Comments on: Libraries: No DRM! http://freeculture.org/blog/2008/05/13/libraries-no-drm/ Thu, 03 Mar 2011 19:01:50 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: anne http://freeculture.org/blog/2008/05/13/libraries-no-drm/comment-page-1/#comment-1204 anne Thu, 05 Nov 2009 19:52:33 +0000 http://freeculture.org/?p=371#comment-1204 I'm a bit late, but you seem to misunderstand how libraries go about acquiring the rights to materials. Libraries still need to pay for materials in their collections. There isn't an absence of scarcity as you suggest in this posting, digitalization has actually increased the scarcity of a very important thing called money. Establishing the rights to digitally provide access to materials that aren't open works is extremely costly, and those costs are rising as publishers link more digital works into packages so that you can't buy individual works or databases. I understand your concern of the invasion of privacy resulting from DRM technology venders impose, but you are misinterpreting the way this market works. Your proposal serves only to weaken the position of the library. Libraries don't hold as much financial buying power over publishers as you seem to believe they hold. Because libraries don't increase publishers sales in any direct way, no profitable organization is going to be concerned about the embargo of an entity that is designed to provide free access to the materials they are attempting to profit from. I’m a bit late, but you seem to misunderstand how libraries go about acquiring the rights to materials.

Libraries still need to pay for materials in their collections. There isn’t an absence of scarcity as you suggest in this posting, digitalization has actually increased the scarcity of a very important thing called money. Establishing the rights to digitally provide access to materials that aren’t open works is extremely costly, and those costs are rising as publishers link more digital works into packages so that you can’t buy individual works or databases.

I understand your concern of the invasion of privacy resulting from DRM technology venders impose, but you are misinterpreting the way this market works. Your proposal serves only to weaken the position of the library. Libraries don’t hold as much financial buying power over publishers as you seem to believe they hold. Because libraries don’t increase publishers sales in any direct way, no profitable organization is going to be concerned about the embargo of an entity that is designed to provide free access to the materials they are attempting to profit from.

]]> By: Joshua Gay http://freeculture.org/blog/2008/05/13/libraries-no-drm/comment-page-1/#comment-1202 Joshua Gay Thu, 22 May 2008 00:22:33 +0000 http://freeculture.org/?p=371#comment-1202 Hey there, thanks for cross-posting the letter. Would be great to let people know that it is an open letter that we are encouraging people to sign :-) -Josh Hey there, thanks for cross-posting the letter. Would be great to let people know that it is an open letter that we are encouraging people to sign :-)

-Josh

]]>