How is using the Library different from Piracy?

[Ming]

How long does it take a best seling book to get put on a library's shelf?
Furthermore, once it gets on the shelf there is usually one copy, which one person gets for a period of one to two weeks, so a library copy gets passed around to relativley few people.

You must have only been to crappy libraries.
Our library gets the best sellers the same day the general public gets a chance to buy it. And they have multiple copies, sometimes up to 10 - 15 copies depending on how much they anticipate the demand for the book. We can reserve them weeks before they are even released, once the library puts the books on order. And this is very similar to the last library I used to go to.

As to the original question, one might consider that the library isn't trying to make money off the books/videos... But neither is the person that downloads it for free and then deletes it with no intent to sell it. At least the Library actually pays for their copies in the first place.

[Sava]

My library is like that too, Ming.

Naperville's library is real big on bluray and dvd rentals as well. The one part of the library seems more like a Blockbuster than a library.


Regarding piracy: Seems to me, if you wanted to make money selling things, it would be a good idea to sell something that can't be copied at will. I also don't see how it's possible to illegally view content. That's one step away from thought police.

WRT public policy... we have to ask ourselves. Do we want our policies regarding intellectual property to be based in reality? Or do we want to continue to prop up what is essentially a failed business model?

[molly bloom]

If it consoles Thoth, he could always wear an eyepatch, false wooden leg and a stuffed parrot on his shoulder the next time he wants to rent a Monty Python dvd.

Our library system here is great- I can get dvds/cds for free from other boroughs' libraries and the interlibrary loan service is also free. Read a whole load of alternate history stuff for free that I'd have had to spend time and money acquiring otherwise.

[MrFun]

Piracy - the answer to overpriced cable providers.

[AAAAAAAAH!]

Shoplifting - the answer to overpriced merchandise

[Dinner]

No, not really at least not in principle.

[C0ckney]

(that was the point)

[Elok]

It's kind of a shame that the old Hollywood system seems to be imploding--but by this point, there's very little left to mourn. They've always produced a fair number of glittery cgi-plated turds, but for the past five years, at least, they've produced almost nothing else. Hopefully someone else will figure out the economics involved and pick up the cultural slack.

[Thoth]

Is buying 20 DVDs for $5 from a neighbour's garage sale piracy?

or just one heck of a good deal?

[Elok]

Possibly the latter, depending on the quality of the DVDs and assuming he didn't burn them himself from ripped/pirated files.

[DaShi]

Um...pirates burn the library after using it.

[Sava]

yarrr

[Thoth]

Possibly the latter, depending on the quality of the DVDs and assuming he didn't burn them himself from ripped/pirated files.

They're non-ripped DVDs. Some good stuff and some cheese.

But I don't see much difference between them and the ripped Star Trek DVD I bought ~6 years ago. Either way the makers of the DVDs aren't making any money from me.

[Elok]

From you? No. But they made a boatload of money off the original DVDs, and they can only be owned by one person at a time assuming nobody rips them. Almost every industry shrugs and accepts losses from resale of used merchandise; none of them tolerate knockoffs. Only in the case of entertainment media are the knockoffs usually perfect copies of the original.

[Felch]

They're non-ripped DVDs. Some good stuff and some cheese.

But I don't see much difference between them and the ripped Star Trek DVD I bought ~6 years ago. Either way the makers of the DVDs aren't making any money from me.

Not sure how Canadian law deals with this, but in the civilized part of the continent we have First Sale Doctrine.