Quote:
Originally Posted by Cinisajoy
...Now please tell me what out of print book is so important that someone needs to make sure it is available as an ebook.
Just one example.
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I think you are missing the point, it is a case of both the author and those who granted rights to them (i.e. the general public through their government representatives) both having rights on their respective sides of the gift of copyright (a gift as it is free). It is not a case of what book is so important in the world of writing that it needs to be available.
It would seem a simple expectation to me that if a rights holder is leaving a work out of print that those of us who granted them their exclusive right in the first place should perhaps have the right to continue to have easy access to the work should we want to. In fact some authors take it upon themselves to allow that to happen for no monetary return to themselves.
As just one example, I have an eBook copy of an autobiography that has been out of print but the rights holder has subsequently allowed an eBook of that to be prepared and made available by others free (it is made available for free download from their nation's electronic text collection so there is no profit motive anywhere). In my case I have a print copy from when it was first released but there is no requirement that be so if one wants the eBook.
It is not a work that meets your criteria of being "important enough in the world of writing that it needs to be available" as no book will meet that criteria, but it is in fact an important biography for study (it is the most important one out of many on its subject person) and is of quite wide interest. This right holder seems to believe that their being given a right incurs a responsibility to manage that right with a concern for the ongoing interests of those who granted them that right in the first place.