Comment Re:Libraries are in trouble (Score 1) 181
Well yes, they are a bit of a unnecessary luxury by now. We want information to be on the internet or our hard disk drives, in proper form for reading on many screen form factors and many OS's supported readers, printable and storable. If libraries could offer that, they could stay as very relevant as Wikipedia is.
Of course, the modern information access that is being demanded directly contradicts the business model of most copyright holders. Now the question is, which of these two is unsustainable... and I'll say it's the old copyright model, both because of the very excessive duration of protection (which by now ensures it never ever will benefit the living people who protect the copyright in the first place), as well as the very fact that it does not practically work in our society without various very ugly forms of restrictions in our own homes and on the internet to support it.
It is not the internet and free services that need fixing, but the laws regarding intellectual property.
Of course, the modern information access that is being demanded directly contradicts the business model of most copyright holders. Now the question is, which of these two is unsustainable... and I'll say it's the old copyright model, both because of the very excessive duration of protection (which by now ensures it never ever will benefit the living people who protect the copyright in the first place), as well as the very fact that it does not practically work in our society without various very ugly forms of restrictions in our own homes and on the internet to support it.
It is not the internet and free services that need fixing, but the laws regarding intellectual property.