Want to borrow that e-book from the library? Sorry, Amazon won’t let you
washingtonpost.com
washingtonpost.com
> To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries"
The purpose is not to fairly compensate authors, inventors, or publishers; nor is it to ensure that their works can't be used in ways the author or inventor doesn't approve of; nor is it to ensure a legacy for an author's heirs; and it certainly isn't to give a company (Disney) a perpetual exclusive right to a character (Mickey Mouse). Rather, it is a limited-time incentive that is granted for the express purpose of "promoting the progress of science and the useful arts."
If we take a step back, we can see our society is in the middle of grappling with some very large problems.
More and more of our economy is based on things that have no or negligible marginal costs. That's not to say they're free to produce--often far from it. But the cost of making 1M is the same as the cost of making 1.
Our economy is just not setup to handle this. The value captured by producers has always been tied to a markup over the marginal cost of production, aka gross profit.
When the cost of production is $0, the entire pricing structure breaks down. Piracy and knockoffs threaten to bankrupt producers. Any effort to stop those things comes off as greedy and artificial.
What's true right answer? I don't know. But we do need to find a palatable way to let people profit on products where the entire cost of production it is a fixed cost paid upfront.
Maybe the issue is as "simple" as fixing copyright to have a more reasonable profit window. But that is, of course, not simple at all.
The deal is already sealed. Amazon is trying to deliver less for the price when their own costs actually went down.
But it's curious this appeared in WP owned by Bezos.
Do you think James Madison envisioned that the entire country would share one copy of each book?
[1] https://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a1_8_8s5....
Maybe someone can propose a viable solution perhaps using blockchain technology on ebooks lending and renting. This solution should work offline probably based on the new local first paradigm [1].
If those were truly "sales", libraries would have no trouble buying those books second-hand, or from middle-men. But you don't own books you "buy" this way.