The past 48 hours I have seen good authors and the authors guild arguing to shut down the ability for libraries to lend books, because it takes money out of the pockets of authors, so...
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Replying to @soc_lee
I would say far worse than piracy. Libraries give benefit to the communities. To shut them down over profit margins is far worse than losing profit from illegal downloads, because it hurts society as a whole. Would be casting out the baby with the bathwater, to use a metaphor.
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Replying to @downix
For sure. Libraries are the thin line between civilization and barbarity, paraphrase
@neilhimself . Hey, @DrunkestLibrary , how are authors supported by libraries? My research gets mixed results. I will buy a series after checking the first book out.1 reply 0 retweets 3 likes -
Replying to @soc_lee @neilhimself
That is a good question. I admit I am curious as well.
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The issue is that the price of buying a physical book to lend in circulation and the price of an ebook lending license are different - the latter is much higher - because an ebook can be lent many more times to many more people than one physical book and depresses sales more
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Replying to @arthur_affect @downix and
Especially since, no matter what restrictions you slap on ebook lending, it's much easier for an ordinary person with a computer to crack your DRM and rip the file than it is to physically scan a physical book, so the piracy risk is higher
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Replying to @arthur_affect @downix and
It may seem like an arbitrary distinction to you but arguing that restrictive terms on ebook lending means you don't want libraries to exist at all because ebooks and physical books are "the same thing" is disingenuous as hell
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Replying to @arthur_affect @downix and
It's like saying that because a studio was willing to broadcast a TV show over the air "for free" they should be fine with recording the episode and throwing it up on YouTube for no additional money because it's "the same thing"
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I understand you're upset, bro, but I'm not the one saying you shouldn't get paid. I literally just asked what libraries do for authors.
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Okay, and the answer is that libraries traditionally buy one physical copy of a book for every copy they have in circulation, so authors get paid in proportion to how much "bandwidth" their "file" uses on the physical shelves
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Replying to @arthur_affect @soc_lee and
Publishers negotiate licenses for ebooks based on how much more they think ebooks being available for free will cut into sales than physical lending, and scale their fees based on how many copies the library will allow to be "borrowed" at once
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Replying to @arthur_affect @soc_lee and
What IA has done that's pissed people off is advance a novel legal theory that if they own a physical book and they scan it they can unilaterally decide to make it available for borrowing under terms they set, without asking permission or paying more money to the author
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