Michelle's corner

My brief post here - http://msknight.booklikes.com/post/1420911/e-books-legally-equivilent-to-printed - links to The Register's article relaying the fact that to all intents and purposes, e-books are equivalent to paper prints and libraries can lend them without the author's permission.

In practice, there is much to sort out. Many nuts and bolts have to be determined.

Even if there is a mechanism whereby a lender's copy goes "poof" when, "returned," to the library, there is still the issue that it effectively becomes possible to generate limitless copies. This still has to be negotiated.

From the customers point of view, thanks to the internet, with the correct equipment they can just log on to their library and borrow a book. Like an e-store but never having to pay for anything, expect in their taxes to keep the libraries working. Potentially from anywhere in the world (even if negotiations say that you have to be within certain borders, network tunnelling will bork that, straight away.)

Companies like Amazon, etc. would see their book margins evaporate. This might be another reason why they have invested in physical book shops this year. The choice for the consumer now comes down to physical, or borrowed e-book.

It might actually have an effect on people's reading lists. If a book has to wait until free before being delivered, and being present for a set amount of time only, this could see the end of speculative e-book buying, and people actually start to manage their reading material. The knock on effect to things like promotions, pre-release build ups, could be considerable.

For the writers, this could be serious as income would take a dive from its already low position. Many, like me, would need a day job to keep the head above water, or else have a partner willing to carry the costs of the creation. Patron systems, while they had their time in ages past, have not proven to be the modern day saviour that some people have expected; people want results, and they want them yesterday. Well, you can have it cheap, good, or now. Pick two.

To be honest, very few writers can churn out quality in short amounts of time, and with a day job on top of that... well, quality will likely take a nose dive as a result. I can't see it going any other way.

Funding for the arts has always been a problem, and now it seems like writing is about to be squeezed more than ever. Authors are going to be ever more reliant on their fans being vocal about the work that they enjoy, or else they will sink without trace.

In an era where people like their instant freebies, there is only going to be one reason left to write... for the love of it.