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HarperCollins Wants Library EBooks to Self-Destruct After 26 Loans
An anonymous reader writes: "HarperCollins has decided to change their agreement with e-book distributor OverDrive [and other distributors, too]. They forced OverDrive, which is a main e-book distributor for libraries, to agree to terms so that HarperCollins e-books will only be licensed for checkout 26 times. Librarians have blown up over this, calling for a boycott of HarperCollins, breaking the DRM on e-books -- basically doing anything to let HarperCollins and other publishers know they consider this abuse."
Cory Doctorow, who wrote TFA, says: "For the record, all of my HarperCollins ebooks are also available as DRM-free Creative Commons downloads. And as bad as HarperCollins' terms are, they're still better than Macmillan's, my US/Canadian publisher, who don't allow any library circulation of their ebook titles."
Harper Collins also wants libraries to self-destruct after being used 26 times.
Not only does God definitely play dice, but He sometimes confuses us by throwing them where they can't be seen. -Hawking
How about just keeping actual books in libraries instead? No tech support, no licensing needed. I'm really surprised that libraries, of all places, are jumping on an untested fad so quickly.
I don't respond to AC's.
I agree to their terms but I will be using loan money. It ceases to function after 28 days and gets returned to me.
No deal?? ok I'll just pirate them. You lose.
Inspector Gadget style?
It's okay, I've found gigpedia & usenet have simpler checkout procedures.
It's asinine that library ebooks should self destruct. If they want to negotiate a minimum loan duration to force the library to buy more of popular books, like maybe 1 day per 100 pages, well fine, but checkout counts run contrary to the whole idea of libraries.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
Two car analogies right near the top. Great story
"I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further. "
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
From http://yuhongbao.blogspot.com/2010/06/artificial-scarcity-drm.html :
"Fair use rights
DRM is often used unintentionally or intentionally to take away fair use rights and sometimes sell them back, assisted by anti-circumvention provisions in laws like the DMCA that applies regardless of things like fair use rights."
In this case it is of course first sale, but the point is still the same.
They work when the power goes out
They work when the vendor changes formats for newer releases
They work when civilization collapses and they're found centuries later in a cave
And the don't magically turn into pumpkins when the clock strikes twelve.
There is of course, a way to make a normal book stop working when the availability of its content becomes a problem. It's called fire. It's generally bad form to burn a paper book. Why exactly is it socially acceptable to DRM a book again?
This is just another attack from the corporate powers against what is known as "The Commons". They won't be happy until they've destroyed any social institution that doesn't function to create profits for corporations. From prisons to libraries, there have been institutions in our society that we hold "in common". Public libraries, public schools, public safety (police and fire departments) even parks are all facing coordinated assaults on their very existence as public institutions. Corporations hate these things because people make use of them without enriching the economic elite. Hell, they don't even believe you should be able to lend something you bought to a neighbor or friend.
It can only happen if we go along with it.
What Harper Collins wants to do, what the RIAA and MPAA want to do, make a great case for civil disobedience, which in this case might take the form of "piracy" (an inaccurate label). Why would you want to buy a book from someone who holds you in such contempt?
And it is definitely possible to support the artists without supporting the corporations. It just takes a little more thought and effort.
You are welcome on my lawn.
They better not block screen readers and the blind should sue.
1) Print
2) Scan
3) OCR
4) PDF
5) Lend at will, as many times as you please.
Although it isn't legal, in this case I think it could and should be regarded as simple civil disobedience. Prohibition was brought down largely by people's flagrant disregard for it. If enough people thumb their noses at this foolishness, then perhaps we can all stop fighting about obsolete business models and get on with taking full advantage of the things our shiny new technology offers us.
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
I don't care if other publishers won't license to libraries at all.
What I want is e-books to be available to libraries just like regular books, and to be able to be loaned-out indefinitely.
The one-loan-per-license restriction is the only compromise I am willing to make.
I, for one, am sick and tired of literates.
