Libraries vs. Authors
Libraries told stop lending. Over in Japan, the Daily Yomiuri has a story about the conflicts between bookstores, publishers, and libraries.
The prolonged economic slump lies behind the sluggish book sales, but authors organizations and publishing houses feel public libraries are becoming a problem, too.
In last autumn's symposium titled "Debate Between Authors and Libraries," authors said that lending a large number of new books would lead to a violation of their copyrights.
But public libraries refuted this claim, saying that lending out new books would increase the number of readers and the public service did not undermine book sales.
Authors proposed introducing a system requiring libraries to compensate authors financially according to the number of books they lend. [LISNews.com]
Omigosh! I'm not really surprised, though. This is the logical next issue in the intellectual property debate that the Internet has fostered, but come on, people.
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