Least ethical legal activities

[Vince Kargatis]

- Public library use

Can a public library be viewed as something other than government-sponsored piracy? I never used the library much until I had kids, now I check out many books a month. And since I'm there for kid books, I've started using it for myself, almost completely replacing book purchases of any kind from me. (E.g., Gordon B, sorry, I'm reading a library version of Ariely's Predictably Irrational right now. Couldn't help myself. But I do plan on purchasing for support purposes Gardner's book.)

Afaik, libraries do not provide checkout-based royalties to the publisher, so any book I check out is a small fraction of the proceeds resulting from a legit sale. (I will note that I requested Lewis's AACM book for the library, and they bought 2 copies based on that, one of which, yes, I checked out to read.)

I've never even figured how libraries and rental places are legal - anyone familiar with copyright law around that can explain how royalties aren't due per 'rental'? Everything has 'unauthorized use forbidden' clauses - why is such use authorized? It doesn't happen with music publishers, for example. (Or am I wrong, and somehow never heard of royalty payments being tracked and made?)

- a really trivial one: elevator joy rides

My son Thor loves to ride the elevator, so we routinely ride them unnecessarily wherever we can. Complete waste of energy, and minorly bad for our bodies to boot.

(In good conscience I must mention the zeroth order elephant in the room: my consumption of animal industry products. But I actually don't want this to become some heavy rights discussion thread.)

[tippy]

Sidewalk cafes

[Vince Kargatis]

tippy, do you mean the angle of supporting the commercial exploitation of public land?

[tippy]

well, they block pedestrians and who paid for the sidewalk is my curiosity? (It was the only thing I could think of at the moment.)

Interesting thread. If we all had to purchase all the books we ever read, wouldn't it ruin the planet? (Not to get off topic but I don't enjoy reading on the computer.)

[Cem]

Work: Rental of a human body in exchange for currency to do something they don't in most cases actually want to do. Most people don't have the right or ability to do what they want to do.

[tippy]

That's a good one - why is it legal to rent my time? Even if I agree to it. Prostitution is illegal (most places).

[Vince Kargatis]

tippy, you just explained why prostitution should be legal...

As for Cem's suggestion, I'd never thought about the questionable ethics of living in a universe not ruled by a both unimaginably rich and altruistic god - maybe he has a point!

[Gary Sisco]

Vince -- Libraries existed long before any royalty sales law, anywhere, did. Long before books were sold, for that matter. Also, libraries and institutions pay significantly more for books, journals, etc. I imagine some of that at least is for such questions as yours.

I had an ethics issue with a lawyer recently. He was supposed to draw up a trust for Bronwyn and do our real estate closing. He did the closing but never produced the trust and the meter was running the while. At the closing he paid himself off the top for not only the closing but the whole of his "time" in which he hadn't produced a trust. It more than doubled the closing cost. I fired him and found a lawyer here who did the trust beginning to end, no problem, much less expensively. We protested and made the guy refund us half of what he took at closing for not having made a trust. Talking a couple thousand plus.

I thought it unethical to rake off anything but the actual real estate closing costs.

After that he tried to get the lawyer here to send him a copy of the actually produced trust and she refused, rightly. He had no interest in the matter, and indeed had been fired, so he had no legal or ethical place at all.

It's amazing to me how many people think it's their "time" others pay for, rather than what they do during that time. In this case, much of his "time" was taken up by Bronwyn correcting him about disability laws, regs and programs and what amounted to educating him about his advertised specialty.

[Vince Kargatis]

libraries and institutions pay significantly more for books, journals, etc.

Is that true? I've never heard of that, don't know what the story is. A library surcharge certainly would conceivably address the issue, but I've not heard of such. Film distributors used to have rental pricing for videos for precisely that reason, but the market's changed, and afaik, places like Blockbuster or Netflix purchase street price, and don't pay subsequent royalties, and I thought libraries were the same.

For some random book, do libraries really typically pay more than the retail price listed on the jacket?

[Root Doctor]

Is that true? I've never heard of that, don't know what the story is. A library surcharge certainly would conceivably address the issue, but I've not heard of such. Film distributors used to have rental pricing for videos for precisely that reason, but the market's changed, and afaik, places like Blockbuster or Netflix purchase street price, and don't pay subsequent royalties, and I thought libraries were the same.

