks in the first place. I'm sure that if you know where to look, you can find all sorts of ebooks available for pirating.

Not to mention that companies like O'reilly don't seem to be having any trouble making money with their DRM free ebooks.

Re:Yawn

[JustinOpinion]

Alternative models include:

- Patronage, where a wealthy person/group funds the creation of art. This was common before copyright. Although some of this funding will be purely altruistic ("just make great art for everyone"), this model also leads to self-indulgent or propaganda-like art.

- Donations, as is done with street performers, and non-profits both large and small (e.g. Wikipedia).

- Grants for the arts. Similar to donations, though the provenance of the funds may be different (e.g. in many countries governments set aside grants for artists).

- Merchandising, where the author creates the work as a way to sell trademarked paraphernalia (the "concert T-shirt" model, also used by many webcomics).

- Value added, where the author provides special things to paying customers, such as first access to the work, interviews with the author, etc. (e.g. Slashdot is free to read yet some people still subscribe).

- Sampler + Bounty. Author releases a 1st book (or first chapter of book), generates interest. They then start a funding campaign along the lines of "Volume 2 is almost finished and will be released for free to all when donations reach X dollars". Fans pay to support the artist they like.

I'm not necessarily saying that these are better than the current copyright system. I'm just saying that alternatives exist. Each mode has pros and cons. The downsides and upsides of copyright have been discussed at great length on Slashdot. But there are certainly alternatives, and if copyright were abolished, many artists would no doubt find other ways to make a living doing what they love. Of course many middle-men would be out of a job, and there's no guarantee that the same number of artists would be supported under an alternative system. Then again, it's possible that the alternative systems would actually support more artists and encourage more artwork. (See this previous comment, where I list a variety of creative things that are not protected from copyright and yet generate both a thriving industry and plenty of creative output.)

Re:Yawn

[bzipitidoo]

Yes, Patronage.

It's not that patronage is a great system necessarily, though I imagine we can improve hugely on how it worked in past centuries. It's that the current system is broken. Very, very broken. DRM is patently ridiculous. There hasn't been a DRM scheme yet that couldn't be broken, and there never will be. Currently, copying is incredibly easy. Copying will only get easier. Artificial scarcity can't be maintained. Enforcing it is absolutely impossible. How is any regulating body to know whether person A gave person B a thumbdrive full of copyrighted material, unless the persons involved tell? There is no other way, simply no way, to know. Even sex, which is notoriously hard to regulate, leaves more evidence. And trying to maintain artificial scarcity is very costly in itself. We will have to abandon copyright.

We have improved fantastically in our ability to copy information. Cheap, ubiquitous PCs can copy hundreds of hours of music to a thumb sized device in just a few minutes. Networks can transmit all that music all over the world, very quickly, and at very, very little cost. We are moving into a wondrous Age of Information. Think of the questions that can now be answered, the research that is now available at anyone's fingertips. And the immense savings we can realize by storing and transmitting information digitally. Plus the ability to search and analyze it in all the ways computers can and mere paper books cannot. But for the sake of a broken business model, we are being restrained from using all this capability. The costs are not just in not grabbing the savings to be had from switching to less costly mediums, but in all the progress we are not making and could be, all the time we waste worrying about how many copyrights are being violated and if lawsuits will come of it, or deprivation we suffer because doing without is cheaper than hunting down permission after permission or the risk is too great.

Re:Yawn

[misexistentialist]

The prospect of admiring college girls jumping into the author's bed isn't enough incentive to write anymore?

Re:Yawn

[betterunixthanunix]

How is an author going to be paid for their time writing the books if we allow one person to purchase the book, and then lend it to an infinite number of people at once?

Well, I was thinking that they might get paid the same way that scriveners, lamplighters, and blacksmiths are paid.

Do we tell those writers, "tough shit, start waiting tables and give up the writing thing if you're not popular?"

Well, that is pretty much what we told scriveners, lamplighters, blacksmiths, and dozens of other professionals whose professions were rendered obsolete by technology. If authors do not want to write because they enjoy the art, well, that is unfortunate, but there are a whole lot of people out there who do just enjoy the art and write even when it is not profitable.

if you actually would suggest that, you've just neatly gutted the bulk of the sci-fi and fantasy genres, which I believe tend to be pretty popular around this part of the intartubes.