The great problem that libraries have is that most of them aren't used by the people that support them. As local governments are increasingly finding, you can shut a library and other than some well written letters to the editor, most taxpayers will go along with it. Public libraries have been around for 150 years and were far more important in ages where books were a lot less accessible. Spin forward to today and the use of public libraries has been declining. Part of this is the Internet. A lot of the information you once would have once gone to the library for you can search the internet for on your mobile phone. Schools have libraries that complement their curriculum, and Universities tend to be the place where you go if you are looking for more obscure books. My high school library was superior to the civic library when it came to research for papers back then. If I couldn't find stuff in my high school library, I had to go to the University library, because civic libraries didn't carry those sorts of books.
Although it is nice to believe that the community is charitable enough to want to spend money on putting books into the hands of people that can't afford them, a lot of people aren't willing to fund public health for poorer people. If you aren't willing to fund doctors for poor kids, you probably don't give a rats about making sure they have access to books. What is comes down to is that as much as a certain segment of the community likes the IDEA of libraries, the majority of the community doesn't give a rats arse because they never use them. That makes them an easy cut when local municipalities are trying to right the balance sheets.
People would rather less services than more tax and that puts libraries, increasingly less utilized, squarely into the "this is a luxury" column.
They don't work in the dark.
They cost a forest and a polluted river.
They require huge structures to house them, constant vigilance to watch for mold and deterioration, mice and fire.
Caves are not where you find books.
They bring jack booted thugs to demand their surrender for burning.
Books have to be carried around, you can never carry very many of them. Moving house is a bitch.
Shipping them is expensive. Printing them is expensive. This leads to a artificial scarcity of ideas and knowledge.
Books out of print may never come back into print. If you didn't buy it then, it may not be possible ever again.
Long after the copyright has expired, the Physical DRM encumbering books still hinders their distribution and replication.
ok, I'll get off your lawn now.....
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
/* empty */
Actually, you might be on to an idea.
Can we contact the agents for Ray Bradbury for permission to crowd-source Fahrenheit 451?
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
A new organization to stuff DRM where it should be U.P. Y.O.U.R. A.S.S.
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Media that can be recorded and distributed can be recorded and distributed.
-kfg
Harper Collins = Newscorp = Rupert Murdoch = Fox
I'll assume you asked this seriously. Despite OverDrive's claim that all you need is your ebook reader, you actually have to download and install a "minder" program from Adobe onto a regular PC. You cannot check out an eBook directly from the library, nor can you check it out to any old device and side-load it. You have to run the Adobe app, which comes in 3 flavors: Windows, Mac, and Screw You (Linux and everyone else). The Adobe app downloads the eBook and peers into your eReader to get the information needed to encrypt the eBook before uploading it into the eReader.
Yes, you heard that right. Not only are you tied to a desktop machine with limited OS choices to get the book into your eReader, you have to provide the resources to put the resulting document under DRM.
If it sounds like forcing the slaves to forge their own shackles, well....
nobody wants to work anymore, everyone just wants to get paid
http://stephan.sugarmotor.org
All I take from this, is that Cory Doctorow needs to have all of his book rights under a better publisher than Macmillan.
Ah finally the fascist fucks found the one time password concept.
Cory Doctorow, who thinks that copyright is abused, uses the full protection of copyright on his most current works. Guess restrictive copyright is OK if it makes him Money.
Books smell musty and-and-and rich. The knowledge gained from a computer is a - it, uh, it has no-no texture, no-no context. It's-it's there and then it's gone. If it's to last, then-then the getting of knowledge should be, uh, tangible.
Pirated versions of your content do not have these annoying restrictions.
Actually with new printing technology, it's getting easier for the printers to sprint small batches of books, and may become economical to do single prints upon request, so a book will eternally be available in print upon demand.
Actually, it's a new first step, pushing each of the other five down the stack:
6) Buy the book.
You need something to scan, and the publisher and writer need to make SOMETHING.
