Libraries struggle to afford e-books, seek new laws in fight with publishers • Hacker News Board

Re: Libraries struggle to afford e-books, seek new laws in fight with publishers

#101

Post by ghaff » Sat, Mar 16, 2024, 5:58 PM UTC

AtlasBarfed wrote: post #85

bluish29 wrote: post #4

The argument in publishing industry (about papers and textbooks) is that if you cannot afford to buy/rent at the current market value then you still can use a public/university library to get it. This became actually more of a cliché than an argument over time. Now with a significant portion of textbooks (and books in general) become mainly E-books, the industry limited library capabilities and required pay per lend…

I've never actually heard that argument, must have been invented by the highway robbery textbook market since I was in college. Piracy is seemingly the only bulwark against publisher abuses functionally. With that horrid multi-century copyright ruling, there won't be any free market in specific publications within living human lifetimes. Libraries don't have the political power to do anything. In the video game space…

There are consumer-priced scanners that are already pretty good at supporting de-warping and OCR. (Glossy pages work less well.) I'm surprised I haven't seen a better iPhone app--at least one without a subscription fee. But we're definitely very close.

Re: Libraries struggle to afford e-books, seek new laws in fight with publishers

#102

Post by AlotOfReading » Sat, Mar 16, 2024, 6:04 PM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #38

ses1984 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Cut copyright to a less stupid number like what it was originally 14 years. Make maintaining a copyright for those years contingent on having X % of sales available for free in libraries I’m nitpicking but this isn’t less regulation, it’s different regulation. Some would even say it’s more. You’re reducing a number but adding complexity with the percent sales requirement.

And if we're talking textbooks, I'm not sure what cutting copyright to 14 years actually accomplishes. I'm also not sure how you dole out X% of sales to libraries that might be interested. Especially given libraries are often ill-defined.

I don't think anyone would really complain if such an act assumed "libraries" == "public libraries", a very well defined term that's already enshrined in federal legislation.

Re: Libraries struggle to afford e-books, seek new laws in fight with publishers

#103

Post by vundercind » Sat, Mar 16, 2024, 6:13 PM UTC

zinodaur wrote: post #96

armchairhacker wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Libraries for the purpose of getting information simply don't make sense in the digital age. The internet is far bigger and more accessible than any library, and you can find information on nearly any topic in exclusively ad-free, public domain sites like Wikipedia, the Gutenburg project, and arXiv. Libraries now exist more as a place for community: somewhere quiet anyone can freely hang out, access resources like 3D…

The internet is better for factoids - for learning something, a book is a lot better, if you can get your hands on one. E.g. for a niche topic there's maybe a 5 page wikipedia article, a thousand useless seo fodder blogs, and a bunch of academic papers on the topic. At the library, I can get a 300 page comprehensive text written by an expert whose motive is to actually teach me the topic.

Same experience here. The Web’s excellent for a handful of (important!) topics but kiddie-pool shallow for many others. You quickly run out of Web resources and have to hit interlibrary loan or books stores to keep going.

It’s telling that probably the single most-valuable store of knowledge on the web is… a book piracy website. And even that’s missing tons of stuff.

Re: Libraries struggle to afford e-books, seek new laws in fight with publishers

#104

Post by AlotOfReading » Sat, Mar 16, 2024, 6:20 PM UTC

Vaslo wrote: post #91

bluish29 wrote: post #4

The argument in publishing industry (about papers and textbooks) is that if you cannot afford to buy/rent at the current market value then you still can use a public/university library to get it. This became actually more of a cliché than an argument over time. Now with a significant portion of textbooks (and books in general) become mainly E-books, the industry limited library capabilities and required pay per lend…

Free market works fine. You are welcome to write and release any book you want at whatever cost you want. Authors require lots of money, support costs to create, illustrate, bundle, bind, and ship books. And they won’t waste their time doing that without a profit. Lots of people work for and support those companies and it’s getting more expensive as minimum wages increase. You are just reacting to this because “free…

Why do you bring up the authors like they're the primary ones being harmed? Most aren't making money to begin with because they get such a small piece of the pie. A typical contract might see them get 20-40% of the cut if they do the distribution and marketing themselves. The vast majority of authors are not professional writers as a result, it's just a side gig on top of other jobs. Authors also can't set their own prices (publishers and marketplaces have a big say) and depending on the terms, they may not get any meaningful royalties. This is common in academic publishing for example.

Re: Libraries struggle to afford e-books, seek new laws in fight with publishers

#105

Post by beej71 » Sat, Mar 16, 2024, 6:26 PM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #59

beej71 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Data point: my stuff is all free online, yet people still buy for-profit paper copies. So it's not impossible.

I'm sure some of that happens. But generationally (and what's happened with vinyl notwithstanding) I have to believe that large bulging bookshelves in homes will become less common than in the past. Especially to the degree that more people may be inclined to live in smaller urban apartments.

My personal bookshelf is tiny and evershrinking. But you never know--maybe books will pull a vinyl.

But I think I'd still sell ebooks if I offered them, given the number of requests I've had. (They're programming books and those don't lend themselves well to ebooks.)

