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/
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday September 16 2019, @08:21PM (2 children)
I'm fairly sure that most of the paper-book content in our county library system's card catalog is "virtual" - waiting for somebody to express interest in the title before ordering a copy of it. At least, that's what seemed to happen the last time I reserved a copy of an obscure-ish title that had been out for several years, I had a long wait before it was ready to pick up and when I picked it up it was brand new.
Word to McMillian: I stopped keeping printed roach food in my office and home about 15 years ago - everything I need is available, and easier to read and access as phosphors on screen; and those big shelves that I used to fill with books are better used for other things.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 4, Interesting) by DannyB on Monday September 16 2019, @09:02PM (1 child)
Most people using LCDs or LEDs or OLEDs instead of phosphors now. Big empty book shelves good for old computer equipment that is Junque. ("junque" is good stuff that is too good to throw away -- despite that is what will happen to it eventually anyway.)
Young people won't believe you if you say you used to get Netflix by US Postal Mail.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday September 16 2019, @11:32PM
Junque++ 👍
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 16 2019, @08:40PM (11 children)
Here's what I do. I see books and magazines at the supermarket, library, etc. I pull out my phone and take photos of any interesting looking covers, one at a time or a whole shelf in one photo. At home, I can pull out my phone and check the photos, without having to remember anything I looked at.
Then I search on Library Genesis to pirate the ebooks. Success rate is surprisingly high, maybe as much as 50-60% will be there if I'm lucky. Anything that is a bestseller will be found there or on torrents. Obscure titles may fall through the cracks, but if I am looking for 50 books, I'll probably get at least 25. I can look for more information about the authors and save the obscure titles for later.
No DRM, no payments, no lending, no harm done.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 16 2019, @09:03PM (6 children)
There is plenty wrong with how the IP system operates. Being a parasitic leech is just one of them.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 16 2019, @09:08PM
What changes to the ICUP system do you think are going to stop people from getting free books?
Nothing will stop it other than burning everything down. Even if so-called leeches caused many publishers to go out of business, there would still be plenty of old content and new content being released.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 16 2019, @09:19PM (2 children)
Product has infinite supply, and zero cost. Guess I'll pay Macmillan... not.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 16 2019, @10:34PM
No problem with you stickin it to the mcMan, rent seeking our hard earned. However gp stated a practice of seeking to pirate _all_ books available. That is only goimg to hurt authors in long run.
(Score: 1) by Trilkhai on Tuesday September 17 2019, @05:02AM
Most of the cost in producing a book, whether electronic or physical, comes from paying the cover artist, editors, author, publicist, and so forth. The authors who go independent end up either paying for all of that out of their own pocket (in which case they're lucky to break even), or spending the vast majority of their working hours to attempting to perform all of those jobs themselves rather than focusing on the one they they're talented at.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 16 2019, @09:49PM (1 child)
Copyright term lengths are effectively unlimited. Humanity may be gone by the time a 2019 book falls out of copyright. So who are the leeches again? It's the companies and individuals that expect to profit indefinitely from effectively free-to-replicate "digital goods".
If you can't make a living from donations, commissions, crowdfunding, etc., then maybe you aren't fit to earn money from your works.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 17 2019, @09:14AM
And OP does not necessarily seem to be talking about pirating a 50 year old copy of an Asimov story or 1960's Mickey Mouse cartoons, but rather items that catch his fancy wherever he sees them. I'd guess that includes titles which were just published.
One could make the opposite case just as easily: If you can't afford the price that the creator (or those whom the creator appoints on their behalf) asks for then you can walk away and take nothing.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Monday September 16 2019, @09:18PM (1 child)
No harm done?
You've just taken a couple of bucks out of some millionaires/billionaires pocket!
How dare you force him to make it up by spending hundreds of thousands of dollars lobbying politicians!
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 16 2019, @09:21PM
I hurt the poor sap who crafts each and every copy of an ebook by hand.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 17 2019, @09:10AM (1 child)
"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
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.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Monday September 16 2019, @09:04PM (6 children)
This is what is so exasperating about copyright. Our public libraries could go fully digital. Paper has a few advantages, but those are blown away by the advantages of digital. Starting with, digital data is so much more searchable. It takes far less physical space. There's no more bull about returns, no late fines. No having to keep multiple physical copies of popular items, and no more denial because someone else has checked out an item. Many damage scenarios are no longer a problem. All libraries would effectively have everything. Anything that's not on local serves could be downloaded quickly, no more of this weeks long wait for an interlibrary loan.
We have the tech to do all that. But we can't, thanks to copyright law.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Freeman on Monday September 16 2019, @09:45PM (2 children)
#1 You can't easily flip through a digital book and find that thing you sort of remember.
#2 The total loss scenario for paper books is much more catastrophic than "sudo rm -r" (Delete All) or just issues with hardware storage media.
#3 I don't need power to access my paper book.
#4 It's really simple to jot down notes in the margin of a book, if that's your thing. Those notes will likely still be there 100 years from now, unless the book gets tossed in the garbage / fire.