In many cases, they'll make more because of a potential step 7--some of the people to whom you lend the pdf will want to buy their own paper copy.
Wait to borrow books that do this until someone comes up with a point and click script that rips the DRM off the eBook, like the one I use on my purchased Sony Reader books (linux user, their appstore won't work on linux.) Win.
They cost a forest and a polluted river.
And electronic trash is any better?
sysadmins and parents of newborns get the same amount of sleep.
...buy things with DRM... or that need to be jailbroken. If they didn't make any money at this, they wouldn't do it...
Libraries should simply buy paper books instead of ebooks while this policy is in place.
Respect the Constitution
Let them have their 26 checkouts, if I can have copyright protection only last 60 years, instead of the 120 congress is pushing towards.
They bring jack booted thugs to demand their surrender for burning.
Dude that is so old school. These days you don't need firemen to burn unwanted books/ideas. In a world of electric books on multi-media devices there are two far simpler options:
Respect the Constitution
Do books cause more pollution than creating an e-reader?
The library is forced to use a lending system that encodes the ebook with a unique key that ties it to an authorised reading device/service.
To become authorised, it means your device/service has to honour the limited time flag embeded into the encoded book.
Aldiko has just implimented the adobe DRM into their reader software (Android - and doubled the size of the app for it) so they
cold let people read encumbered books - including those from the library (overdrive) system.
It seems any more innovations in communication and information publishing are about maximizing the sales channel rather than providing value to the consumer.
Now I know how poor rice farmers in India must feel as the seeds from their rice harvest can't be regrown after some clever biotech company introduced a terminator gene to protect their IP and profits.
They bring jack booted thugs to demand their surrender for burning.
At least that is a conspicuous abuse of power. With e-books, someone at amazon enters a command or two and Orwell's works go *POOF*
It also ignores the fact that books are made out of what would otherwise be waste product of the sawmills that cut the lumber we use throughout the rest of society
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
Makes sense to me, cause y'know regular books self-destruct after 26 loans too, right? Oh, wait...
Should you choose to accept this E-book.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Libraries should simply buy a different publisher's books instead while this policy is in place.
I mean, really. What are they being paid for? The author writes a book, presumably in digital form... ebook publisher does exactly what before posting it into the Apple store or Amazon? Sprinkle fairy dust on it?
I can see the need for an editor to proofread and make some quality suggestions, so freelance or editing companies, but then? Advertising? Google Ads...
and?
Buh bye publishing houses.
Deleted
Crazy as this sounds at first its actually in practice not that far from the reasonable British library system. For every library book taken out ten pence is given to the author. There is a cap on how much they can get but very few authors exceed it. Many authors are kept going by their annual library cheque. 26x 10p is about $4. I don't know what overdrive charge for a book. Of course in the UK all the 10p goes to the author not the publisher but they do get to sell an awfully large amount of books to libraries in the first place and they do wear out eventually.
Oh this of course does not actually yet apply to ebook libraries but the legislation has been organized, they just have not found time to pass it yet but it should be in the next year or so.
Of course better would be one giant national electronic copyright library that received the all books for free and then charged everyone 10cents for reading each one. If they could track which ones are actually read more than half way and adjust accordingly that would be good too. John Grisham would end up with less money but the vast majority of authors would get much more money than at the moment. The cost would be tiny per head, even if free reading takes time and its unlikely people would rack up more than a dollar a head for the adult population.
Are you for hire, my hero?
Athy, athier, athiest.
not to support those who support DRM, but I can kind of see where HaperCollins is coming from. I mean paper books degrade over time, ebooks do not. I can't claim to know if '26' is the avg borrowers of a paperbook before it gets replaced (or more likely retired), but if HC is just trying to make sure the libraries aren't getting more for their dollar (actually, that HC is getting less $s for their work), then I have no beef with them.
A large collection requires lots of floor space which costs a lot.
You can never have as big a collection as you could with electronic materials.
