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

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

#131

Post by j_maffe »

ghaff wrote: post #67
toomuchtodo wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about people who cannot afford a Kindle, or cannot afford to buy e-books?

There are a ton of free books, many even out of copyright, online. I also fully expect libraries will continue to have physical books including recent releases. I'm not advocating for libraries de-emphasizing this aspect of their mission. But I think it will probably naturally happen over time.

The detriment to society due to the lack of proper access of the lower class to knowledge is too much to take this lightly

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

#132

Post by [deleted] »

leotravis10 wrote: post #123
perihelions wrote: post #17

[flagged]

Awful take dude, you don't realize that libraries are currenty on the front lines of America's problems where in a alternative universe, the nation should have done the job not to mention that libraries are under attack by mostly all fronts (governments, politicians, publishers, copyright cartel, right wing zealots just to name a few). https://www.axios.com/2024/02/18/libraries-ebooks-hoopla-lib... https://news.ycomb…

[deleted]

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

#133

Post by snapplebobapple »

ryandrake wrote: post #33
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.

Plus, if you got rid of or reduced copyright, publishers would just find other ways to engage in cartel-like behavior and continue to screw everyone. I can’t think of any case where regulation/government was reduced and companies responded with something less profitable for the company.

How they respond depends on whether the regulation causes or mitigates market power. for example,Something like deregulating the last mile for internet is probably not going to end well because the incumbents control that and that is the mote that is expensive enough to recreate that it causes monopoly. Copyright causes monopoly because it stops marginal price being able to equal marginal cost by allowing only one person the right to provide the copyrighted thing. get rid of it and price goes to zero pretty fast because cost of electronic diatribution is near zero

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

#134

Post by knome »

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.

Being free to share information is the natural state. The copyright is an artificial restriction introduced to allow authors to benefit from their works, and by proxy, the publishers to whom they sell those rights. Perpetual rent seeking is not now nor was it ever the purpose of those laws. They certainly have nothing to do with some sort of physical copy planned obsolescence system.

One of the best features of Valve's Steam platform is exactly that it gives users the ability to perpetually install the software they have purchased, even if the publisher other removes it from the platform. If users were allowed to resale their purchased games, it would be nearly at full par with first sale doctrine.

Digital systems are a modern bypassing of such prior conventions and laws, and it makes perfect sense to extend them in that direction with time.

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

#135

Post by WalterBright »

> one hardcover copy of Cook’s latest novel costs the library $18, it costs $55 to lease a digital copy

I buy the used paperback used for $3.

> a price that can't be haggled with publishers.

Of course they can haggle. They just don't know how to.

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

#136

Post by WalterBright »

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 hardly work there.

Buying things with taxpayer funding and legal mandates is not free market.

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

#137

Post by WalterBright »

ryandrake wrote: post #33
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.

Plus, if you got rid of or reduced copyright, publishers would just find other ways to engage in cartel-like behavior and continue to screw everyone. I can’t think of any case where regulation/government was reduced and companies responded with something less profitable for the company.

> I can’t think of any case where regulation/government was reduced and companies responded with something less profitable for the company.

When the government deregulated air travel prices, routes, and schedules.

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

#138

Post by ta988 »

WalterBright wrote: post #136
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 hardly work there. Buying things with taxpayer funding and legal mandates is not free market.

yep so is buying back bank, mortgage and insurance companies

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

#139

Post by WalterBright »

shiandow wrote: post #65
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.

Fine, abolish copyright then, let's see what happens.

We know what will happen. Germany had no copyright protections in the 19th century. The country's economy boomed, making Germany the industrial powerhouse of Europe.
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