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By David Rothman

Since the early ’90s, TeleRead has been advocating well-stocked national digital libraries. But should the library and bookstore models be mutually exclusive?

Definitely not. We need a mix, not just to give people a choice but also as a healthy check on the power of librarians, the better of whom would fully agree with me. You should be able to genuinely own books, music and other content–not to pirate but to enjoy in the privacy of your own home or share with friends and family.

And so I’ve read with appreciation Rental Nation and Rental Nation II from Ernie Miller. He was writing in the context of rental services yanking away access to music. So we’re not quite talking apples and apples here. But I still applaud his sentiments. My favorite Millerism in this case: “Ownership is and will remain an important element of freedom.”

Reminder: Public domain books are extremely “ownable” at the individual level. This is one reason why I so dislike copyright term extension.

Related: The Benefits of Copyright Leakage, also in the Miller blog. Also see Bill G’s tool for greedsters: Expiring music files–and maybe clocked e-book files later? as well as Sony Librie: $5 e-books vanish after 60 days.

 
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