Oh yeah? Do you have some sort of proof that, without viciously strong copyrights, scifi and fantasy authors would not bother? If they do not enjoy the art, and are only in it to make money, then I guess they should find an industry that doesn't need special laws that restrict everyone's natural rights just to remain profitable. Of course, I can think of a few writers who might continue writing even if we took the copyright system away, like Cory Doctorow:

http://craphound.com/

Re:Yawn

[Americano]

These are all certainly legitimate alternatives - I wasn't asking with a predetermined answer in mind, I was asking because GGP was carrying on about how "DRM and sales of books as if they're physical objects" is a dead and outdated business model, and, if we accept that that's the case, the next question is: where do we go from here?

I frankly don't see the objection to spending money to purchase a copy of a book you want to buy, regardless of whether or not there's DRM applied. I'm getting hours of enjoyment out of the story, or useful information if it's a reference book, and I understand the months of effort that likely went into creating the book, so I don't think giving an author $10-20 for a copy is unreasonable.

I guess the thing that puzzles me the most is the notion that some (perhaps many, here?) people have that "since it costs nothing to copy the book once it's created, it should pretty much cost nothing!" Low duplication costs don't necessarily translate to low initial production costs, and when I hear people saying "It costs nothing to make a copy, why should I pay $10/$5/$0.99 for my copy?" it seems to me their argument boils down to "I want it and I want it now and I want it for free." And that strikes me as unreasonable, and destructive in the long term of any sort of creative endeavor that requires more than a couple spare hours to complete.

Re:Yawn

[betterunixthanunix]

There is this little thing call copyright law. It has to do with the RIGHT to COPY something. They have a right to loan out their single copy, but not more than one.

A relic of an age where making mass numbers of copies required expensive industrial equipment. Now the majority of people have the necessary equipment in their living rooms.

The world has changed, and it is time to start updating the law to reflect those changes. You know, like how we updated plenty of other laws to keep pace a changing world, new technologies, and so forth? Oh, wait, I forget, copyrights are special.

Re:Yawn

[Americano]

Sorry, I stopped reading when you suggested that *authors* have been made obsolete by technology, just like scribes and lamplighters.

Nowhere in my post did I say that the "second assistant mail clerk to the deputy copy editor" and the rest of the middlemen in the publishing industry were entitled to anything.

Re:Yawn

[betterunixthanunix]

Authors are not obsolete; the publishing industry, based on paying authors by profiting on the inability of people to copy written works, is obsolete. If authors cannot be paid by any other means, then yes, their profession is as obsolete as scribes' and lamplighters'. Personally, I think authors will either continue writing because they enjoy the art (in fact, most of the authors I have met have not seen enough payment for their works to quit their day jobs) or find another way to make money as writers.

Do I have a suggestion for them? No, because I am not an author. I have only one request: stop restricting my rights just to keep the old business model alive. Natural rights are more important than copyrights and more important than any single industry remaining profitable.

Re:Yawn

[vux984]

I have an honest question: How is an author going to be paid for their time writing the books if we allow one person to purchase the book, and then lend it to an infinite number of people at once?

The blindingly obvious answer is that you set the price for the one copy high enough that you only need to sell one.

Now who is going to pay $250,000 or even $25,000 for a novel? A few wealthy patronage types possibly. But there is nothing stopping a bunch of regular joes from throwing a couple bucks into a pool to raise that much money together.

If any of my favorite authors put a book out like that, I'd throw $5 or $10 into the pot to get it "released".

Re:Yawn

[sco08y]

Perhaps a better solution would be to only allow one book to be taken out per user. Makes more sense and most people don't read more than one book at a time anyways. If they want to keep the ebook they can buy it.

Really? I've never met someone who only reads one book at a time. It may only be occasionally that they'll stop one book halfway and get distracted, but that's two at a time.

The worst part, from a user experience perspective, is that it sounds like a reasonable limitation. When users do run into it and are frustrated, and that's what they'll tell other people about, no matter how good it is overall.

Re:Yawn

[Ihmhi]

You know, there's more than a handful of webcomic artists who profit enough off of books, t-shirts, and other merchandise that they basically do it as their day job (or if not that, a part-time job). Sure, very few of them are Penny Arcade rich, but there are more of them that are making minimum wage or better from merch, donations, etc. than you'd think. I know of a few offhand that pull in anywhere from $1000-2000 a month in donations (that doesn't count ads or merch).

