From @mmasnick: https://www.techdirt.com/2024/09/05/second-circuit-says-libraries-disincentivize-authors-to-write-books-by-lending-them-for-free/

"Even though this outcome was always a strong possibility, the final ruling is just incredibly damaging, especially in that it suggests that all libraries are bad for authors and cause them to no longer want to write. I only wish I were joking. Towards the end of the ruling (as we’ll get to below) it says that while having freely lent out books may help the public in the “short-term” the “long-term” consequences would be that “there would be little motivation to produce new works.”"

"there would be little motivation to produce new works" without profit motive?

the ENTIRE FANWORK INTERNET WOULD DISAGREE WITH YOU, which is probably, a sizeable if not majority of fiction writing in the past two decades, it contains some of humanity's longest works!

it's the opposite if anything! how many people got into reading and writing BECAUSE of libraries? I know I did! I started writing because I was always holed up in the library reading fiction and it inspired me. If libraries didn't exist, I wouldn't have had so much access to books. I didn't have money to buy books, I didn't have bookstores near me. Without libraries, your incentive to write if you ONLY care about paying audiences and profit, would also only be narrowly targeted at people who bought books, and not the general audiences available to you through libraries.

also libraries allow you to try out tons of books, i can't imagine without libraries how people would even decide what to purchase, simply going in blind based on reviews like movies except way more expensive and with a much larger time commitment which means people would be even more selective

but then publishers don't actually are about that, they want to turn digital books into a streaming model, where all works are just "content", a featureless sludge to be pumped into the machine to drive subscriptions :\

the other thing is libraries are one of the few remaining public spaces that people can go to that serve people and not profit or landowners. the reason I read so much as a kid? I hid in libraries to escape bullying. Sure, there's some bookstores that allow people to sit & read, but they're still private stores, and they'll kick you out if they think you're "loitering" or the wrong kind of person. they provide access to information and the world for so many people, but also, they're run for a completely different purpose than almost any other kind of "public" space left. The death of libraries would hurt more than even the lack of ability of people to read free books. :\

"Tragically, the Court then undermines the important ruling in the Betamax/VCR case that found “time shifting” (recording stuff off your TV) to be fair use, even as it absolutely was repackaging the same content for the same purpose. The Court says that doesn’t matter because it “predated our use of the word ‘transformative’ as a term of art.” But that doesn’t wipe out the case as a binding precedent, even though the Court here acts as though it does."

It's also really bad and is going to hurt a lot of other things about digital preservation and being able to copy/backup/record stuff if the courts now start to decide that recording TV never should have counted as fair use :\

also, libraries aren't a charity, they're a public service, the anti-IA people say the IA allows anybody to borrow while "real" libraries exist for the poor

that's not the purpose of a library & RL libraries don't just exist as charity for the poor

we as a society have lost the concept of what a public service is, we only see things in terms of profit and charity

public libraries exist b/c we as a society decided that access to books, to information, to knowledge, and to a public space that preserves those things is a public good, it's something everybody should have

public libraries are not and should not be a charity that we only minimally fund b/c some people are too poor to partake in capitalism and therefore need a little handout so they can get smarter to partake in capitalism

@ami_angelwings Authors get a cut from books taken out from libraries (because ebooks are only good for a certain number of checkouts and then the library has to renew). Authors do not get a cut from IA. Ebook piracy is hurting book sales and even leading to book cancellations. (Google “Raven Cycle ebook piracy” for more info.)

@rednikki @ami_angelwings they said that about music sales, too. Remember when Napster was going to destroy the entire music industry? Then Apple came along and solved the problems Napster was solving (outrageous CD prices, buying a CD with 2 or 3 good songs and 10 garbage tracks, not being able to preview before you buy) and suddenly digital releases are the next big thing. Then streaming was going to kill music…

Every entrenched business puts out propaganda about technology killing the industry any time anything threatens their ability to effortlessly make money. Don’t believe it.

@mathaetaes @ami_angelwings Dude, I’m friends with musicians. Their livelihoods are in fact being stolen by streaming. My friend got a million streams of his music and made $10. He’s now a social media manager.

@rednikki @mathaetaes @ami_angelwings You're so close to getting it. You've got a copyright system in place where everyone except the author makes money, and you're defending it. Copyright defenders really need to think about what a world without libraries would look like.

@peltast @mathaetaes @ami_angelwings …so when an indie author whose work is copyrighted has hundreds of people read their stuff on IA they earn money…how? Or is this a “they’re ARTISTS, wanting money is GREEDY” thing?

@rednikki @mathaetaes @ami_angelwings The enemy of new authors is "no one knows my work exists", not "someone might be reading it without paying me". Anything they can do to get read widely will help them a lot later on. I personally have several authors where I first read their books for free and then later purchased several copies for other people. Without the free reading, the later copies never get purchased.

@peltast @mathaetaes @ami_angelwings Maggie Stiefvater’s book release got cancelled due to piracy: https://speculativechic.com/2019/07/09/piracy-stinks-or-why-you-shouldnt-steal-books/
Indie authors are vulnerable too. When indie authors have their books pirated, Amazon punishes the authors and removes them for violating terms:
https://longriverreview.com/blog/2023/piracy-in-the-world-of-publishing/
There are ways that authors give away samples of their work that are NOT piracy. For example: the Instalove Book Fair, the Romance Book Fair, FaRoFeb, just to pull three out of thin air in the romance genre. In addition, writers often offer free books on Kobo and Amazon. It’s the difference between giving away some of your stuff on Buy Nothing and having someone break into your house. They consented to one, they didn’t consent to the other. I think consent is important.