Will Publishers Shut Down Libraries Over Copy Protection?
from the unlikely dept
Every few years, we hear stories about book publishers freaking out about libraries again, and how they may hurt the publishing business. Of course, lots of ingrained history usually causes plenty of people to speak up and make it clear to publishers why they're being pretty moronic in that view. However, with new technologies like copy protection, some libraries are beginning to fear that they won't be able to lend out books in the future (or to historically archive them). While it may be something of a concern, it's probably not as big a deal as it's being made out to be. If enough people complain about libraries in trouble, it's likely that the publishers will figure out some sort of compromise solution. In fact, we've already a few attempts at making it easier to loan out digital books. The archiving issue may, however, be a bigger deal -- but is less likely to get much of a public outcry.
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Similar to music?
Personally, I've rarely seen pirated books (books of a reasonably good size, that is - I've seen lots of photocopies of articles, excerpts from books, sheet music, etc.).
I think this is an excellent opportunity for the book publishing business to get ahead of the game and learn from the throes through which the music and movie business already going.
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Re: Similar to music?
..buy your damnn books like the rest of us.
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Re: Similar to music?
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Bah humbug.
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Re: Bah humbug.
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Books Aren't Going Out of Style Anytime Soon
To address textbooks, PDF textbooks are a horrible idea and here's why. You buy a textbook for $100 (yeah, prices keep going up because less people are buying them....hmmmm) or an ebook is avaliable for 2/3 the price at around $60-70. I will take the textbook every single time. Wanna know why? Copy protection! You can't sell that eBook when you are done with it! Textbooks can be put up on eBay or Amazon or even sold to a real-life human being, I swear they exist and want books!
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digitization
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No Subject Given
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Re: No Subject Given
with block buster, lending video tapes and dvd's.
Their books are being culled to make room for
periodicals and paperback romance novels.
Just trying to give the people what they want
I guess. Even so it makes me want to puke.
The federal book repositories remain in good
shape though.
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Libraries and copy protection
The question is why doesn't the library preserve all the music on a central server, deal with the holders of the copyright and STREAM the media to anyone with a broadband connection? This would solve the copyright infringment. Is it so difficult to set up a streaming media server under APACHE? I don't think so.
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