think of it this way. why do libraries exist? why do they loan out free harry potter books to kids on summer reading programs? if a library could loan out 900 copies of harry potter on the day it was released, would they? if not, why? arent they encouraging reading? and given modern technology, isnt it true that they are no longer limited and actually could loan out infinite copies of a book the day it is released? why wouldnt they want to? why shouldnt the laws be such that our public libraries would loan out infinite e-books? would that ruin the publishing industry? am i to believe that the only thing keeping the publishing industry afloat all these years was the technological limitations of physical books?
Because they can't afford to buy an infinite number of licenses and they don't need that many. They know how many to buy to meet demand. You just don't grok the concept of working for pay. Pity. Get a job.
It doesn't work that way and you know it. Tom Clancy and JK Rowling and Richard Dawkins all sell their books and are worthy of pay. If you don't yet understand the difference between owning a book and reading a book, then you are simply stupid. A total moron with the "me, me" morality of a toddler.
why should they be limited by what they can afford? they are the government they can just take as many as they want. again, i ask you, why does the library exist? to generate profit for publishers, or to encourage an educated populace? you are not addressing my points, you are just taking shots at me.
what does that mean "worthy"? was the writer of encyclopedia britannica "worthy" of pay, and now he isnt because wikipedia is killing his market? is the autoworker who is replaced by a machine still "worthy" of pay? there is no "worthy". you either can get paid or you cant. again, there are plenty of artists 40X as talented as clancy, and they are getting paid nothing. i guess i am a moron. but i suspect i read more books and pay more for them than anyone here, by a reasonably wide margin. i am also tied for last in the world as far as number of stolen books read at zero. i have stolen some books, but i havent read them. they were either boring or i didnt like the format. i once stole a harry potter book, but i bought it as well. i was too lazy to go the store for a few days.
This is a distraction from intellectual property rights. Library's exist to loan books. They buy books and loan them. They don't steal books and loan them. They don't duplicate books. Libraries are not thieves. I've addressed them over and over on multiple threads and you just keep repeating your tired old claims and totally ignore me. You are a boring person. Come up with something new or I'm done.
why? it certainly doesnt help a publisher profit when books are loaned. is it perhaps that libraries exist to educate the public. why would their interests align with publishers, once information is infinitely distributable? random house recently made this rule that their e-books will expire after 26 loans. why should we as the reading public accept that? the library exists to loan books, not to have them expire. right?
Because the information would dry up. Professional writers must be able to earn a living. I will not explain this concept to you again. Irrelevant as long as licensed copies are loaned, then royalties have been paid. The number of loans is just a matter of negotiation between publisher and library, let the market decide. Public domain books are unlimited and there are plenty of them. Books still in copyright must be protected from thieves.
yes, i think fundamentally this is where you and i disagree. i just dont think creativity stops being creative when there is less profit. if a surgeon could do one heart valve replacement, record it and sell that instead of actually doing it again every day, he would. thats what these people creating information are doing. its a unique situation where normal rules dont apply. most people cant create and sell copies of what they just did. when you understand why information creation is diffeent, you will understand why the normal rules do not apply. also think about why people write wikipedia, but we dont have a wikiconstruction firm where random people do bricklaying and hanging drywall for free. because all "work" is not the same.
Creativity is not the friggin' issue! Professionalism is the issue. If professional writers can't make a living by writing then they must make a living doing something else and literature suffers. All the amateurs in the world cannot replace them. You are naive if you think so.
