Pocket PC eBooks Watch - eBook and beyond  
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Interesting Article, Must Read!
Libraries' E-Lending Opens With a Subplot: Copyright
Through an e-book lending program being rolled out at hundreds of public libraries across the country, Sigurani can access practically any work he desires, at any hour of day, from the comfort of his home just northeast of Silicon Valley. And all for free.
His county library has a collection of more than 3,000 e-books. Other free online sites offer tens of thousands more.
The services may be every bibliophile's dream, but publishing houses worry that the lending programs will cannibalize their revenue and destroy financial incentives for popular writers. The fear isn't so much about the demise of old-fashioned paper books -- after all, no one's quite figured out how to make a digital book as enchanting as fresh print. It's more about whether free electronic libraries unfairly compete with the digital initiatives of booksellers, effectively devaluing their copyrights. Why would people want to pay for an e-book when they could borrow one free just as easily?
...The digital vending machines that are being rolled out may sound good in theory, but as recent history has shown, they're vulnerable to even the most novice hackers. Bootleg copies of everything from J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter books to Frank McCourt's "Angela's Ashes" have been showing up on rogue Web sites. And just this March, an anonymous hacker posted on a Yahoo message board instructions on cracking the RocketBook encryption format so that users could make free copies.
With the new library lending programs, however, book lovers don't have to go to that much trouble. To keep a semi-permanent copy of a digital work all they have to do is log back on to the World Wide Web -- and keep clicking on the "renew" button to borrow another copy.

posted by Jerry permanent link