#5 https://xkcd.com/2030/ [xkcd.com] Yeah, that essentially applies to everything.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 4, Touché) by bzipitidoo on Monday September 16 2019, @10:55PM (1 child)
#1 If you misremember which book has that thing you sort of remember, the computer can run it down for you a whole lot faster.
#2 True, true.
#3 Yes, yes you do need power. You can't read in the dark; you need light. Might be direct sunlight, but that's definitely power.
#4 Notes can be written down in the margins, you say? Like the proof of Fermat's Last Theorem wasn't, because there wasn't enough room.
#5 How many books has Project Gutenberg lost? None at all?
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Tuesday September 17 2019, @01:23AM
pedantry++: Reading a paper book doesn't need artificial power during the daytime.
I was under the impression that Project Gutenberg has had to stop digitizing books as more and more English-speaking countries have extended their copyright terms from the end of the 50th calendar year after the death of the last surviving author to the end of the 70th calendar year after the death of the last surviving author.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Monday September 16 2019, @09:51PM
If libraries didn't already exist, and someone tried to create one today, they'd be sued into oblivion.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 17 2019, @02:47AM
I love my (rooted/neutered) e-ink ebook reader, but there is a dark side to them. E.g., Nook sends all your book titles and progress back to the mother ship, even for things you side load.
You can root the nook, and install a firewall, and block all communication with B&N, if you are willing to never get any content from B&N. But, it sucks that nearly everything electronic is treacherous and spying on you, by default.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 17 2019, @09:18AM
It's not just because of copyright law that you can't do that. It is because the maintenance of the current system of production requires that people be paid. The content creators get the minority of that money, but they do get some.
Blow away copyright and you have to have what replaces it. "Oh, we'll just go to private content funding!" will not fill that gap, for the simple reason that if it were more economical to do so that is what would have already happened. Patreon etc. would have already killed the publishing industry if that were the magic bullet to replace it.
Those who educate and inform us deserve to be paid. How do you propose to do that under your model?
(Score: 4, Interesting) by SemperOSS on Monday September 16 2019, @09:26PM (2 children)
In some countries, publishers are forced by law to sell copies of any books they publish/sell in the country to libraries at a fixed (very low) price per book and then the publisher/author receives a (very) small amount for every book lent out. This may seem unfair to the publishers and authors but is considered essential to ensure that people, no matter their socio-economic status, have a more level playing field with regards to access to information and is supportive of a higher level of education for all people in those countries.
When I was young, I was forever reading books from the library and sometimes haunted the librarians to find specific books at other libraries, which made it possible for me to learn about computers at a very young age. (In my day, small computers were the size of a cupboard or two!) If cross-library loans were impossible, more than half the non-fiction books I were reading would not have been available to me, living in a provincial town. So guess what, as my carrier path in IT was founded in library books, I am very pro-libraries (or should that be pro-library?) in every sense of the word.
And now, over to the libertarians and anti-Social-Justice-Warriors.
I don't need a signature to draw attention to myself.
Maybe I should add a sarcasm warning now and again?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 16 2019, @09:30PM
Information wants to be free.
(Score: 3, Informative) by c0lo on Monday September 16 2019, @11:50PM
Not issues with "seem unfair to publishers" by why do you include authors as well?
After all, one of the motivations of an author is to have her books read.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 1) by CheesyMoo on Monday September 16 2019, @09:34PM (2 children)
and I haven't read hardly any of them.
I like the idea of digital books, lots of the obvious benefits have already been stated in this thread.
But curling up with a laptop or kindle is just not the same as a physical book. Luckily my local library has a pretty great interlibrary loan system and I can get physical copies of most titles that I want. I will tear through 1000 page novels in less than a week if I have a hardcover version. If its just a pdf or ebook... well its still just collecting virtual dust on the hard drive
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 16 2019, @09:42PM (1 child)
It's a nice idea. But I also like the idea of a microSD card holding up to hundreds of thousands or millions of ebooks. A library on a fingertip. You won't read 1% of the contents, but you can pull up anything you want in seconds.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 16 2019, @11:19PM
I already have all the books written in my birth language; just waiting for somebody to finish the task for English.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday September 16 2019, @10:18PM (1 child)
There are definite up sides to using ebooks. For one, you can search an ebook much faster than you can a print book. Though, a lot of the hard work may have already been done for you, if there's an Index in a physcial book. An obvious advantage for ebooks is the ability to access entire libraries worth of items wherever you have your electronic device. The downside for ebooks is that you must have power and sometimes internet access to make use of those. Also, the personal computer is a relatively new phenomenon. Libraries have usable copies of physical items that are hundreds of years old. I wouldn't hold out the same hope for ebooks. Sure, the potential for near perpetual access with infinite storage life is possible. That is an as yet to be proven reality. I certainly love my Nook Simple Touch for casual reading, but I would want a physical and electronic copy when doing serious research.
