“Speaking of libraries,” Philip Gulley writes in a mostly lighthearted essay in Indianapolis Monthly on Kindles vs. traditional books, “what will become of them if the Kindle succeeds? Copyright laws, written by lobbyists and passed through a Congress beholden to big money, will prevent libraries from downloading books and sharing them for free with patrons, which will effectively make literature and information inaccessible to the poor. Books will become like healthcare in this country, available to some and not others. Congress might eventually remedy this, but it will take 50 years, and in the meantime three generations of poor children won’t know the pleasure of curling up with a good book, expanding their minds, and broadening their opportunities.”
The TeleRead take: Well, Philip, you’re off on the details, but I like the spirit of the above, which, alas, considering the copyright lobby’s influence in D.C., turns out to be less of a joke than you thought. TeleRead, anyone? And new business and access models for libraries, with fair compensation to creators?
Related: This Week Daily‘s pickup of my thoughts on the potential of e-books for libraries. Also see Kindles at N.J. public library and Kindle roundup: Library confusion, resisting Amazon’s domain grab, and the K-machine’s influence on reading and writing.
And a reminder: I continue to think that the Kindle is A Good Thing—in having gotten e-books on the cover of Newsweek. Now if Bezos can only address the library, DRM and eBabel angles and stop trying to be John D. Rockefeller.
