4 ms·

> "They do have a funding problem, but the answer is not to take it out of the pockets of authors and destroy the rights of creators and pass unconstitutional l

by beej71 3y ago

> "They do have a funding problem, but the answer is not to take it out of the pockets of authors and destroy the rights of creators and pass unconstitutional legislation,” said Shelley Husband, senior vice president of government affairs at the Association of American Publishers I'm guessing Husband's solution is to raise taxes to pay themselves for more expensive books. The AAP is also suing Internet Archive, incidentally.

toomuchtodo 3y ago
The Internet Archive is participating in the legal process to get to a conclusion that ebooks are the same as physical books, otherwise the concept of libraries is over (except for those who can pirate and the data stores that exist across the internet, Anna’s Archive, Zlib/libgen, etc).
- ghaff 3y ago
  The concept of libraries, especially those that aren't large research libraries, has already shifted quite a bit. I almost never go down to my small town library to take out a book or read a magazine. Maybe a DVD now and then that catches my eye. Sometimes I discount museum passes. I could go to talks. Their e-book service isn't that compelling. Other people probably have different behaviors. People I know with younger children in particular use local libraries for children's books quite a lot. But libraries as a place you checkout books is almost certainly already on the decline. For me, the pirate sites aren't even competition. I only have limited time. I read a lot on the Internet. If there's some new book I want to read, I'll probably just buy it for my Kindle. (Obviously many people are much more price-sensitive but I wonder how many of them are using libraries today.)
  - namekyd 3y ago
    My wife and I are voracious readers, it would be a very expensive habit to have off we were buying everything for kindle. We are members of 2 local libraries with listings on overdrive/libby and rent the majority of our ebooks there. I suppose it depends on your library’s offering and how many books you go through
    - ghaff 3y ago
      To be fair, I don't go through anything like the number of books I used to. I have a ton of unread stuff on my Kindle--some of which is admittedly large collections of classics which I got for $1 or $2 each.
      - toomuchtodo 3y ago
        What about people who cannot afford a Kindle, or cannot afford to buy e-books?
        dredmorbius 3y ago
        A new Kindle runs less than $100 in the US (it's largely subsidised by Amazon, they want you to buy books). You can find used models for as little as $20 on Craigslist currently. Other eBook readers from firms such as Kobo or Onyx start at about $100 to $200, and again may be found used for a small fraction of that price. That's still a hurdle, but roughly the cost of a new trade-paper volume with the capability to hold many hundreds or thousands of books. Depending on what you're looking for, there are ebooks which can be found, legally, free of charge from sources such as Project Gutenberg, Standard Ebooks, the Internet Archive (both to check out or to download with no limitations), and other libraries. The US Library of Congress has been expanding its own offerings (I'm not up on the latest, though am given to understand it's generous), and many large-city libraries (Boston, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Kansas City, etc.) have extensive digital lending programmes. That's without leaning on book liberation sites such as ZLib, LibGen, or Anna's Archive, though those have quite extensive holdings.
        srndsnd 3y ago
        This also assumes that Amazon never gives up the ghost and finds ways to make sideloading books onto Kindle more difficult than it currently is. I've always been surprised that they haven't cracked down on it, given the relative ease with which you can circumvent the necessity of the Kindle store for the majority of popular titles. Simply load up Calibre, pop almost any file type into your library, and away you go. We're really living in the Limewire age for e-book piracy, even if we don't realize it. My guess is, someone has run the math and figured out that it's better to keep people on a Kindle device and occasionally spending a few dollars, in exchange for the slow death of physical media and legitimate alternatives. When those become less readily available, then perhaps you can begin to boil the frog. You can be sure I won't buy a kindle if I can't sideload onto it. I buy at least 5/6 new hardcover books a year from local independent retailers to support authors I like. I wish more authors would allow an e-book copy to be distributed with hardcovers they sell. Do what vinyl did.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - LegibleCrimson 3y ago
    I read books pretty sparingly, but my wife reads about 150 books a year. We heavily exercise our local library.
    - ghaff 3y ago
      Yeah, there's definitely a subset of "super-readers" who really benefit from taking out library books. I used to be probably in the 50-75 range plus a ton of magazine subscriptions. I'm more like 10 or so now. I also bet there's a sizable percentage of the population who doesn't read one book a year.
  - thfuran 3y ago
    >Their e-book service isn't that compelling. My county library system has about 100k ebook titles and another 30k audiobooks. I've probably read or listened to well over a hundred library books since the last time I actually went to the library.
    - ghaff 3y ago
      Maybe I should look again. It wasn't that interesting last time I looked. But that was quite a while ago. It's just a small town library but I assume they use one of the regular services. ADDED: Indeed. They use the rebranded Overdrive (Libby). Last time I looked at (maybe) Overdrive ages ago it seemed to be highly populated with things like self-help books. Looks useful.
- beej71 3y ago
  Even if you disagreed with IA's emergency library thing (which I did), they're providing an amazing service to humanity orders of magnitude larger than anything AAP will ever accomplish. I encourage everyone to support them (which I do).

