Comments on: Penguin Unfriends Libraries

By: Useful Links (Weekly) « Rhondda's Reflections – wandering around the Web

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 05:07:30 +0000

[...] Penguin Unfriends Libraries « Agnostic, Maybe The Penguin press release explaining why it has joined the other publishing companies when it pulled the rest of its catalog from Overdrive. tags: e-books publishers libraries Penguin [...]

By: johnofjack

johnofjack — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 18:51:43 +0000

I don’t understand this “friction” concern about ebooks either. All my life I’ve checked out books without buying them, and have only bought a miniscule percentage of the number of books I read. Why would it be any different with e-books?

By: The Friction Fiction « Agnostic, Maybe

The Friction Fiction « Agnostic, Maybe — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 00:27:12 +0000

[...] Comments « Penguin Unfriends Libraries [...]

By: Dan

Dan — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 21:15:37 +0000

Give me 5 minutes online and I could find most any ebook published. Give me another minute and bit torrent will take care of the rest. Guess how much this has to do with library lending of ebooks? Why the publishers see them as connected doesn’t make sense.

There are people who can be won away from piracy by frictionless legal means (like iTunes and others have proved) but there will be no END to piracy. Why not win over as many people as possible? And as libraries/librarians we are an ally in doing so.

By: kmcorby

kmcorby — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 17:29:24 +0000

I find this idea of “friction” puzzling. I don’t see that physically going to borrow a book from the lib. has that much more “friction” than a physical trip to the bookstore. If publishers make it too hard for affluent, tech-savvy users, there is a frictionless transaction — Amazon. Is that what the Big 6 really want, to drive all business to Amazon, their arch-enemy?

I am disgusted to see the same flailing around and bad faith from the publishing industry that we saw from the recording industry ten years ago. Doesn’t big business learn from its mistakes?

By: Doug

Doug — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 17:08:52 +0000

I totally agree with the piracy perspective.. you continue to deny access to your content to delivery systems that at least make an attempt to follow guidelines, respect authorship, and provide controls (even if that is DRM) and you will find the piracy market grow for the content.. People will not stop acquiring the devices, they will simply look for avenues to acquire the content for free in other ways and in larger numbers. In other words, you think your losing money now… just wait

By: Penguin pulls out, reveals the status of libraries « Yes, there is no printing today

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 14:44:26 +0000

[...] Penguin made to pull access to eBooks; among them are the Librarian by Day, Librarian in Black, and Andy at Agnostic, Maybe. They all make great points about different sides of the [...]

By: Mike the Librarian

Mike the Librarian — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 12:07:25 +0000

Jonathan, we have already gotten the message on our viewpoint of the cost of publishing and lending ebooks. I really have no doubt that, no matter what terrific studies we fund, there will always be a reason to withdraw ebooks from the market, until we use whatever model the publishers have decided we will use. Honestly, it’s not really up to us to foot the bill to tell them how they can make money. I’m with clnelson. Welcome to BitTorrent and peer-to-peer, publishers. You spurned the people who were going to help you do things to preserve your rights.

By: Jonathan

Jonathan — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 06:42:26 +0000

You ask if their assumption has been proven, but I think it is probably the other way around. They don’t have to supply us ebooks if they don’t want to. Perhaps it’s up to us (libraries) to use that data you mention to prove library lending helps their sales.

By: clnelson

clnelson — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 02:59:54 +0000

Wow. Ok so maybe I’m way off here, but it seems prior to any publishers “pulling out” of the library-mode ebook market, libraries were providing the model example of how to legally partake of the goods (ebooks and audiobooks.) We were the good guys. Now a portion of the bold ones who are bent on having their ebooks and audiobooks will use tools and take measures to obtain, irregardless of legalities, just because there are many tools widely available and a network a plenty of help to be gotten to assist in getting the goods at any cost, even if its underhanded. Pulling out the content from libraries will NOT save their bottomline–dollars. May their quarterly earnings STINK.