E-books at local libraries: a fight between publishers and librarians • Hacker News Board

Re: E-books at local libraries: a fight between publishers and librarians

#111

Post by johnchristopher » Mon, Sep 16, 2019, 6:04 PM UTC

falcolas wrote: post #94

davinic wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this has something to do with how to brain stores memories, and that storage is highly entwined with a spatial location. Somehow being able to tie that memory to a location in space makes it more concrete for me. If I remember a fact from a book I can also usually remember the physical location of the fact inside the book. My point is that it's not a conscious process, so the book/map isn't replaced by a simp…

> being able to tie that memory to a location in space makes it more concrete for me This sounds a lot like the old "visual/auditory/physical learning" phenomenon to me. Were it truly the case, the old O'Reilly books would be the best possible resources for programmers, and not StackOverflow, blogs, and online programming language documentation.

You moved the goal post. Books can't cover everything but deal with the general. SO/blogs are typically concerned with corner cases or specific assignements/problems.

Re: E-books at local libraries: a fight between publishers and librarians

#112

Post by shantly » Mon, Sep 16, 2019, 6:08 PM UTC

lonelappde wrote: post #104

shantly wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more about the convenience than the price, for me. I'd pay $30, maybe $40, per month for access to basically anything I want to watch (past that I may as well buy as I watch, and even at $40 I'd have to do the math to make sure it's sensible). It's having to keep up with several subscriptions, having to figure out where something is when I want to watch it, inconveniences like logging in on a new device, expired…

Google Search deep-links from approximately every supported movie to the steaming provider that supports it. Just as easy as Popcorn Time.

Just tried it with Mission Impossible: Fallout, which I just watched the other day on Amazon Prime's streaming thingy. Google search results give me a list of purchase options across the top in a little box, including Amazon, so that's good. Doesn't say I can stream it but I guess it doesn't know I'm logged in & have prime, which it shouldn't, so that's fine too I guess, but it doesn't tell me I could stream it with subscriptions to any of those places, just tells me purchase prices. Oh well, I happen to know it's streaming on Amazon in this case, which is cheating, but whatever.

I click it. It takes me to Amazon, where I am already logged in. I can watch the trailer or "buy" (digital purchase, so "long term rental") it for $20(!). There's no indication I can stream it with Prime. Even knowing it's available I can't figure out how to do it from this screen—I'd have to just search again on Amazon and hope for the best.

Re: E-books at local libraries: a fight between publishers and librarians

#113

Post by moate » Mon, Sep 16, 2019, 6:14 PM UTC

rini17 wrote: post #109

moate wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The book is being bought. The libraries aren't getting these books for free. If you, private citizen Hitton, want to buy this book the day it's released and then lend it out to every single person you know, you're able to do this. Why shouldn't the library? Also, there are lending limits on e-books from libraries. It's not as if the library can buy the e-book and then lend it out simultaneously to 20,000 people. They…

The limit of 1 (one) copy per library described in article seems fully reasonable to you?

No, of course not. That's my point. OP is throwing out a "let them eat cake" argument about how he's fine with this state of affairs. I'm pointing out that the libraries are buying these e-books in order to lend them out.

Personally I feel that the publishers are misunderstanding their market. Library people are library people. It's a small, heavy-use userbase. People who buy books the second they come out aren't going to suddenly become library people because a few dozen more e-books become available early on. There's still limits on how the libraries are allowed to lend them (i.e. they can't buy one book and lend it out 100 times, but they could buy 100 books and lend those out 100 times).

This feels like publishers are misunderstanding their users, but at the same time I'm just one user, wtf do I know.

Re: E-books at local libraries: a fight between publishers and librarians

#114

Post by Noos » Mon, Sep 16, 2019, 6:25 PM UTC

tadzik_ wrote: post #8

> There’s a tension in e-book pricing generally between consumer expectations that a digital file will be less expensive than a physical copy and the reality that very little of the cost of making a book is tied up in the physical format There's more to this than the cost of making a book. As a consumer, a physical thing inherently has more value than a digital one because it keeps the value after I buy it. I can len…

The ebook takes up no space, and can't be damaged or lost. It doesn't even have physical dimensions, so if you want you can read it on a tiny ultra portable screen or a large tablet for ease of use. All ebooks have large print options where as physical books these are separate purchases and may not be able to even have for anything but the most popular books. ebooks are searchable to a word level, where physical books rely on indexing.

There's a lot of benefits to ebooks as well.

Re: E-books at local libraries: a fight between publishers and librarians

#115

Post by logfromblammo » Mon, Sep 16, 2019, 6:43 PM UTC

shantly wrote: post #82

logfromblammo wrote: post #68

It seems to me as though an interlibrary alliance could pool resources to create their own digitizations of print-version books. They already pay extra for the library edition of a print book. For that higher price, they are supposed to get more durable covers and paper. For a more expensive e-book, what do they get? Self-destructing DRM. Why would anyone agree to that--especially a library? If it is legal to lend ou…

Your scheme requires copying the work, probably several times, and distributing some of those copies, so it won't fly. I'm pretty sure the fact that digital lending necessarily makes tons of copies of the work—consider live server disk, backups (possibly many copies there), copies in cache across who knows how many devices on the Internet, the copy on the user's device, copies in RAM all over the place, et c., such t…

What we know to be a copy by common sense, real world interpretation of the word "copy" is not necessarily what copyright law considers to be a "copy" for the purposes of enforcing copyright laws.

