[Web4lib] Amazon's Kindle e-book reader

[Tim Spalding]

> When I learned of this (because of students trying to print the whole
> thing jamming up our print servers), I contacted her and advised her
> of the copyright violation, etc.  She said she did it "because the
> stupid library reserve people wouldn't put the whole scanned book on
> reserve".  Well, duuuhhhhh.  I explained that this edition was in
> print and she was breaking the law.  She was not interested in putting
> up an out-of-copyright edition or putting the print book on reserve,
> as she was "saving the student the cost of buying the book" and they
> could just "read it off the screen" (despite the fact that it was
> scanned in "newspaper microfilm format" rather than any sort of usable
> format.  I think my neck would get kinky from reading it sideways, and
> most monitors don't handle rotation.  She didn't get it that "just a
> few students" were printing it out, at a cost approximately equal to
> the cost of the book.

First, a quick-question: Was it a Greek edition or an English
translation? If the former, a very strong case can be made that
copyright is simply impossible. Plato himself lost it. All that's new
in a modern edition are choices about the text which are too short to
copyright, coposed of centuries of other scholar's guesses and
intended to recreate as closely as possible the out-of-copyright
original.

Second, a point. Yes, if it was a translation, she was breaking the
law. But answer me this. What percentage of Classis books published
every year make the author—the copyright holder—anything other than a
token amount of money? My guess is five, although ten is possible.

Academic publishing in Classics, whether on the monograph or the
article level, is done to advance a career. In the case of journals,
schools pay thousands for journals written, edited and even typeset by
professors and students who are entirely unpaid or receive only a
token. I think the publisher's contribution is the glue. In the case
of monographs, the publisher is often a University Press without
strong profit motives. Down deep, they want to be important and
respected. Selling books is how they do it; it's not why they do it.

This crazy system is going to end sooner or later. In a digital world,
where the fundamental motives are all non-monetary it makes no sense
to continue.

Tim