Quote:
Originally Posted by Andrew H.
I don't think that they are freaked out that their works are going to be "previewed" in a library. I think that they are freaked out that people are going to "read" their books in a library, and then not buy the book.
Which, honestly, is a reasonable fear. I tend not to buy books I've read in the library; that's kind of the point.
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I'm not sure that is the point though. In the UK authors are paid a royalty based on how many times the book is borrowed. I assume there's a similar system in the US. Now I don't know how the economics currently stack up, and it may well be that authors and publishers get more from retail sales (especially ebooks). But there's no reason in principle why a lending system can't fairly reward authors and publishers.
Music publishers seem to be happily living with subscription services.
Penguin's concerns seem to be about security and piracy.
On one level, if I were a publisher I might well be concerned at the prospect of a hacker getting into a server and downloading a big chunk of your catalogue. But computer security can be improved. Where there's a will and all that.
On the other hand the stuff about making people go to libraries seems ridiculous. Possibly Penguin executives have an idea in their mind of pirates downloading a book from their library, removing the DRM, uploading a torrent, downloading another etc etc. But there must be easier ways of preventing this - limiting the number of books you can borrow in a week (say) or using Social-DRM technology to imprint the borrower's name on every page. etc etc