Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

abcnews.go.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 209 posts

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

#181

Post by c0pium »

j_maffe wrote: post #146
c0pium wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Proposing that any rights holder would accept a solution where there is no technical control preventing arbitrary copying is an extraordinary claim which requires extraordinary evidence. I’m not saying it wouldn’t be cool, I’m saying it’s never going to happen. Secondly, you should reread their post, it’s much broader than your interpretation. They were envisioning a world where the device and copying restrictions we…

I'm not sure we're on the same page. How do you think libraries loan out ebooks, currently? DRM for this exact functionality is already implemented by most publishers

You should reread their post, libraries usage is incidental to what they’re talking about. Their point, that first sale should apply to ebooks, requires a fundamentally different approach to DRM. If I own my content and can put it on any device I want, how can the seller be sure I’m only using one copy at a time? Consider the case that I might have it on multiple different devices which aren’t connected to the internet, they’re saying I should be able to do that while keeping the requirement that only one copy be usable at a time.

My reference to quantum was saying that this usage pattern would require something like quantum entanglement to replicate the state of which copy is active among all copies.

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

#182

Post by WalterBright »

samtho wrote: post #168
WalterBright wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The library can buy the stuff used and the publishers make nothing off of such sales. I buy nearly all my books used.

Libraries cannot buy used because they need the asset prepared for circulation. This includes a protective cover, barcoding, etc. They usually have a vendor do this preparation, and the assets (books, usually) are often not the same as what you would find in a store, they can be different sizes to fit in Automatic Materials Handling Systems, have more robust binding, etc.

> Libraries cannot buy used because

They certainly can. They choose not to. When you decide to demand a special binding and special print run, and when you will pay any price, you're going to pay a lot more.

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

#183

Post by WalterBright »

rahimnathwani wrote: post #171
samtho wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Libraries cannot buy used because they need the asset prepared for circulation. This includes a protective cover, barcoding, etc. They usually have a vendor do this preparation, and the assets (books, usually) are often not the same as what you would find in a store, they can be different sizes to fit in Automatic Materials Handling Systems, have more robust binding, etc.

The books are often the same as what you would find in a store. It's possible to put a protective cover on a used book. The books at my local library come in many different sizes, including the size of a paperback novel.

My local library, too. It's also clear they handle the books by hand. There's no automated system.

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

#184

Post by xhkkffbf »

harvey9 wrote: post #178
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If one company has a monopoly on faucets, another has one on pipes, another has one on valves, you're trying to argue that there is plenty of competition for "plumbing supplies" but that doesn't help you if you need a faucet and there's only one supplier. Notice how your argument, if true, would defeat the point of the monopoly. If there were ten books that were all fungible with one another then each of the supplier…

No. I have a monopoly on faucets made to my design, not on faucets generally. Bloomsbury have a monopoly on Harry Potter books, Penguin can still publish Percy Jackson.

Exactly.

This is the same as saying a carpenter has a monopoly on their work. They can sell it to an employer up front by the hour or afterwards as a good. But no one else can come along and take it without paying.

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

#185

Post by snapplebobapple »

miki123211 wrote: post #163
snapplebobapple wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 pe…

> that is the mote that is expensive enough to recreate A somewhat large part of why it is so expensive to recreate is all the regulations and burreaucracy involved in laying cables along public roads. Make that significantly easier and cheaper, and you suddenly need those last-mile regulations a lot less. Network effects are where you actually need regulation.

I am skeptical that removing rwgularion would solve all of the last mile issue because there is a moaaic of different starting posotions and what that looks like determines the deregulated cost of dupkicating service (eg does a govt owned utility own the poles and will allow cheap usage or does the incumbent fpr profit own it and will blocl usage as justone starting condition of many).

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

#186

Post by surge »

ses1984 wrote: post #28
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…

>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.

It's literally less in that the time the copyright is enforced (aka regulated) is less.

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

#187

Post by j_maffe »

c0pium wrote: post #181
j_maffe wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure we're on the same page. How do you think libraries loan out ebooks, currently? DRM for this exact functionality is already implemented by most publishers

You should reread their post, libraries usage is incidental to what they’re talking about. Their point, that first sale should apply to ebooks, requires a fundamentally different approach to DRM. If I own my content and can put it on any device I want, how can the seller be sure I’m only using one copy at a time? Consider the case that I might have it on multiple different devices which aren’t connected to the intern…

I'm not sure if the librarians in the article meant this but that's beside the point. The publishers can enforce a DRM on their side such that only one reader gets it at a time and adjust the contracts with the libraries accordingly, no need for fancy quantum stuff for client-side DRM.

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

#188

Post by ghaff »

beej71 wrote: post #105
ghaff wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.)

Certainly. "How to" books generically I tend to prefer as physical books. I'll buy a super-discounted cookbook now and then if it looks interesting but I much prefer physical cookbooks in general. Same for home repair, etc.--though a lot of that is YouTube these days.

I'm slowly depopulating my house of books I almost certainly won't open again by taking a couple bags to my town library for their annual book sale--and am absolutely not adding any new bookshelves.

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

#189

Post by ClumsyPilot »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #180
ClumsyPilot wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean digital - of course you can have a market for physical things.

Songs are not physical things, but that has never stopped them from being produced for the market. Same goes for stories, and for all other forms of oral content. These are not things that we've ever been short of.

How could you possibly arrive at this conclusion? Think of the most famous stories / literature works before year 1500 - myths of Ancient Greece, the bible, ancient folklore about fairy folk - none of it was produced for a market of any kind.

You are unfairly taking credit for the fundamental human need of self expression, and assigning it to your preferred ideological position.

Can you name 5 famous stories, before year 1500, that were made ‘for the market’?

Even penicillin was not created for the market. Most scientific discoveries weren’t.

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

#190

Post by thaumasiotes »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #189
thaumasiotes wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Songs are not physical things, but that has never stopped them from being produced for the market. Same goes for stories, and for all other forms of oral content. These are not things that we've ever been short of.

How could you possibly arrive at this conclusion? Think of the most famous stories / literature works before year 1500 - myths of Ancient Greece, the bible, ancient folklore about fairy folk - none of it was produced for a market of any kind. You are unfairly taking credit for the fundamental human need of self expression, and assigning it to your preferred ideological position. Can you name 5 famous stories, before…

> How could you possibly arrive at this conclusion?

Because I know what it means to create something for the market?

> Can you name 5 famous stories, before year 1500, that were made ‘for the market’?

Given that I've already pointed out that all such stories were made for the market, how do you expect me to answer this?

Can I name five famous stories from before the year 1500?

The Tale of Cupid and Psyche

The Shahnameh

Nüwa Knocks a Hole in the Sky

The Divine Comedy

The Epic of Gilgamesh

> myths of Ancient Greece, the bible, ancient folklore about fairy folk - none of it was produced for a market of any kind.

As I have already pointed out, all of these were produced for a market. Why would you state otherwise? What do you think it means to offer something on a market? (Why do you think the general term for the space where these things live is "the marketplace of ideas"?)

> Even penicillin was not created for the market. Most scientific discoveries weren’t.

Penicillin wasn't created at all, as you suggest by calling it a "discovery". But we use it today because it was offered on the market by someone who hoped to receive the rewards that the market would offer for it.

Post reply on HN