Articles Tagged with copyright

EyeinforestJohn Scalzi was interviewed by Library Journal recently. Among other things he addressed ePublishing, copyright, and the role of libraries in our culture. As always he dispatched wisdom with a solid dose of wit.

The whole article is here – it will be a well spent 10 minutes to get your week started.

On the cultural relevance of libraries:

748065_piratesScribd is working hard to be the text version of YouTube. Upload some text, tag it, and let the world discover it. It isn’t just unpublished novels – many copyrighted textbooks are already there via unauthorized uploads.

Like YouTube, users can upload anything and the site isn’t under any legal obligation to screen for copyright protection. Copyright holders have to proactively scan and search for their content. Get it taken down today – it can be uploaded again tomorrow morning.

For example, Key Curriculum Press’s “Discovering Advanced Algebra” is available for anyone to download all 888 pages for free (and has been since last August when it was posted by “skihe63”). It has been accessed 8,898 times since it was loaded less than a year ago. It is an older copyright, but still – on Amazon it sells for $25. That is $222k in value.