

HarperCollins sets 1-year expiration on library eBooks - erickhill
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/15/business/media/15libraries.html?ref=technology

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Dylanlacey
While none of this is surprising, they out an interesting twist on it when
they say “...place additional pressure on physical bookstores...". Wait, so
now they CARE about physical bookstores?

No, wait, they want to have their cake and eat it too: "Publishers are nervous
that e-book borrowing in libraries will cannibalize e-book retail sales."
Well. OK. Let's all make sure we don't let anyone BESIDES publishers fuck
traditional bookstores... 'cause that'd be bad. Somehow.

What I don't see is HOW this is any different to the traditional model for
libraries? Sure, an eBook doesn't wear out, but well treated, a hardcover
won't either. People who are low commitment will borrow, and might then buy.
Otherwise those people are never going to access your material at all.

And once again, they trot out the old "Won't somebody PLEASE think of the
CONTENT CREATORS!" handwringing cliche, in this case "in the end lead to a
decrease in book sales and royalties paid to authors.” which, as we know, is
bullshit.

And now I'm wondering why I bothered writing this because it's not news, it's
not surprising, it's just another installment of Traditional Publishing VS The
Horrid Internet... OF DOOM.

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thesethings
Don't wonder why you bothered writing that.

You wrote it because it made me laugh really hard and gave us some awesome
tweetable quotables.

And because you're right.

And because as long as they keep fighting the Internet in lame ways, we all
should fight back in fun ways.

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kingsidharth
This is what happens when publishers are afraid of new media and they want to
secure their bread. But it's not happening.

Most of the people who "share" books (they are hinting on piracy, if I am not
wrong) don't buy it anyway. All they are accomplishing with this is - scare
away the users who buy it.

Not to debate weather it's fair or not - but generally an "expiring" book will
have a psychological effect on customer for sure. And this is not the best
option to go for.

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nkassis
One thing that I think is being forgotten in all this is preservation. While I
don't think that most libraries (except for librairies like the LoC) are in
the business of preserving books anymore, how will this new licensing model
HaperCollins is suggesting will allow for books to be kept for future
generations?

Publishers haven't been the best at making sure out of print books don't just
disappear. Same for the music, some music from the early in the century is
probably going to go away because of copyright issues.

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blendergasket
I think the preservation is a huge, if somewhat unrelated issue. To recreate
the text of one of these books people in the future will have to emulate the
environment the book exists on. In some sort of apolcalyptic future that
destroys the linear progression of our technological innovation (and the
ability to access old content with our new technologies as they appear)
everything will be lost. The learning curve for/possibility of some future
society having some rosetta stone moment that allows them to recreate and run
a computer program is really hard to imagine. The monolith in 2001 a space
odyssey might be a symbol of what people think we are about as a society. Our
iPhones, Android phones and computers just strange blocks that are worshipped
in their own rights. Who knows. But the barrier for understanding our culture
from some temporal outside is growing extreme.

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rue
Dear book (/music/film) publishers:

If you release works without restrictions, I'll probably buy them.

If you release works with restrictions, I probably won't buy them and might
obtain the cracked version illegally instead.

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CallMeV
People will just jailbreak the self-destruct code attached to the books and
make copies of them anyway, legal or not.

