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Originally Posted by LibraryGoddess
As a retired librarian, I can't agree more. Libraries are and have always been unAmerican and a capitalist's nightmare. Thank Heavens the damage can't be undone. However, no one silences anyone in today's library and you can renew your overdues on line! Today's librarians don't deserve yesterdays stereotype. Amen.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Elfwreck
Do you expect that print books will only be read by one person, the original purchaser? Do you think of every used copy sold at a yard sale as lost royalties and cheating you out of your rightful payment?
Much of the problems with ebook filesharing is that there's no simple, legal way to transfer ownership or loan them out, the way that's done with pbooks. And authors have *never* been able to expect 1 purchase=1 reader.
With ebooks, there's the issue that it's as easy to make a copy as to loan the original. Easier, in many cases; removing data from a hard drive is harder than copying it. But if the DRM servers allowed one user to transfer ownership of their ebook files to someone else by sending in an email ("send a transfer code to email X; when it goes through, un-authorize my computer/kindle/PDA from this ebook"), there'd be a lot less incentive to crack DRM, and a lot less feeling of "now that I've done all that work so I can let my friend read it, why not just share it with the world?"
Ebook filesharing started as scans-and-conversions of books that weren't available as ebooks. (My txt copy of Dragonriders of Pern is dated 1998.) It continued, and grew, as commercial ebooks became available, because publishers decided to exploit a business model that wasn't possible with physical books: prevent transfer of ownership, so every reader would have to make a separate purchase!
Had they also charged 1/3 the paperback price for these books, people might've calmly accepted that. When they charge the same or comparable amounts for paper & ebook editions, they can expect readers to demand the same freedoms with their purchases.
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Yup...what about those EVIL used bookstores...those are and have long been a target of the publishing industry. If publishers want something eradicated from he face of the earth it is the ability to sell used books, even antique classics.
And it is absolutely right that the publishing industry wants ebooks treated as software not as books. This means limited rights to transefer ownership, though most software today does allow the transefer of ownership for software if the original owner deregiters it with the creator.
The whole publishing industry seems more like a Laurel & Hardy meets the Marx brothers sort of thing. And toss in The Thief Who Came to Dinner...or worse...
I pretty much don't even read it anymore because it is always the same BS just different day. I paid for it, I will give it away or loan it out as I see fit. If the industry was smart they would setup a system to allow people to loan out books one at a time and charge one of the parties a $1 fee per loan...most people would be happy to pay it...better yet price books cheaper so it is more problematic to circumvent the whole scheme than to spend $4 to just buy the book.