Re: Libraries struggle to afford e-books, seek new laws in fight with publishers

#106

Post by Retric » Sat, Mar 16, 2024, 6:29 PM UTC

giraffe_lady wrote: post #50

Retric wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Airlines are often brought up as becoming cheaper with less regulations. While it was mostly manufacturers building more efficient aircraft, people are generally willing to trade leg room for a cheaper fair. That’s exactly the kind of thing regulators and the free market may come to a different compromise. Worse, but cheaper is often quite appealing.

Anything else you've noticed the free market compromising on re: air travel.

Luggage. Airlines make quite a bit hauling cargo on passenger flights so they are essentially subsidizing seats as long as people don’t check bags and charging inflated prices when they do.

Convenience especially in terms of number of flights. This gets into a bunch of economic and logistical issues, but airlines are happy to abandon less profitable areas. While regulators want regular service even if the demand isn’t quite there

Service. The minimum number of attendants is based on safety, airlines would happily cut those workers.

Safety.

Re: Libraries struggle to afford e-books, seek new laws in fight with publishers

#107

Post by jzb » Sat, Mar 16, 2024, 6:39 PM UTC

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #89

snapplebobapple wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its actually an argument for less regulation. Its the regulation causing the market failure. Cut copyright to a less stupid number like what it was originally 14 years. Make maintaining a copyright for those years contingent on having X % of sales available for free in libraries. We are asking the fundamentally wrong question with copyright, we should not be maximizing monopoly for copyright owners, we should be mini…

What you really want here is for ebooks to be subject to First Sale. In general "licensing" should be restricted to the rights of the copyright holder, e.g. giving someone a license to permanently increase the number of copies that exist in the world, as when an author licenses a publisher. If someone has bought a copy , that should be theirs, they should be free to transfer it to other devices and other people as lo…

It doesn’t really make sense to transfer the concept of first sale to digital goods. Even assuming a scheme that allows a library to fully control lending so that only one copy is in use at a time, a digital copy is not going to wear out. So publishers lose out on sales of popular titles when a library would need to refresh a physical copy.

Re: Libraries struggle to afford e-books, seek new laws in fight with publishers

#108

Post by AnthonyMouse » Sat, Mar 16, 2024, 6:40 PM UTC

jzb wrote: post #107

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you really want here is for ebooks to be subject to First Sale. In general "licensing" should be restricted to the rights of the copyright holder, e.g. giving someone a license to permanently increase the number of copies that exist in the world, as when an author licenses a publisher. If someone has bought a copy , that should be theirs, they should be free to transfer it to other devices and other people as lo…

It doesn’t really make sense to transfer the concept of first sale to digital goods. Even assuming a scheme that allows a library to fully control lending so that only one copy is in use at a time, a digital copy is not going to wear out. So publishers lose out on sales of popular titles when a library would need to refresh a physical copy.

It takes longer for a physical copy to wear out than copyright terms should last to begin with. Also, you're allowed to repair books -- because it's your book.

Re: Libraries struggle to afford e-books, seek new laws in fight with publishers

#109

Post by StefanBatory » Sat, Mar 16, 2024, 6:55 PM UTC

StefanBatory wrote: post #12

stop50 wrote: post #2

In Germany the price is capped. Everyone has to sell a new book at the price that was set by the author. This also applies to libraries, for the usage libraries have to pay 3-4 cent per lending to an organisation that distributes the money to the authors(the organisation depends on tge type of the print)

They want to introduce that too in Poland and it's an awful idea. If you set a price that's obligatory to sell book for, it won't become cheaper, it will go up. And I just won't buy it. I see exactly zero reasons why I should care for local bookshops. I'm not made out of money and I won't buy stuff from them only to keep them alive.

To clarify myself - for example, when new book releases, it has suggested price of 60 zł.

Online I can get it for 40. In physical shop for 60; if it's there. Because most likely it won't be. And I can't order, none of the bookshops nearby do this.

Why should I be happy at unified price if all it means is that I will pay 1/3 more?

Re: Libraries struggle to afford e-books, seek new laws in fight with publishers

#110

Post by 14 » Sat, Mar 16, 2024, 6:58 PM UTC

bluish29 wrote: post #4

The argument in publishing industry (about papers and textbooks) is that if you cannot afford to buy/rent at the current market value then you still can use a public/university library to get it. This became actually more of a cliché than an argument over time. Now with a significant portion of textbooks (and books in general) become mainly E-books, the industry limited library capabilities and required pay per lend…

For now I will teach my kids to pirate. Not the best solution because honestly I did pirate when I was poor then honestly tried to move away from those days and got a Netflix account and Amazon prime account but the amazon movie site is just so horrible. Every movie I click it wants me to buy or rent. I never did figure out a way to filter those from not showing up I don’t know if that has changed but I ditched it. Then Netflix disabled the account sharing and I argue I wasn’t really sharing I bought Netflix for my kids to use and I am divorced so that means at 2 different locations. It worked for a bit but now seems to detect the location change and I just said screw it and canceled. It was much more convenient to just pirate which was and still is so easy even my kids know how to find the shows they want. And when they get to university I imagine I will show them how to access text books and articles for free. Sad state of affairs as I really do want to contribute my fair share but not when it is pay hundreds of dollars for a new revision of a text book that didn’t add any new context but simply rearranged the pages a bit so they can call it an new version. In the end the publishers are the problem no piracy so I do not feel bad one bit.