Is holding a book up to a half-silvered mirror making a copy of it? Is looking over someone else's shoulder as they read making a copy? Do the activation levels in a person's visual cortex count as a copy?

It may be useful to keep hairs unsplit, forget about the quantum mechanics of copying and focus on the observers. If there are two files with identical content on a filesystem such that only one user is authorized to read them, how many copies exist?

To me, that's two copies in fact, but one copy by copyright law, in that the second real-life copy is not separable from the first for the purposes of commerce. The act of changing the access permissions on the second identical file would be what makes it a copyright-copy, not the act of duplicating the bits.

Re: E-books at local libraries: a fight between publishers and librarians

#116

Post by Veedrac » Mon, Sep 16, 2019, 6:54 PM UTC

nirvdrum wrote: post #29

johnchristopher wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I often re-read or consult books (or chapters) I've read on a whim. If I had to e.g. take my library on vacations to do the same thing I can trivially do on a Kindle I'd need to travel with a minivan full of books. Isn't that a FOMO argument, though ? As a consumer the advantage of e-books are: ease of organization and ease of buying, no page flipping sounds in bed, ease of transportation. But what I really want ?…

A multi-page e-ink book would be nice. I love my Kindle for certain types of reading, but when I read, I like to flip back to previous sections. Search doesn't work because I rarely know verbatim what I'm looking for or the search terms are flooded with answers from the entire book, when I really want it narrowed down to a particular area. With physical books, I just remember roughly how far into the book it was and…

KOReader for the Kobo has a skim feature which works OK for this purpose, though you're always going to run against framerate issues on these devices until CLEARink or such becomes widely available.

Re: E-books at local libraries: a fight between publishers and librarians

#117

Post by shantly » Mon, Sep 16, 2019, 6:59 PM UTC

logfromblammo wrote: post #115

shantly wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your scheme requires copying the work, probably several times, and distributing some of those copies, so it won't fly. I'm pretty sure the fact that digital lending necessarily makes tons of copies of the work—consider live server disk, backups (possibly many copies there), copies in cache across who knows how many devices on the Internet, the copy on the user's device, copies in RAM all over the place, et c., such t…

What we know to be a copy by common sense, real world interpretation of the word "copy" is not necessarily what copyright law considers to be a "copy" for the purposes of enforcing copyright laws. Is holding a book up to a half-silvered mirror making a copy of it? Is looking over someone else's shoulder as they read making a copy? Do the activation levels in a person's visual cortex count as a copy? It may be useful…

In that case why are libraries bothering with jumping through these hoops and paying extra money for expiring ebooks anyway?

Re: E-books at local libraries: a fight between publishers and librarians

#118

Post by dawnerd » Mon, Sep 16, 2019, 7:13 PM UTC

tadzik_ wrote: post #8

> There’s a tension in e-book pricing generally between consumer expectations that a digital file will be less expensive than a physical copy and the reality that very little of the cost of making a book is tied up in the physical format There's more to this than the cost of making a book. As a consumer, a physical thing inherently has more value than a digital one because it keeps the value after I buy it. I can len…

I feel the same way about video games. When I do buy them, I try to buy a physical copy that I can sell/lend/whatever. Digital copies are pretty much useless once you're done playing them. Also kinda ridiculous that digital copies cost the same as physical, or often times cost more when the physical copies go on sale.

Re: E-books at local libraries: a fight between publishers and librarians

#119

Post by zajio1am » Mon, Sep 16, 2019, 7:13 PM UTC

tadzik_ wrote: post #8

> There’s a tension in e-book pricing generally between consumer expectations that a digital file will be less expensive than a physical copy and the reality that very little of the cost of making a book is tied up in the physical format There's more to this than the cost of making a book. As a consumer, a physical thing inherently has more value than a digital one because it keeps the value after I buy it. I can len…

> With a digital book (or any other digital good) I lose all of that.

AFAIK, first-sale doctrine is accepted in both US and EU. There are ECJ judicates confirming legality of reselling used software. So i am pretty sure i can sell, trade or donate my e-books.

Re: E-books at local libraries: a fight between publishers and librarians

#120

Post by fouric » Mon, Sep 16, 2019, 7:19 PM UTC

> If I wanted to borrow A Better Man by Louise Penny—the country’s current No. 1 fiction bestseller

> Public libraries are engaged in one of the most valuable series of community services for all ages, for all audiences

> If you think about equitable access to information for everybody, there shouldn’t be discrimination or anything like that

Devil's advocate: the article (and many of the persons mentioned) seem to be discussing primarily works of fiction, not e.g. textbooks or technical reference books. How is this part of "a valuable series of community services"? It seems like they just want the ability to consume more entertainment media for free, and are trying to disguise it as part of the (noble) effort of trying to make access to information egalitarian.