Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
You are against the idea of public libraries, Sparrow? Personally, I can think of few things that taxpayers' money can more usefully be spent on.
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I agree with this.
However, I also acknowledge that libraries, like file sharing, work against the "one purchase, one reader" concept that many ebook publishers are trying to promote. In the case of libraries, the extra readers are subsidized by the government that funds the library purchases; in the case of filesharing, the extra readers are subsidized by the publisher's loss of potential sales (or library loans)--the author's returns on those potential sales (which are a lot fewer than the number of downloads) are miniscule at best.
The issue becomes an economic one: who should pay for the extra readers? rather than a moral one: should a book be read by someone who hasn't paid for it?
If the key issue is "you shouldn't read stuff you haven't paid for," then libraries are immoral. If the issue is "taking money from hardworking creators and the people who promote them," then the creators and promoters need to find an economic model that fits with people's willingness and ability to pay.
People have no right to materials they haven't paid for--but they do have an expectation that many forms of information are available for free, or for a small access fee. The way to change how people think of filesharing isn't to call them thieves and criminals (if they're criminals, why haven't any of them been successfully prosecuted?); it's to understand why they think it's acceptable, and work from there.