DRM vs Copyright or DRM + Copyright as it would be for an ebook. I can only think of one instance where Amazon pulled purchased copies of ebooks off customer's devices, but that was all made possible by DRM+Copyright. That's some seriously dangerous power to be had. Physical books have more consumer protection laws backing the purchaser, than essentially any Digital item in existence. The best way to combat DRM+Copyright is to support those that aren't shackling their content down with DRM. Places like: https://www.baen.com/ [baen.com] and https://www.smashwords.com/ [smashwords.com] Though, even digital stores like Barnes and Noble provide ebooks without DRM, if the publisher wishes so. Example: https://www.tor.com/ [tor.com]
That still leaves the elephant in the room to deal with and that's Public Domain. Public Domain titles, while being available for free online are still printed and sold. So, while ebooks are useful, print books really do have their own place. Though, in the event you are interested in free ebooks and audiobooks, here's a few good places to go.
http://www.gutenberg.org/ [gutenberg.org] Mostly, e-books.
http://www.gutenberg.org/ [gutenberg.org] Audio Books.
http://childrenslibrary.org/ [childrenslibrary.org] Mostly? E-books
https://archive.org/index.php [archive.org] E-Books, Audio Books, Old TV Episodes, Old Radio Episodes, Some game archival stuff, and just a giant slew of all things digital.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday September 16 2019, @10:21PM
The second link should have been: https://librivox.org/ [librivox.org] Audio Books.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Snotnose on Monday September 16 2019, @10:35PM (6 children)
Dad died 18 months ago, I snagged his Kindle. I thought I would hate ereaders, boy was I wrong. I love this thing. But, when it comes to getting stuff from the library there are issues:
1) Most ebooks I want to read have a waiting list.
2) When my ebook is available I have 2 weeks to read it, not the 3 for a normal book.
3) That 2 weeks starts when the ebook is available, not when I "check it out"
4) I can't renew an ebook.
I still read ebooks, I just don't get them from the library anymore.
We won't even get into the assholiness of Kindles won't read epub files natively.
Relationship status: Available for curbside pickup.
(Score: 2, Informative) by zoward on Monday September 16 2019, @10:55PM
I sideloaded FBReader on my Kindle Fire. Problem solved.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 17 2019, @12:12AM
My attitude to e-media has evolved into:
"I appreciate that there are production costs, but your marginal costs are zero. You can set it up to be easy, cheap, convenient, and a better experience than piracy OR you can whine about me pirating it."
I still spend well above average on books and music but I will not buy anything with DRM.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday September 17 2019, @02:33PM (2 children)
I'd recommend something like a Nook Simple Touch, if you can get your hands on one. I got mine used and it's worked great for a long time. Reading an e-ink screen is much easier on your eyes than your computer screen's LCD/LED screen. I love the ability to easily load a bunch of ebooks onto my Nook just by plugging it into my computer by USB. Much simpler and less invasive than the Kindle, just e-mail it system. I get why Kindle became king, I just don't like it. Also, there's the Kobo line of E-readers as well, but I've not had any personal experience with them. I'd much sooner get a new Kobo than a Kindle.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 17 2019, @03:44PM
I have a Kobo. I did my research before I bought an e-book and simply bought the best available regardless of price. Two years ago that was the Kobo Aura One. I haven't really checked them lately, they have a new model - the Forma - which looks interesting. Very slightly bigger screen, 8" vs 7.8", but it has the ability to read in landscape mode, which would be good for PDF's.
The Kobos are also waterproof and the only thing they can't read is Amazon's proprietary formats (but calibre can convert them).
(Score: 1) by ncc74656 on Thursday September 19 2019, @07:23PM
I have a Kobo Glo HD...nice, clear hi-res screen, and I can load books into it through Calibre or I can point its web browser at the COPS instance that serves up my Calibre library.
(FWIW, I also picked up a used Kindle Touch dirt-cheap at one point when Amazon changed its DRM scheme, so that I'd continue to have access to purchases. Its serial number is plugged into a Calibre DRM-removal plugin; ebooks can be downloaded to your computer in the older format the Kindle Touch expects, which can still be cracked and converted for the Kobo or other readers. The Kindle doesn't get used nearly as much as a reader.)
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday September 17 2019, @05:55PM
Apparently you need a network connection to manage the rights to the book. I've heard that if you put the kindle into airplane mode it won't disable access until you connect to a network.
(haven't tried it myself)
(Score: 2) by hwertz on Tuesday September 17 2019, @05:47AM
" 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." "
Well, the app my mom uses with the local library absolutely does allow her to do exactly this; if the local library doesn't have some e-book, but the one in Madison does, (and nobody there is waiting to use it..) they'll "lend" the book to the local library which checks it out to her.
That said -- I think the concept of having E-Books "wear out" and have to be repurchased is crap; but they are ALREADY doing this (if you RTFA, they are currently having to repurchase the same EBook every 2 years or 52 lends...) Having to wait 8 weeks to get some EBook (more than one copy) is kind of crap, but I think at least being able to have that first copy be a perpetual copy makes up for this. I"ve never felt the need to buy or check out from the library a book the second it comes out.