For some random book, do libraries really typically pay more than the retain price listed on the jacket?

Certain film and journal vendors charge an institutional rate that libraries must pay. Other than that, libraries try to get as much of a discount on content as possible. Why is that desirable to the sellers? Libraries buy lots of stuff that the general public does not, and in large enough numbers to make it economically feasible to the people selling it.

[tippy]

Reduced rates for kids and seniors

[Hudson Boy]

Jury duty

[Monte Smith]

As Gary correctly notes, lending libraries pre-date copyright law by a good measure. Copyright law only came into existence in Dicken's time, the latter half of the 19th century.The original libraries were either establishments of trade guilds or for-profit businesses in the time when owning a book as personal property was prohibitively expensive to anyone other than gentry or above. You used to have to pay for books you borrowed, you rented them, but I doubt that book rent ever went to authors in a fair proportion or in any portion. But come on. It is the government that establishes copyright law. Plainly it is within their power to identify a public good that can be served by the abridgement of the law they are crafting to benefit private interests. Ew, I say that as a Republican.

One reason libraries are immune from the kind of zealous defense that music publishers put up in their own interest is certainly the antiquity of the institution, and also the perception of libraries as being manifestly good for society, and also the reality of same.

[Monte Smith]

Sidewalk cafes

God damn right. Also free water at restaurants. What an affront.

[Jon Abbey]

am I really the first to mention "working on Wall Street"?

[Pete C]

Certain film and journal vendors charge an institutional rate that libraries must pay. Other than that, libraries try to get as much of a discount on content as possible. Why is that desirable to the sellers? Libraries buy lots of stuff that the general public does not, and in large enough numbers to make it economically feasible to the people selling it.

Nobody but libraries buy those $100 academic doorstops.

[Pete C]

Bathroom behavior on the subway.

[tippy]

Nobody but libraries buy those $100 academic doorstops.

I've got it. Least ethical legal activity: What publishers charge university students for required texts.

THAT should be illegal. Total racket.

[Monte Smith]

Libraries do buy "library bound" books, which are rugged and durable. I'm sure they pay a premium for that, but I doubt that money goes to an author at a commensurate rate to offset royalty loss.

Anyway, I am sure all writers are happy to have their works in public libraries and I am sure any writer who saw dollar signs as the inticement to a career in literature have been disabused by more immediate marketplace realities long before they start regarding librarians as the authors, so-called, of their misfortune.

[Pete C]

Libraries do buy "library bound" books, which are rugged and durable. I'm sure they pay a premium for that, but I doubt that money goes to an author at a commensurate rate to offset royalty loss.

I think in most cases they're regular books from the publisher that are sent to a third-party bindery for rebinding. Maybe Root can tell us.

[bostontricky]

- a really trivial one: elevator joy rides

My son Thor loves to ride the elevator, so we routinely ride them unnecessarily wherever we can. Complete waste of energy, and minorly bad for our bodies to boot.

Love pulling this one off, particularly when I'm exiting...

[Monte Smith]

I think in most cases they're regular books from the publisher that are sent to a third-party bindery for rebinding. Maybe Root can tell us.

That's right.

[Vince Kargatis]

Anyway, I am sure all writers are happy to have their works in public libraries and I am sure any writer who saw dollar signs as the inticement to a career in literature have been disabused by more immediate marketplace realities long before they start regarding librarians as the authors, so-called, of their misfortune.

I do question the ethics of public lending libraries, but don't think the issues are clear-cut or anything, regarding their overall existence and practices. However, I intended this thread for personal lists - in my case, I am using the library to avoid practically all compensation for the content I'm getting. And to boot, I'm doing it in a country where I pay no taxes. But hey, otoh, I got them to buy two copies of that AACM book!

[Monte Smith]

I do question the ethics of public lending libraries, but don't think the issues are clear-cut or anything, regarding their overall existence and practices. However, I intended this thread for personal lists - in my case, I am using the library to avoid practically all compensation for the content I'm getting. And to boot, I'm doing it in a country where I pay no taxes. But hey, otoh, I got them to buy two copies of that AACM book!