If your work can stand on its own merits and you have a tip jar out you can make money. See: buskers and other street performers, who have been doing it for thousands of years and making money just fine.

Re:Yawn

[argStyopa]

You neglect the obvious corollary.
Where in the past the prices of books were set at a level that would both compensate for the physical cost of the media and the author's intellectual contribution, now essentially the media cost is zero.

You're right, John Q Author won't get to sell books through massive publishers. But JQA can sell his books directly to his fans for almost nothing and make a nice profit.

Further, his market is no longer the 'segment' identified by a marketer, it's EVERYONE with an internet connection.

We're moving from an old paradigm that dealt with the realities and limits of physical media, to a new one where people will be paying the authors DIRECTLY for their value. I would cheerfully pay for a new Neil Gaiman book on my kindle, or Peter Gabriel on my ipod...if the prices weren't set by BOOKSELLERS and RECORD SALES at a market rate based on physical media, which is complete bullshit.

In fact, I daresay I'd probably cheerfully pay either of these creative, talented individuals probably DOUBLE what they're getting per-creation from their publishers, and it would be a bargain. From what I understand a top-20 NYT mass market bestseller makes about 6-8% on an $8 book. After agent commission, taxes, expenses, etc. that nets to about $0.41/book.
Would you voluntarily pay your favorite author $1 for their next book? Hell I sure would, even if it was available for download for free elsehwere.

I'd cheerfully pay Gaiman $10 today (direct) for the next 3 books he'll write on spec, and count myself gleefully happy. I *won't* pay $14 for a new book for my kindle, just because paper copies sell for $15. That's nonsensical.

Re:Yawn

[zippthorne]

Oh, you mean we don't want or need 300 decimal place logarithm tables?

That may be a bad example, but all of them are.

I don't think you can use "we don't want or need this" as a justification for copying something for your billion closest friends to read...

Re:Yawn

[zippthorne]

Most of the publisher's costs are non-existent for e-books, just as most of the risk. Author would probably be better off self-publishing through amazon.

Maybe. The real question is: are there unaffiliated editors that authors can hire, rather than the other way around. It seems to me that that's the real monopoly that the publishing houses have, once you strip them of the dominance over distribution.

Re:Yawn

[blahplusplus]

"I have an honest question: How is an author going to be paid for their time writing the books if we allow one person to purchase the book, and then lend it to an infinite number of people at once?"

I have an honest question, how are we to protect horse and buggy makers from this new fangled technology called the car?

Re:Yawn

[Americano]

Really, so you're also suggesting that AUTHORS have been made obsolete somehow by technology?

I know that AI systems have improved in the past few years, but I don't think we've managed to reduce Shakespeare to a few thousand lines of code yet.

Re:Yawn

[ArundelCastle]

I have an honest question: How is an author going to be paid for their time writing the books if we allow one person to purchase the book, and then lend it to an infinite number of people at once?

Your question rings like the questions that led to the Statute of Anne, in 1709. I don't think there's been a good answer yet.
The principle at the time was that to encourage the sharing of knowledge, authors and artists should be compensated fairly.
Speaking from my experience in design and publishing, I find there is one truth now: the printer always gets paid.

Re:Yawn

[blahplusplus]

"Really, so you're also suggesting that AUTHORS have been made obsolete somehow by technology?"

We do this all the time for other occupations, no one has any problem offshoring/outsourcing/destroying jobs when new technologies that make their skills obsolete (i.e. robots vs manual labor). I doubt you'd say "what about those poor factory workers/mcdonalds workers?", when we finally develop robots that can do manual labor and do food service/house work.

There are tonnes of jobs who've had their skillsets devalued to next to nothing or outright obliterated and none of THOSE people had the law to protect their livelihoods.... perhaps they needed job copyrights? The real issue is just coming up with alternative ways to make money. Creating "digital libraries" that try to treat information like it is scarce is not a solution.

Unfortunately the climate and intellect of people in the US is nowhere near sane solutions, you'll hear cries of "socialism" or other such nonsense, human beings are very territorial and not very intelligent.

The real issue is that there are no good solutions because people will always abuse the system, we already see it in the software industry where you never own your software. You can't modify the source code, etc, etc. Due to 'copyright', 'patents' and 'ip'. There are a whole list of downsides with current systems as they are implemented, there is no public domain since 'ip' never gets released into the public domain due to corporate lobbying. There are possible solutions but the *psychologies' of the people involved will make sure no good solutions are possible.