by beej71 3y ago

toomuchtodo 3y ago

The Internet Archive is participating in the legal process to get to a conclusion that ebooks are the same as physical books, otherwise the concept of libraries is over (except for those who can pirate and the data stores that exist across the internet, Anna’s Archive, Zlib/libgen, etc).

ghaff 3y ago
The concept of libraries, especially those that aren't large research libraries, has already shifted quite a bit. I almost never go down to my small town library to take out a book or read a magazine. Maybe a DVD now and then that catches my eye. Sometimes I discount museum passes. I could go to talks. Their e-book service isn't that compelling. Other people probably have different behaviors. People I know with younger children in particular use local libraries for children's books quite a lot. But libraries as a place you checkout books is almost certainly already on the decline. For me, the pirate sites aren't even competition. I only have limited time. I read a lot on the Internet. If there's some new book I want to read, I'll probably just buy it for my Kindle. (Obviously many people are much more price-sensitive but I wonder how many of them are using libraries today.)
- namekyd 3y ago
  My wife and I are voracious readers, it would be a very expensive habit to have off we were buying everything for kindle. We are members of 2 local libraries with listings on overdrive/libby and rent the majority of our ebooks there. I suppose it depends on your library’s offering and how many books you go through
  - ghaff 3y ago
    To be fair, I don't go through anything like the number of books I used to. I have a ton of unread stuff on my Kindle--some of which is admittedly large collections of classics which I got for $1 or $2 each.
    - toomuchtodo 3y ago
      What about people who cannot afford a Kindle, or cannot afford to buy e-books?
      - dredmorbius 3y ago
        A new Kindle runs less than $100 in the US (it's largely subsidised by Amazon, they want you to buy books). You can find used models for as little as $20 on Craigslist currently. Other eBook readers from firms such as Kobo or Onyx start at about $100 to $200, and again may be found used for a small fraction of that price. That's still a hurdle, but roughly the cost of a new trade-paper volume with the capability to hold many hundreds or thousands of books. Depending on what you're looking for, there are ebooks which can be found, legally, free of charge from sources such as Project Gutenberg, Standard Ebooks, the Internet Archive (both to check out or to download with no limitations), and other libraries. The US Library of Congress has been expanding its own offerings (I'm not up on the latest, though am given to understand it's generous), and many large-city libraries (Boston, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Kansas City, etc.) have extensive digital lending programmes. That's without leaning on book liberation sites such as ZLib, LibGen, or Anna's Archive, though those have quite extensive holdings.
        srndsnd 3y ago
        This also assumes that Amazon never gives up the ghost and finds ways to make sideloading books onto Kindle more difficult than it currently is. I've always been surprised that they haven't cracked down on it, given the relative ease with which you can circumvent the necessity of the Kindle store for the majority of popular titles. Simply load up Calibre, pop almost any file type into your library, and away you go. We're really living in the Limewire age for e-book piracy, even if we don't realize it. My guess is, someone has run the math and figured out that it's better to keep people on a Kindle device and occasionally spending a few dollars, in exchange for the slow death of physical media and legitimate alternatives. When those become less readily available, then perhaps you can begin to boil the frog. You can be sure I won't buy a kindle if I can't sideload onto it. I buy at least 5/6 new hardcover books a year from local independent retailers to support authors I like. I wish more authors would allow an e-book copy to be distributed with hardcovers they sell. Do what vinyl did.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- LegibleCrimson 3y ago
  I read books pretty sparingly, but my wife reads about 150 books a year. We heavily exercise our local library.
  - ghaff 3y ago
    Yeah, there's definitely a subset of "super-readers" who really benefit from taking out library books. I used to be probably in the 50-75 range plus a ton of magazine subscriptions. I'm more like 10 or so now. I also bet there's a sizable percentage of the population who doesn't read one book a year.
- thfuran 3y ago
  >Their e-book service isn't that compelling. My county library system has about 100k ebook titles and another 30k audiobooks. I've probably read or listened to well over a hundred library books since the last time I actually went to the library.
  - ghaff 3y ago
    Maybe I should look again. It wasn't that interesting last time I looked. But that was quite a while ago. It's just a small town library but I assume they use one of the regular services. ADDED: Indeed. They use the rebranded Overdrive (Libby). Last time I looked at (maybe) Overdrive ages ago it seemed to be highly populated with things like self-help books. Looks useful.
beej71 3y ago
Even if you disagreed with IA's emergency library thing (which I did), they're providing an amazing service to humanity orders of magnitude larger than anything AAP will ever accomplish. I encourage everyone to support them (which I do).