Vince, don't be an ethical miniaturist. There are sins that don't demand a penetrating intellect to espy what is worth avoiding. Libraries as piracy? OK. I myself would rather slit both wrists with the jagged edge of a torn credit card than pay cash or taxes for books, or anything, yet God has fix'd His canon 'gainst self-slaughter. That's Shakespeare. Available at your local.

[john williams]

As Gary correctly notes, lending libraries pre-date copyright law by a good measure. Copyright law only came into existence in Dicken's time, the latter half of the 19th century.The original libraries were either establishments of trade guilds or for-profit businesses in the time when owning a book as personal property was prohibitively expensive to anyone other than gentry or above. You used to have to pay for books you borrowed, you rented them, but I doubt that book rent ever went to authors in a fair proportion or in any portion. But come on. It is the government that establishes copyright law. Plainly it is within their power to identify a public good that can be served by the abridgement of the law they are crafting to benefit private interests. Ew, I say that as a Republican.

One reason libraries are immune from the kind of zealous defense that music publishers put up in their own interest is certainly the antiquity of the institution, and also the perception of libraries as being manifestly good for society, and also the reality of same.

That makes sense. I am a library manager but in Australia where the laws might be different. On books we pay the standard cost less any government taxes as I manage a government college library. Training videos are a completely different thing because we can pay well over the value of the item for the rights to screen to high numbers of students in classrooms. Also some colleges buy feature films for film studies classes and have to pay a much higher price than shop price for those too. There is a scale too. For example if I buy a training DVD at a certain price (around $100) it can be shown at my college only - I pay a bit more (Around $200-$250) and I can lend it to other colleges within my institution - pay a bit more ($300-500) and I can loan it to any college within the state. Often the item is a set cost and what you pay determines the copyright limits on said item. So you can pay up to $500 or sometimes beyond for a 10-20 minute training video that might really be worth around $50. Books are definitely immune from the above and too right. Libraries have enough trouble surviving. If we had to pay three or four times as much for books libraries would soon start closing down. Or libraries would not be able to keep up with new releases and there would be significantly less choice for a very demanding public.

We buy no books with special binding - all standard.

[Mike Schwartz]

Bathroom behavior on the subway.

I don't know, but anyone who can rattle off "I mean multiple layers, multiple brushes, the whole shebang. I know nothing about makeup, but I'm guessing that at the very least we're talking about foundation, blush, powder, eyeliner, mascara and lipstick. " that many kinds and types of makeup has to have done some extensive research

[Pete C]

I proofread cosmetics ads on a regular basis.

[GoodSpeak]

Hm.



Would allowing a friend to listen to a CD be piracy, too?

[john williams]

If Public Libraries Didn’t Exist, Could You Start One Today?

By Stephen J. Dubner
Raise your hand if you hate libraries.
Even though this blog doesn’t enable me to peer through the screen into your living room (yet), I am guessing there aren’t a lot of raised hands out there. Who could possibly hate libraries?
Here’s one guess: book publishers. I am probably wrong on this, but if you care about books, hear me out.
I had lunch recently with a few publishing folks. One of them had just returned from a national librarians’ conference, where it was her job to sell her line of books to as many librarians as possible. She said that there were as many as 20,000 librarians in attendance; she also said that if she got one big library system, like Chicago’s or New York’s, to buy a book, that could mean a sale of as many as a few hundred copies, since many library branches carry several copies of each book.
That sounds great, doesn’t it?
Well … maybe not. Among writers, there is a very common lament: someone comes up to you at a book signing and says, “Oh, I loved your book so much, I got it from the library and then told all my friends to go to the library too!” And the writer thinks, “Gee, thanks, but why didn’t you buy it?”
The library bought its copy, of course. But let’s say 50 people will read that copy over the life of the book. If the library copy hadn’t existed, surely not all 50 of those people would have bought the book. But imagine that even 10 people would have. That’s 9 additional book sales lost by the writer and the publisher.
There’s another way to look at it, of course. Beyond the copies that libraries themselves buy, you could argue that, in the long run, libraries augment overall book sales along at least a few channels:
1. Libraries help train young people to be readers; when those readers are older, they buy books.
2. Libraries expose readers to works by authors they wouldn’t have otherwise read; readers may then buy other works by the same author, or even the same book to have in their collection.
3. Libraries help foster a general culture of reading; without it, there would be less discussion, criticism, and coverage of books in general, which would result in fewer book sales.
But here’s the point I’m (finally) getting to: if there was no such thing today as the public library and someone like Bill Gates proposed to establish them in cities and towns across the U.S. (much like Andrew Carnegie once did), what would happen?
I am guessing there would be a huge pushback from book publishers. Given the current state of debate about intellectual property, can you imagine modern publishers being willing to sell one copy of a book and then have the owner let an unlimited number of strangers borrow it?
I don’t think so. Perhaps they’d come up with a licensing agreement: the book costs $20 to own, with an additional $2 per year for every year beyond Year 1 it’s in circulation. I’m sure there would be a lot of other potential arrangements. And I am just as sure that, like a lot of systems that evolve over time, the library system is one that, if it were being built from scratch today, would have a very different set of dynamics and economics.

