The word “lending” doesn’t even make sense with digital goods. Nothing tangible is being lent or borrowed. Another perfect copy is being allowed to be made. Ironically it might not even be the same copy! Someone “borrowing” a digital good might download a copy of a new version or in a different language.
> The idea is to impose the restrictions of physical goods onto the digital one.
You know how some people think rent control is a good idea but then every economist explain how it’s actually bad? That’s how I feel about “impose the restrictions of physical goods onto digital”. It’s a terrible idea that has terrible ramification if you follow things to their logical conclusion.
> Your idea is to eliminate the very concept of a library where ebooks are concerned.
Yeah that’s totally fine. The metaphor of an ebook library is bad and illogical.
If you wanted to write digital-first copyright laws you wouldn’t invent a faux library. There’s better solutions out there.
> You know how some people think rent control is a good idea but then every economist explain how it’s actually bad? That’s how I feel about “impose the restrictions of physical goods onto digital”. It’s a terrible idea that has terrible ramification if you follow things to their logical conclusion.
We're only talking about applying that to lending, which otherwise wouldn't exist, so I don't see the issue. And more importantly it's applying the rights you get with physical books. ...Come to think of it, what restrictions are being added that don't already exist in our current broken state of digital copyright?
> You know how some people think rent control is a good idea but then every economist explain how it’s actually bad? That’s how I feel about “impose the restrictions of physical goods onto digital”. It’s a terrible idea that has terrible ramification if you follow things to their logical conclusion.
Do you have a specific grievance with respect to imposing lending restrictions on ebooks to mimic their physical counterparts?
Your analogy alone is strained and doesn't serve this topic well.
> Yeah that’s totally fine.The metaphor of an ebook library is bad and illogical.
I contend that the information contained in the books and not the format they're stored in are what matters. People checkout books from libraries to read their contents, not to sniff the paper they're printed on.
> If you wanted to write digital-first copyright laws you wouldn’t invent a faux library. There’s better solutions out there.
Do tell of these better solutions that don't require waiting several decades for all the pre-Internet baby boomer octogenarian lawmakers and judges to die off from old age.
> Yeah that’s totally fine. The metaphor of an ebook library is bad and illogical.
E-book lending is pretty much the only accessible option for people with sensory impairments. I think they're a larger portion of the population than writers, so why do writers' monetary interests overwrite accessibility concerns? Plenty of books aren't available in large print or audio versions; e-books are a great way for us to read those books. Big text is best text.
So people with perfect vision and hearing should be able to check out materials from a library and people with impairments shouldn't? That's also against the law.
So you're against the existence of libraries at all? Since they provide free access to the fruits of someone else's labor? That is at least an honest position. I won't pretend to have any respect for it, but at least it's consistent.
> So people with perfect vision and hearing should be able to check out materials from a library and people with impairments shouldn't? That's also against the law.
People with impairments can also check materials out from the library. The existence of a library for some things does not mandate a library for all things.
> So you're against the existence of libraries at all?
I think that first sale doctrine strikes a great balance for physical goods. If you buy a hammer you can later sell that hammer. Or you can give it away. Or you can setup a little library where people can borrow it either for free or a small fee. Over time the hammer will degrade and some people might prefer a new hammer. The rate at which a hammer can exchange hands is severely limited by space and time. I live in Seattle and can not easily borrow a hammer from a friend in New York or London.
Digital goods are a different beast. Copies can be made instantly, perfectly, and effectively for free. There is no such thing as "borrowing" an e-book. There is only being allowed to make a perfect copy or not. Digital goods are not bound by space or time. A global library with infinite, instantaneous transfer of rights would limit sales to peak concurrent user count. This would obliterate economic incentives for producing new content which would be, imho, a catastrophic net loss for society.
Physical good and digital goods are extremely different. They can and should have different rules. Trying to force them under a single umbrella is sub-optimal for both.
If I were King my changes to copyright law would be related to duration. I'd shorten it from life+70 years to something like ~30 years with the ability to extend it an additional ~20 years with an increasing per-year fee. And possibly add some form of "use it or lose it" after just ~10 years. Or something along those lines. I am not King so I've not fully thought this through. However as someone who makes and sells proprietary entertainment software I have thought through the ramifications of global digital libraries with instant and infinite transferability.
It puzzles me to hear of these "degradation" arguments, as if it isn't common to find perfectly readable books over 100 years old in antique shops.
"Degradation" is the conception publishers want to think of applying to their goods. Because they want an income stream worthy of items that perish in a matter of years, not decades or centuries.
I generally agree, but I'm not sure that your example works : it smells of survivorship bias (or whatever is the equivalent name for objects rather than people?)
Books do not biodegrade in a timeline we'll ever see in our lives unless there's water damage. Which is relatively rare.
It is very much not uncommon to see books several decades old in libraries. And I suppose it is survivorship bias in the most literal sense, but that's because there's so many survivors. It's practically the rule.
Don't they ? I have books printed in the last half of the 20th century where I'm starting to get worried about the yellowing of the pages (and the seemingly degrading structural integrity of the pages).
I've heard it was something about acidic paper (with it also being a plague of cheap printing, while being much less of an issue of expensive printing techniques).