When you give people money/power/rights people always want to expand those rights especially when money is involved.

Re:Yawn

[Squiggle]

A lot of what's turned out to be incredibly influential work wasn't liked at that time, much of it was outright banned for being offensive to portions of the population.

No funding or business model changes this basic resistance to change. Corporate marketing seeks to control what is acceptable for it's own gain, but I'd guess that much of previous work that was banned or "offensive" ran into similar problems (under different guises of power): people who wield influence and power using it against others. Distributed patronage would be a huge win for the freedom for people choose what things get made.

Not to mention that in many cases you don't know what a work is going to look like until after it's finished.

Neither do any other investors, but still they invest in the very products you use every day. Strange but true.

Your arguments only make sense if you accept the mythology of the corporate culture. If free software culture has shown us anything, it has demonstrated that we can build digital goods that are competitive to every other known form of production, with the benefit of real freedom for everyone, not just those currently free/wealthy enough to make it and/or own what has been made.

We've essentially solved the distribution problem (for digital goods). Now we can apply similar solutions to figuring out who decides what gets made and who gets to make it.

Re:Yawn

[fnj]

So, in other words, it ISN'T infinite, then. It is strictly limited by how many times you can serially lend out each copy of the book before it wears out, and by how many copies the library buys. With electronic replication, it really is essentially infinite. You're not limited to serial lending; it can be parallel without limit. And the library only has to buy one copy. So no, electronic is not ANYTHING like physical.

Physical libraries already lend to an "infinite" number of people, where "infinite" is a number limited only by the book's popularity, durability and the length of time the book is held by each reader

Re:Yawn

[fnj]

No, actually it is plainly NOT a relic of times when it cost serious money to make copies. Sheesh. That would imply copyrights were LESS necessary now than they were then, because ... why, exactly? It is more practical to copy now than it was then. But obviously copyrights were considered necessary then, even given the expense and trouble of copying.

The above is pure logic and assumes that we want authors to be paid per copy. Whether THAT is what we should want is an entirely separate question. Entirely.

[Copyrights are] a relic of an age where making mass numbers of copies required expensive industrial equipment.

Re:Yawn

[G-forze]

That there is the problem. A lot of what's turned out to be incredibly influential work wasn't liked at that time, much of it was outright banned for being offensive to portions of the population.

And the authors of those books hardly wrote them expecting any kind of economic payback.

Re:Yawn

[Sabriel]

I did put quotes around the word "infinite"; perhaps I should have used the word "indefinite"? However, if we're going to be picky, electronic replication is not really essentially infinite, nor is its lending parallel without limit. Hard drives do wear out. Bit errors still occur, however rarely. Parallelism (aka bandwidth) is dependent on the physical infrastructure. So it's really a question of efficiencies, for which electronic is mostly far superior (assuming the technological infrastructure is maintained), but electronic is still "like" physical. And there are - at least for now - some perspectives in which paper remains superior. For example, I've seen used books in good condition that are over a century old. Do we have any e-Readers that will last as long?

Re:Yawn

[VJ42]

But there is nothing stopping a bunch of regular joes from throwing a couple bucks into a pool to raise that much money together.

If any of my favorite authors put a book out like that, I'd throw $5 or $10 into the pot to get it "released".

We would need someone to administer a scheme like that - maybe they could find new authors that we might like & they might also have to do some promotion to get enough people interested in some books. What could we call those people? "Publishers" sounds like a good name for them...

Re:Yawn

[betterunixthanunix]

Except that the primary reason that the constitution allows for the creation of a copyright system -- that's right, allows it, it is not mandated and copyrights are not a natural right -- is to benefit the general public by promoting the production of art and useful sciences. It is not because we specifically want authors or anyone else to be paid; that is simply a means to an end.

When copyrights were only relevant to people in certain industries, nobody had to worry about their natural rights being threatened. Now that copyrights are relevant to everyone, we have a situation in which people need to worry about losing their right to speak freely (yes, this does include the right to repeat what others have said, with or without attribution), their right to use the tools in their own homes, and so forth. Copyright law is also extremely complex, and the average citizen has neither the experience nor the resources to adequately defend themselves in court if they are sued for copyright infringement. The copyright system has also served to limit the effect of technologies that could otherwise have improved public access to arts and sciences (which was the whole point of the copyright system) -- the Internet, for example, should make it possible for anyone to access articles in scientific journals, but in many cases that does not happen, and only people at universities are granted access.