http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.co...art-one-today/

In a bunch of European countries, Australia, Canada, New Zealand they have PLR (Public Lending Rights) which is potentially disastrous for small libraries.

UK version-

Public Lending Right (PLR) is the right for authors to receive payment under PLR legislation for the loans of their books by public libraries. To qualify for payment, applicants must apply to register their books with us. Payments are made annually on the basis of loans data collected from a sample of public libraries in the UK.
Over 23,000 writers, illustrators, photographers, translators and editors who have contributed to books lent out by public libraries receive PLR payments each year.

http://www.plr.uk.com/allaboutplr/whatIsPlr.htm

Australian perspective:

Australian authors 'compensated' for library circulation

Friday, January 31 2003 @ 12:49 AM PST Contributed by: Admin Views: 1,538 Submitted by robg: Authors bank on library lending fee Fleur Anderson 29jan03 THE Federal Government paid $14.2 million to 8500 Australian authors and publishers last year to compensate for people borrowing their books from public libraries and in schools. Blockbuster writer Bryce Courtenay dominated the top 10 most frequently borrowed books for the past three years and occupies the top two positions for books borrowed since 1974. But childrens' author Paul Jennings dominates the top 100 list since 1974, with 19 titles including four titles in the top 10. Creators, including authors, illustrators, editors, and translators, received $1.30 a book while publishers received 32.5c a book. Jennings said the Federal Government scheme was important to support Australia's struggling writers. "Let's face it, it's hard to write books," Jennings said. "Unreal! took a year to write, my publishers published 5000 copies and I received 40¢ a book." Unreal! has become the 13th most frequently borrowed public library book by an Australian author. Subsequent books – Unbelievable!, Quirky Tails, Uncanny! and Unmentionable! – appear in the 10 most popular Australian library books. "Librarians tell me than my books get stolen all the time," Jennings said. "That's a bit of a back-handed compliment, isn't it?" The scheme's chairman, John Shipp, said the scheme "enriched Australian culture" as well as compensating authors and publishers for the availability of their books in public libraries. "Australia is one of 16 nations that operate a public lending right scheme," he said. One publisher received the highest payment, $145,000, last financial year. However, the average author or creator received $596. Without extra income from government schemes, Jennings said many would-be Australian authors would be forced to give up. "There are 260 million people in the US, 67 million in the UK, so it's much harder to make a living from people in Australia," he said. "If the Australian authors go, then our own culture gets ignored." Jennings, a favourite with older children, has sold 6.7 million books. He said the nicest compliment he ever received was from a 10-year-old reader who asked: "How come you know what it's like to be me?"

http://www.infoshop.org/alibrarians/.../01/31/2949535

[Vince Kargatis]

Beyond reflecting my thoughts on the matter, that piece also seems to support Monte's suggestion that the current situation is primarily affected by history. Still, what I don't understand is the actual legal status - is there an 'authorized use' exemption for libraries in the law, or is it just that publishers could but don't sue libraries? Have there been such lawsuits?