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posted by martyb on Monday September 16 2019, @08:05PM   Printer-friendly
from the today's-borrowers-are-tomorrow's-buyers dept.

In July, Macmillan CEO John Sargent outlined the changes in response to "growing fears that library lending was cannibalizing sales." On September 11, the American Library Association (ALA) started circulating a petition in hopes of pressuring Macmillan to not go through with its plan, which is scheduled to go into effect in November. "To treat libraries as an inferior consumer to the general population, it's the wrong thing to do," said Alan Inouye, director of the Office for Information Technology Policy at the ALA. "Libraries are generally held as amongst the highest esteemed institutions in the community."

"Allowing a library like the Los Angeles Public Library (which serves 18 million people) the same number of initial e-book copies as a rural Vermont library serving 1,200 people smacks of punishment, not support," librarian Jessamyn West wrote on CNN. She also points out that Sargent's claim that apps let people check out books in states and countries where they don't live "betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of how public libraries work." There are a few that let you pay for a library card regardless of where you live, but not many. Digital Trends reached out to Macmillan for comment but did not receive a response.

Source: https://www.digitaltrends.com/news/macmillan-e-books-library-waiting-period/


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 17 2019, @09:10AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 17 2019, @09:10AM (#895078)

    "No harm done," incorrect. You are the reason quality publishing will go away, because you have ended up stealing the content instead of paying the people who were responsible for its creation.

    Why didn't you just take the magazine home with you without paying for it? By your theory it would have cost nothing aside from the cost of the ink and the paper itself (a small fraction of the cost of the item). Shoplifting is OK - those greedy companies make enough money anyway!

    All that aside, what you are doing is rationalizing your behavior. That doesn't make it right.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 17 2019, @06:07PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 17 2019, @06:07PM (#895307)

    OP here.

    Taking pics of book covers ain't a crime.

    Now, let's see you criminalize downloading (direct, not torrenting) books from Library Genesis and other sites. Same with unauthorized online streaming sites.

    GOOD FUCKING LUCK.

    Creating that extra copy is like a tree falling in the woods with nobody to see it. Except there can be even less evidence that it happened.

    If this activity catches on and publishing quality suffers, I won't care! Because more high quality content of all types is created every day than I could possibly read, watch, or listen to. And it will continue to happen even after the "death" of publishing!

    Authors can move to a crowdfunding model if they want to get paid. Don't write or release a book until the crowd ponies up the cash. Then release it for everyone to download.