Lots of cost in acquisition and (sometimes) cataloguing.
Lots of manual labour involved in processing, shelving etc requiring large staff and costs.
Only one person can read them at a time.
Books get returned late, and they get lost.
Yes or no, depending on the scale. Remember, each e-book is simply data, whereas each physical book is a little bit more pollution. So an e-reader versus 5 books might create more pollution, but versus 500? I doubt it.
Yet Another Tech Blog
(but so much more, including game and movie reviews)
http://yanteb.peasantoid.org
[citation needed]. Seriously you just pulled that out of your arse. For one most paper used in the west is not made in china, unlike your ebook reader. For another paper has been using sustainable wood in the west for a very long time now. I would not be surprised that a single ebook reader produced *much* more pollution than 500 books.
They cost a forest and a polluted river.
A real man prints his books on rag paper.
It's insane the levels some people go to maximize profits. If they would just lower prices so that it's budget-able for the common American then there really wouldn't be any need for DRM. The entertainment industry estimates it's loosing 3 billion a year, but when you consider that they are making several times that, they are loosing a percentage that is less than that of what is considered a minority in America. And are they factoring the costs of combating piracy into their losses? And if they are then it it really a fair calculation?
What is really funny is that the top ten best selling books on amazon all cost $10 or less with most at only $3 or less. If we would just price the books to that they are affordable then people would have no want to pirate the books. It's the fact that people cannot afford to buy multiple books at $30-$50 ($150-$250 for university text books) that make people want to pirate the books. On top of that it costs them only a fraction of a cent to distribute an e-book, e-video, or other e-content. The best way to make money is to price it so that anyone who wants it can buy it at a price that won't really effect them. I think they are just shooting themselves in the foot. Because when you do the math 26 checkouts means that there will be as many as 33554432 copy's in circulation before the book starts destroying itself. It only takes one accomplished hacker to get ahold of one of these copy's to remove the protection and suddenly now it's free for everyone to pirate on the internet.
I'm beginning to think that DRM is costing more than it's saving, It's not encouraging anyone to buy legitimate products. it's just encouraging people to move over to free solutions. Pirated, open source, creative commons, etc... In fact i think the price of installing DRM on all of this content, and filling lawsuits, is actually costing them more than they are making by having it. When and if i publish anything i will do so with all of this in mind, and any publisher who wants to sign me will have to sign a contract i write not the other way around.
Speaking as a reader, an author and a publisher - I like libraries. Libraries benefit the publisher, the author and the reader.
But some history: Publishers have been trying to destroy libraries for over a century. They've failed so far and hopefully will continue to fail. Not everyone is going to buy a book. Not ever book is worth buying. Every library book was bought, either by the library or someone else who then donated it to the library. The publisher made their money. They're just greedy. If they get their way you will have to repay every time you read your own book and heaven forbid, NO you can NOT lend your book to your spouse or your kid. Nor can you read it in the bedroom and then start the next chapter in the living room. You must read it all within 24 hours in the same chair.
Personally, I'm not doing the ebook thing yet because these issues are still in flux and I don't want my collection of books lost just because I change ereaders. I'll stick to PDF (wow! all those free documents) and paper books of which I have many. Harper Collins can suck glue.
The spam challenge this time is "spited". As in, I loaned the book and spited the publisher. Bravo.
As many comments previous, Harper Collins have contractual obligations to Authors unless they have waived their rights.
Just do not buy any Harper Collin's books anymore. Besides most will remember the fiasco of Amazon bricking peoples' Kindles.
The reality is Ladies and Gentlemen... you are being held to Ransom and actually is an indirect threat. I was up to page 499 and it turned itself off!
All cows eat grass!
fix your business models, you stupid cunts
Cory Doctorow Who??
Free books = poor quality
Near free books = still poor quality
Ask Rosetta Stone if they will sell e-books with unlimited copies.
They won't even sell as e-book because they sell higher quality.
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