<
https://www.techdirt.com/2023/03/02/publishers-lobbied-to-axe-the-reading-tax-on-ebooks-then-paid-it-to-themselves/>
"One of the (many) villains in “Walled Culture” the book is the publishing
industry, specifically in the context of the transition from analogue books to
ebooks. What could have been one of the most important expansions of the power
and possibility of the book form became instead its opposite – a diminishment
of both. As a result of publishers’ greed, ebooks became something you rented,
rather than owned. Libraries are particularly hard hit: publishers typically
only allow the books they license to educational establishments to be lent out
for a limited number of times, or for a limited period. Publishers achieved the
feat of using the shift to powerful digital technologies to make books less
useful, purely in order to boost their profits.
The
Walled Culture book explains in detail how the industry was able to do
that thanks to bad copyright laws being abused yet further. But there’s a
footnote to this transition that I was unaware of when I wrote my history of
copyright in the digital age, but which underlines the extent to which most
publishers are driven purely by the bottom line, and care little for readers or
writers."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
