What if book publishers started to sue libraries?
Written by Smaran on October 23, 2006In the recent past we’ve seen the record and movie industry sue everyone from little girls and soccer moms to college kids for illegal file-sharing. Imagine what would happen if book publishers started to take on public libraries.
Copyrighted books are distributed over BitTorrent just like copyrighted music, movies, TV shows et al. Book downloads can be found in two forms; audiobooks and PDFs. We aren’t going to talk about publishing houses suing file-sharers. The real culprits are much more sinister and a lot less obvious.
Libraries
Yes, libraries! Libraries are evil, evil places. One single copy of a book, movie or music album is borrowed and abused by tens, if not hundreds of self-centred, ignorant pirates. Hell, they even have copiers in most libraries allowing pirates to copy every book on the shelves.
The nerdy book worm with no money, he shouldn’t be able to read (and copy) every book in existence for free right? But he can! “Mommy, I want to go to to the library,” he asks his mother innocently. “Of course son,” she replies, secretly happy that her son can get smart(er) for just the cost of transport.
But seriously.. what if...
Imagine if publishers and authors suddenly decide to shut down libraries because they don’t want people to have free access to the works they publish. Wouldn’t that be a shame?
Waitaminute, haven’t they already started that??
The biggest library of them all
Google. One word that can literally shape the meaning of online copyright. And it has. Google has been sued more times than a prominent pop singer from the 80s has grabbed his crotch. With the recent acquisition of YouTube, Google has taken on not just the most popular site on the Internet, but also the one with the most copyright violations.
Google Print, now rebranded as Google Book Search is an attempt to create the largest library on the face of the earth, err… Google Earth. If Google isn’t the worst of all evils, then who is? I mean, now even book worms from the so-called third world (the regions we’re trying to keep under control through the holy means of copyright) will now be able to pop open their $100 laptops and read to their hearts’ content.
How in the world are we supposed to stop this armageddon of evilness? There is only 1 way. We Sue.
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In the early 1900’s, publishers tried to sue libraries out of existence (or get them to charge borrowers the full purchase price of a book and send the money to the publisher). The courts finally ruled that purchased books are the “property” of the purchaser and could be freely loaned out.
Funny. I’ve thought of this, libraries are really much like p2p.
EBook is a growing craze and it is going to be throughout the world and so think everyone should benefit from it.Here I’m promoting a book named First lady president which is a fictional take on a US presidential election campaign featuring a female candidate . It is a story of how such a figure might emerge as the first ever serious female candidate in a U.S. presidential election, and what opposition — both culturally and politically — that she might encounter.
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