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“Gannett has so far favored freebies. Younger readers don’t seem interested in daily papers and definitely don’t want to pay for content, Newspaper Division President Gary L. Watson told the California Newspaper Publishers Association’s annual meeting in June, according to the Associated Press.” – Suddenly, Youth Papers Are Hot, in Editor and Publisher.

The TeleRead take: A lesson here for e-book publishers interested in reaching young readers? A TeleRead-style national digital library system could put thousands of modern e-books online for free, with provisions for fair compensation for publishers and writers and efficient use of tax money.

Isn’t it time for entertainment conglomerates to devote as much campaign cash to lobbying for e-library funding as they do to buying copyright laws from the targets of their donations?

As regular followers of this blog know, TeleRead also favors private philanthropy to agument public financing and assure maximum freedom of expression in online libraries. What’s more, publishers could still sell books online and offline in the customary ways.

 
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