An eBook User’s Bill of Rights

[rogue_librarian]

http://librarianinblack.net/libraria...ookrights.html

Interesting read. (Via BoingBoing)

[Giggleton]

Yes it's interesting.

A question for you, If I came into your library wishing to donate an ebook collection that I had purchased, would you accept these ebooks and place them into general circulation?

[rogue_librarian]

My library wouldn't want your ebooks, I am afraid (that's because we serve a very narrow, specialist clientele). But, no, your run off the mill public library couldn't use them either, I am afraid. Copyright law wouldn't allow for it.

[Giggleton]

Originally Posted by rogue_librarian

My library wouldn't want your ebooks, I am afraid (that's because we serve a very narrow, specialist clientele). But, no, your run off the mill public library couldn't use them either, I am afraid. Copyright law wouldn't allow for it.

That is a very big problem. Would you agree? Or are public funds now to be used to purchase limited use licenses for knowledge? Just saying that makes me want to puke.

[Anthem]

Good to see people thinking about the issue.

[jbcohen]

Do you think publishers will ever except this? Personally no.

[Worldwalker]

By the way, a lot of libraries won't accept donations of pbooks for their collections, either. They'll just put them in the bin for the next book sale. I suspect they're afraid of being flooded with "donations" from every kook on the planet, and really don't want to give shelf space to the flat-Earthers and other whack jobs.

[rogue_librarian]

Our municipal library happily accepts any and all "right of first refusal" donations. What they don't want to keep for themselves they put up for patrons to buy for a token amount (50 cents, negotiable), what's not sold even there is donated to charity after a few weeks (thrifts stores will take anything, it seems).

[leebase]

I disagree with the "right" to resell a digital file. There is no degradation of a digital file and no way to guarantee that someone isn't keeping the file the "sold" nor selling multiple copies. Physical and digital goods are different

Lee

[snipenekkid]

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

By the way, a lot of libraries won't accept donations of pbooks for their collections, either. They'll just put them in the bin for the next book sale. I suspect they're afraid of being flooded with "donations" from every kook on the planet, and really don't want to give shelf space to the flat-Earthers and other whack jobs.

and those making such a decision need to be fired. Libraries MUST be non-judgmental and tolerant of all ideas and ideals whether they are personally distasteful or not. Might as well ban Mark Twain. Nothing wrong with an adults only section in a library. In fact such a move would be quite progressive. It's an fugly image in many, many cases but not as bad as censoring legal books.

One could easily make a case to not allow books on WWII with concentration camp photos or Vietnam era books with photos from the battle field or prison camps.

Sorry don't wanna derail what is a good thread. I'll stop at what I've written.

[Giggleton]

Originally Posted by leebase

I disagree with the "right" to resell a digital file. There is no degradation of a digital file and no way to guarantee that someone isn't keeping the file the "sold" nor selling multiple copies. Physical and digital goods are different

There is indeed degradation of a digital file, but it appears in reverse, as the work required to maintain readability of a work as the digital medium changes formats. Without this conversion work, the file will eventually become useless, unable to be read.

I must say that I believe the act of transcribing a work into a form that is machine readable, either from print to digital or from past digital to future digital adds enough value to the work as to null the previous owner's copyright of the work.

[Kali Yuga]

Originally Posted by snipenekkid

and those making such a decision need to be fired. Libraries MUST be non-judgmental and tolerant of all ideas and ideals whether they are personally distasteful or not.

Libraries are not under any obligation to abandon any and all editorial control.

Editing != censorship.

[Kali Yuga]

Originally Posted by Giggleton

There is indeed degradation of a digital file, but it appears in reverse....

The proper term you're grasping for is "enhance," not "reverse degradation."

That said, it is arguable that digital copies will, in fact, outlast paper. Paper is an extremely stable medium, especially when made from the right materials (e.g. acid-free paper). It is unclear what will happen to the exabytes of data that will need to be migrated constantly in the future, lest it be lost.

Similarly there are some who argue that we will lose the marginalia (e.g. notes and annotations in the margins) in the digital age, which theoretically could affect future scholarship.

Originally Posted by Giggleton

I must say that I believe the act of transcribing a work into a form that is machine readable, either from print to digital or from past digital to future digital adds enough value to the work as to null the previous owner's copyright of the work.

Dude, that is not how copyright works, and by now you should know it. You may not like it, but copyright applies just as much to a digital work as to paper. The only difference in that respect is that it is easier to infringe the copyright of most digital works than paper -- any more than inventing a device that would make it easier to grow marijuana, in and of itself, makes not make marijuana a better or worse candidate for legalization.

[pietrocrazy]

Originally Posted by leebase

I disagree with the "right" to resell a digital file. There is no degradation of a digital file and no way to guarantee that someone isn't keeping the file the "sold" nor selling multiple copies. Physical and digital goods are different

Lee

It's acceptable to sell old CDs, and of course CDs are easily copied by anyone with a computer and very little technical know-how. It's ok to sell old DVDs, which are also easily copyable. Netflix somehow stays in business even though people can literally get any DVD they want and copy it. Libraries lend CDs and DVDs even though they have no way of knowing if someone is keeping or giving away copies. It's also perfectly legal to take a book that you own and turn it into an ebook, though this is of course much more labor intensive and not often done.

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that people can and do copy many things. Why should this fact prevent a second sale in the case of ebooks but nothing else?

[GreenMonkey]

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

That said, it is arguable that digital copies will, in fact, outlast paper. Paper is an extremely stable medium, especially when made from the right materials (e.g. acid-free paper). It is unclear what will happen to the exabytes of data that will need to be migrated constantly in the future, lest it be lost.

Agreed. I think your odds of using a 15-year old paperback book is easier than getting a word processor file open from the 90s. I just engaged in this recently , trying to get a ton of files open from a Pentium 60mhz computer. Win 3.1 files (originally sourced in some sort of DOS word processor). Getting it to open and convert without losing a large hunk of the file took me hours of tinkering. Even getting the files off of the 100mb HDD was difficult. The HDD would not work on a modern IDE or USB adapter. Ended up with file copying operations in DOS via floppy and shuttling via a USB floppy drive.

I still didn't convert them all. I gave my dad step-by-step instructions, the original files on a usb stick, and left it up to him. I don't have the hours it would take to open-convert-save every one of those files to turn them into relatively modern Word docs.

I imagine we'll see more of these problems in the future. At work we had some powerpoint files and such from Office 98 that cannot be opened under XP/Office 2003. Never did figure out how to open and convert them. I anticipate 16-bit files from the win98 era are the problem now...wonder how long until 32 bit files become the difficult ones.

The term generally used for this is digital obsolescence:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_obsolescence