Re:Yawn

[Americano]

Again, we're talking about *authors*. Not bookbinders, typesetters, printing press operators or any other person in the *publishing* end of the business - the creative type who actually writes the book. Your argument doesn't apply to them, unless - as I noted previously - we've had some truly amazing strides in the AI field in the past few months.

Computers are great at automating repetitive & manual tasks. Not so much with writing Moby Dick or The Lord of the Rings.

Re:Yawn

[denzacar]

Why wouldn't there be? It's a skill, not an inherited genetic trait. Plus, editors retire all the time - they don't get euthanized or taken to a glue factory.
But in general, editors are free to do freelance work as it attracts customers to their publisher.
Also, a self-publishing author doesn't really need all those editors that a publishing company might need.

Re:Yawn

[fnj]

Yes, the copyright system has become corrupted, I happen to agree. This has no bearing whatsoever on the logical absurdity of the poster'c comment.

Re:Yawn

[fnj]

Score for logic: 0.

Re:Yawn

[northstarlarry]

people are not entitled to an income. Just because a person chooses to become a book author doesn't mean they're entitled to an income

You're right that no one is entitled to an income, but, sheesh, do you really want to live in a world where the only books that get written are those that will sell millions of copies? I mean, Harry Potter was fun, but surely you can agree that reading Glen Cook, for example, is much more satisfying. Not to mention John Steinbeck or Tolkein.

Surely we, as a society, can come up with some way for authors, who provide valuable stuff to us, to make a (decent) living producing that stuff. I mean, we pay small software developers in the tens of dollars (sevens of euros) for a pile of bits that "doesn't cost anything" to distribute. Is it unreasonable to do similarly for authors of prose?

I'm not saying that every clown who writes an ode to navel fluff should be given a $5K monthly stipend, but perhaps we can consider paying more than the 50 cents that we "have to" per book, so that there will continue to be something worth paying for.

People who write already do so because they love to do it, and they're already generally in the lower-middle class unless they hit the big-big time. That's generally okay with them, because they love what they do. They need time and energy to write good stuff, though, which they won't have if they are hustling tables 35 hours a week.

Wish There Was A Way to Donate eBooks

[SlashdotOgre]

I'm very glad to see programs like this. One of the reasons I chose a Nook over the Kindle was because my local library supported eBook lending. However I wish there was a way to donate eBooks I've purchased to the library (similar to how we can donate physical books). Do any online book sellers provide such an option (allow you to transfer the license)?

Re:Wish There Was A Way to Donate eBooks

[Americano]

Not sure how popular the service will turn out to be, but Amazon supports lending of (some) Kindle books - discretion is left to the publisher, and there is now a service, lendle.me, which is geared towards building a library of lendable books from Amazon that people can share.

Not sure how the library services you use compare, but it's an option for people who own Kindles.

And...

[j00r0m4nc3r]

cue the onslaught of lawsuits from publishers who think this will destroy their business

Re:And...

[Fizzol]

These aren't new books that OpenLibrary is suddenly making available. It's really just a search engine for the Overdrive Library System, and the only in-copyright books they offer are what's already available through Overdrive.

How Can They Control That?

[BJ_Covert_Action]

So, what's to stop someone from making a second and third copy of the e-book when they have it "checked out?" If it's some kind of encrypted, DRM scheme, how long will we have to wait until the DRM scheme is cracked and those encrypted (illegal?) copies are decoded back to the original text? Two weeks? Somehow I fail to see how this will become anything more than a cheaper way to 'buy' ebooks.

Re:How Can They Control That?

[pete-classic]

I had the same questions, so I went to their site. I browsed around. Read the FAQ. Tried to borrow a book.

I still have the same questions.

-Peter

Re:How Can They Control That?

[icebraining]

If the person doesn't mind the copyright infringement, why would she take the trouble to crack the file instead of downloading an already unDRMed ebook from $file_sharing_system?

Re:How Can They Control That?

[blueg3]

Without reading the article, most libraries out there now use ePub-format books and something like Adobe Digital Editions for DRM, which is already cracked. (In the sense that you can acquire the decryption keys. It shouldn't be surprising that decrypting the books is easy.)

Re:How Can They Control That?

