3 ms·

I'm an author, and from my perspective, CDL seems like a reasonable way (if not the most reasonable way) to apply the first sale doctrine in the digital age. P

by jawns 6y ago

I'm an author, and from my perspective, CDL seems like a reasonable way (if not the most reasonable way) to apply the first sale doctrine in the digital age. Publishers would prefer to instead license ebooks and pretend first sale doesn't apply at all for digital books. I understand why that irritates a lot of people. The Internet Archive, on the flip side, is pretending that copyright infringement doesn't apply during a pandemic and that the first sale doctrine is much more expansive than it actually is. My hope is that both sides will come to accept CDL as a compromise system. It hurts publishers and authors no more than print lending does, and it's on much more solid legal ground than the IA's uncontrolled lending.

geofft 6y ago
Yeah - I think CDL is great. But it worries me that CDL doesn't sit on established caselaw (let alone established legal code... really we should pass an amendment to the Copyright Act saying that CDL is fine) and that the Internet Archive is relying on the same legal arguments for CDL to support their uncontrolled model, because it means there's genuine validity in a judge ever saying "if we allow CDL it's a slippery slope." The Internet Archive has demonstrated that they are very interested in sliding to the bottom of the slope as fast as possible
jcranmer 6y ago
One issue I have with borrowing ebooks is that, while typically there's ~1 copy per branch of physical books, there's ~1 copy per library system of ebooks, which makes trying to borrow ebooks unnecessarily frustrating. I'm not entirely certain who's to blame for this disparity, but it does exist, and I would love to see it rectified.
- toast0 6y ago
  There's been some hubub recently about publishers limiting the number of new books for eLending, but for books older than about 6 months? the number of eLending copies is determined by your library system to balance use and cost, although some of the eLending pricing is pretty sketchy though, I think I saw some books are priced at $x for 1 year or N borrows, whichever comes first.
lostmyoldone 6y ago
I can agree that uncontrolled digital lending for all future wouldn't be in the best interest of society under the current economic system, but while the letter of the law might not change during a chrisis, how it is interpreted very well might. After all, the law is but a contract between us and ourselves throught a governing body, nothing is fixed, and nothing is entirely objective. But, more importantly, the characterization of libraries as something that actually hurts publishers and writers, as implied by writing that CDL would hurt publishers "no more" than ordinary lending, is something I feel compelled to oppose. Libraries, and lending of some form has been part of society since likely even before anything we would call a book were first written. While it is true that some of the first libraries were not exactly public, and that you probably wouldn't be allowed to carry the book home from most, but this doesn't take away from the fact that libraries as part of society owes nothing to publishers. If anything, it's the other way around. If the absurd idea that seems prevalent in digital publishing that one book would only be allowed one reader had been around when the first books were written, it's fairly likely almost no books would have been written. While publishers might feel lending is inconvenient, if they continue trying to get rid of lending, they are no wiser than a runner in a headwind wishing for the air to go away. I'm not saying authors shouldn't get paid, but I am saying that pinning any loss of income on libraries is devaluing libraries and lendings role in history - and society - immensely.
- nordsieck 6y ago
  > After all, the law is but a contract between us and ourselves throught a governing body, nothing is fixed, and nothing is entirely objective. Sure. But the basic idea of law is that the contract between us now and us in the future is relatively fixed. Otherwise, there is no difference between a system of written law and judges deciding cases at their whims. > But, more importantly, the characterization of libraries as something that actually hurts publishers and writers, as implied by writing that CDL would hurt publishers "no more" than ordinary lending, is something I feel compelled to oppose. > ... [bunch of text that does not actually oppose the previous statement] I think most reasonable people can recognize that: 1. Libraries are a good and useful component of modern society 2. Their lending may economically hurt authors and publishers
- 6y ago

by jawns 6y ago

geofft 6y ago

Yeah - I think CDL is great. But it worries me that CDL doesn't sit on established caselaw (let alone established legal code... really we should pass an amendment to the Copyright Act saying that CDL is fine) and that the Internet Archive is relying on the same legal arguments for CDL to support their uncontrolled model, because it means there's genuine validity in a judge ever saying "if we allow CDL it's a slippery slope." The Internet Archive has demonstrated that they are very interested in sliding to the bottom of the slope as fast as possible

jcranmer 6y ago

One issue I have with borrowing ebooks is that, while typically there's ~1 copy per branch of physical books, there's ~1 copy per library system of ebooks, which makes trying to borrow ebooks unnecessarily frustrating. I'm not entirely certain who's to blame for this disparity, but it does exist, and I would love to see it rectified.

toast0 6y ago
There's been some hubub recently about publishers limiting the number of new books for eLending, but for books older than about 6 months? the number of eLending copies is determined by your library system to balance use and cost, although some of the eLending pricing is pretty sketchy though, I think I saw some books are priced at $x for 1 year or N borrows, whichever comes first.

lostmyoldone 6y ago

I can agree that uncontrolled digital lending for all future wouldn't be in the best interest of society under the current economic system, but while the letter of the law might not change during a chrisis, how it is interpreted very well might. After all, the law is but a contract between us and ourselves throught a governing body, nothing is fixed, and nothing is entirely objective. But, more importantly, the characterization of libraries as something that actually hurts publishers and writers, as implied by writing that CDL would hurt publishers "no more" than ordinary lending, is something I feel compelled to oppose. Libraries, and lending of some form has been part of society since likely even before anything we would call a book were first written. While it is true that some of the first libraries were not exactly public, and that you probably wouldn't be allowed to carry the book home from most, but this doesn't take away from the fact that libraries as part of society owes nothing to publishers. If anything, it's the other way around. If the absurd idea that seems prevalent in digital publishing that one book would only be allowed one reader had been around when the first books were written, it's fairly likely almost no books would have been written. While publishers might feel lending is inconvenient, if they continue trying to get rid of lending, they are no wiser than a runner in a headwind wishing for the air to go away. I'm not saying authors shouldn't get paid, but I am saying that pinning any loss of income on libraries is devaluing libraries and lendings role in history - and society - immensely.

nordsieck 6y ago
> After all, the law is but a contract between us and ourselves throught a governing body, nothing is fixed, and nothing is entirely objective. Sure. But the basic idea of law is that the contract between us now and us in the future is relatively fixed. Otherwise, there is no difference between a system of written law and judges deciding cases at their whims. > But, more importantly, the characterization of libraries as something that actually hurts publishers and writers, as implied by writing that CDL would hurt publishers "no more" than ordinary lending, is something I feel compelled to oppose. > ... [bunch of text that does not actually oppose the previous statement] I think most reasonable people can recognize that: 1. Libraries are a good and useful component of modern society 2. Their lending may economically hurt authors and publishers
6y ago