Quote:
Originally Posted by Laridae
What if public sentiment turned so strongly against the "selfish and greedy" publishers that the public demanded libraries to ignore the publisher's restrictions and make ebooks widely available as a public service?
|
It's true that a lot of paper library books aren't available as eBooks, but there also are eBooks the library does not own in paper. The Overdrive collection for my county is has a lot more current books I am interested in than the new book shelves at my local suburban public library. And when I was in the central Philadelphia library about ten days ago, the new paper book shelves there were pitifully sparse -- certainly not as good as the Philadelphia Overdrive collection.
While the anger against big publishers is real on this board, some is the ramping up that's almost inevitable when opinionated and somewhat like-minded people get together. I can't believe the general public would feel so strongly about publishers as to make regulating them a big public issue. I suppose that if publishers start making Apple/Microsoft-style profit margins, public sentiment could turn against them, but don't count on it.