[Junta]

Because checking out a book from a library appears completely legitimate to anyone monitoring/logging traffic on the outside and all the 'infringement' is contained entirely within their house and impossible to tell the difference between someone following the rules and someone copying off the data.

Re:How Can They Control That?

[Fizzol]

There's nothing to stop you from stripping the DRM and spreading it around, except your own conscience.

Re:How Can They Control That?

[Defenestrar]

They probably use adobe digital editions or equivalent. I'm pretty sure the adobe security has been broken and cracking scripts made that relatively low-tech-savviness persons could use, but I think that many of us still wish to do things legally (hence the popularity of overdrive vs pirate bay). I'm a big fan of my local tax money going to buy books (which supports authors, editors, publishers, etc...) and then lets me have an extremely large volume of quality work for a fraction of the cost without too much inconvenience in sharing it with the rest of the community. I'd be highly supportive of these people getting some government grants (funded by my taxes) to make a very large national electronic library.

Re:How Can They Control That?

[Capt.DrumkenBum]

There's nothing to stop you from stripping the DRM and spreading it around, except your own conscience.

Good thing I had my conscience surgically removed years ago. It is a very simple procedure, involving lazers. It is commonly preformed on politicians.

Re:How Can They Control That?

[Mr. Slippery]

. I'm a big fan of my local tax money going to buy books (which supports authors, editors, publishers, etc...)

So why not just have tax money go directly to authors and editors, rather than introduce artificial monopolies and scarcities into the equation?

Re:How Can They Control That?

[Defenestrar]

Editors don't do typesetting (possibly more important with variable displays), promotion, market analysis, advance payments (especially important for a new author taking the risk to go full time or invest in research (it's possible a gov't grant system might be able to do something similar)), arrange anthologies, introduce compatible authors for collaboration, and possibly the most valuable service - sift through the mountains of amature work that isn't yet worth the general public's time. There may be non traditional ways of meeting these services, but take note that none of the above have anything to do with black pigment or dead trees. Publishers still earn their keep; although the smart author should keep up with electronic book trends and use that knowledge when they negotiate the splitting of royalties.

Copy

[FenixBrood]

Or you just lend the same book to many people. You can have the law allow for public library to lend books... becourse it helps the people.

Re:If it's really fragile...

[vlm]

... then it's old enough to be OUT OF COPYRIGHT

You'd be surprised how fast acid paper decays. Yellows, cracks, falls apart. You can actually buy cheap paperbacks at physical barnes and noble stores that have started to decay.

In my opinion copyright law should be short enough for it not to be an issue, but, it most certainly is not.

The other failure mode is heavily used books that are out of print. Go ahead, try to get some newly printed Leo Frankowski. Good Luck. Doesn't have to be ancient to get worn out.

Re:can I checkout slashdot?

[Desler]

For example, after I "checkout" a book, how do they enforce me to "return" the book.

Simple, after x amount of days the DRM prevents you from accessing it any more. Wow, that was hard.

Re: destroy publisher's business

[TaoPhoenix]

Amazing how Slashdot hasn't run a story (did I miss it?) on Borders being on the verge of bankruptcy. B&N isn't doing so well either. THAT would pulverize the publishing industry.

Re:out of print

[TaoPhoenix]

I love the Out of Print scam.

They moan "oh, it costs too much to reprint it" - but skies alive help you if you get a private backer and do it yourself, they'll drill you with a copyright lawsuit.

I honestly don't see the point in this

[Fizzol]

Overall it's not really very useful. Its ebook loans go through Overdrive, so if the title you're interested in isn't available as an ebook from your library then you're out of luck. Why bother going through Open Library when I can just use the search engine at my own library instead? Any PD books they have are going to be available at any number of places so why bother?

So what?

[bLanark]

So what?

I live in semi-rural England (Bracknell Forest.) I can check out audio books (spoken word) from our library online using our council (municipal) website. This is just doing it with text/pdf/proprietary format files, which, to me, is no more impressive.

Lot of fuss about nothing. Go on, mod me down!

Re:So what?

[hedwards]

I hear tell that you can now make phone calls, not by twisting a dial or turning a crank, but by pushing buttons, and sometimes you can even have the phone dial the previous number again!

Re:can I checkout slashdot?

[blue trane]

"Why are we still pretending its the dark ages and information is some kind of scarse and privileged entity?"

Because some ppl are happier creating artificial scarcity, because they fear they wouldn't get any attention otherwise.

YAY! Take the future and make it suck!

[Arancaytar]

This is a winning concept. Take the best aspect of digital information and remove them. Next up: Slowing computers to one operation per second and adding the soothing clicky noise an abacus makes, then make a few cell phones without batteries that can only be used while connected to a power cord.

Re:If it's really fragile...

[Even on Slashdot FOE]

You assume that just because they won't sell you something, they don't want to be paid for it. In reality, they are just waiting and trying to keep it to themselves until they think they can make enough money to republish it, and sue anyone who tries to have new copies printed without their permission.

The same thing happens with movies. Studios won't offer a movie unless they think they will make enough (read: a lot of) money selling it to you, even if it hasn't been available in any format for the last 30 years or more.

The Dark Ages are back again

[keneng]

Welcome back to the Dark Ages. LOL! April Fool's is just around the corner. Maybe this is a prank.

Public Lending Right as a model? (UK)

[fantomas]

In the UK, we have the Public Lending Right (also in some other countries). This gives authors a micro payment for every time one of their books is loaned in a public library, something like 5p. a time.

I am not sure how the figures are worked out but the intention is that authors are compensated for public loans that might impact their sales. It's not tied to the number of copies of their books that are stocked by the libraries, but the number of times their books are borrowed. It's summed up and given to them as a payment each year.

I can't see why this couldn't be carried over into the digital realm, indeed it would surely be easier to implement and track than how its managed by recording paper issues at the moment.

Mind you it is a government funded scheme to support the arts so YMMV, some countries might not be able to afford this and some might see it as a dodgy communist plot etc., depends on whether your people feel this is what your nation's government should be doing. Wikipedia article notes some criticisms as well as arguments in its favour...

Re:An honest question of YOU Americano

[Ihmhi]

I know it's a bit of a tired cliche, but please dont' feed the troll - especially in this case. Whoever the hel it is has enough of a grudge on Americano that these posts have been following him around for the last few days (that I've noticed here and there). I don't really know who Americano is other than someone really doesn't like him and takes the time to troll every time he posts, but yeah. Just ignore the guy.

Yes, I realize the inherent irony in that I am essentially feeding the troll by association, but nevertheless.

It's not the libraries' fault

[mmj638]

Unfortunately if you work in libraries you realise that it's the e-book (and other database) vendors that are applying the old world methodologies to their business models and libraries have no choice.

If libraries had their way all the world's published knowledge would be free and open to everyone.

"open" dichotomy

[crimperman]

I'd not come across the Open Library before but I'm beginning to see they have as a warped definition of the word "open" as some software companies do.

From their About us page:
> Open Library is an open project: the software is open, the data are open, the documentation is open...

From one of the DAISY protected books...
> There are two types of DAISYs on Open Library: open and protected. Open DAISYs can be read by anyone in the world on many different devices. Protected DAISYs (like this one) can only be opened using a key issued by the Library of Congress NLS program.

The DAISY website is as clear as the OL one in regards to what this "protection" means but as far as I can tell it's about DRM. Something I would say is far from open.

Re:out of print

[bluefoxlucid]

Amazon Print On Demand. Think about it.

Re:Americano was caught lying, and a liar is a lia

[bluefoxlucid]

And this is relevant to anything that Americano had posted how? You're still misdirecting the conversation to topics that are completely irrelevant to the discussion at hand.

Re:An honest question of YOU Americano

[bluefoxlucid]

My food is highly toxic. Although the same guy responded as 4 ACs. You're right; he's enough of a dork that I don't need to go debasing his social assassination attempts.

Re:Amazon Print on Demand

[TaoPhoenix]

Great minds, sir.

I was thinking about that quite a lot. My biggest beef with Amazon currently is shipping. We completely agree that Print On Demand is the future of books.

The only POD machine I know of in a sales setting is at the Harvard Bookstore. Last year they were using Google Books, but of course the concept works with any properly formatted file. Last year when I checked it out the Harvard Book Store implementation didn't yet have rights/capacity for color covers.

I was just wondering why no one at Borders could get a POD machine in their stores.

Re:If it's really fragile...

[Mr. Slippery]

You'd be surprised how fast acid paper decays. Yellows, cracks, falls apart

I have paperback books that are over fifty years old, and at least one hardback that's over 100. Yellowing doesn't make them unreadable. They could certainly all be scanned and OCRed.