To me, Libraries are places where content may be read or borrowed. Permanent checkout isn’t really “borrowed”, but is instead “give”. This would put the libraries squarely into wide scale content distribution, and place them into direct competition with other distributors (book stores/publishers/content creators themselves). To experiment with this model in libraries while still handling your points 2 and 3 for anything other than ‘free’ content (ie Project Gutenberg) or from the more adventurous (forward thinking?) publishers will require legislation, and legislation is just not someplace I want to see experimentation done.

Instead of trying to extend the “borrowed” part of Libraries into E (without DRM), another possibility is to try to extend “read” instead. I could see potentially something like O’Reilly’s Safari model of allowing users to have online access to limited number of books at a time, and then couple that with a full text index engine to replace the current card catalogs for finding the content that you actually want to find. This would fit in nicely with expanding at least the research use of libraries while still respecting the copyrights of the content owners.

This experimentation should be done with at least several things in mind–all important:

1. User convenience. DRM is anti-convenience. On my XO, my main e-book reader in effect, I can’t read either Adobe or Mobi books from the public library. The DRM is in the villain, of course.

2. Respect for the rights of content creators. When I propose permanent checkouts, for example, I’m fully aware of the need for compensation to be adjusted.

3. We need to think about digital divide issues. If there is a fee for expanding the number of permanent checkouts allowed, perhaps it could be waived for people making less than X dollars a year.

What conditions would you or others like to add to the list?

Thanks,
David

Garson,
For publishers that don’t wish to provide their content under a ‘free’ license, the alternative for libraries is not E content free of DRM, but no E content at all. Publishers really don’t want to have to compete with free, and forcing them to do so (ie compulsory licensing of DRM free E content to libraries) would be wrong. The best way to fight DRM is not through legislation but through your pocketbook. People are starting to notice, from the record industry to the game industry (Ars had a good write up on people waking up in the game industry:
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080320-pc-game-developer-has-radical-message-ignore-the-pirates.html )

Often the items from libraries can only be used on specialized platforms. For example, audiobooks from NetLibrary and OverDrive do not work with the most popular class of audio players, iPods. Sadly the quixotic pursuit of artificial scarcity impoverishes everyone. I do believe that artists should be compensated, but the often retrograde strategies of payment used in previous centuries are not by themselves adequate to the requirements of the twenty-first. David Rothman’s comments about permanent checkout are worth thinking about.

The current balance between libraries and publishers has worked because of the scarcity of P. Without artificially introducing this scarcity into E with DRM ( by forcing an expiration), a new model would have to be developed. Or to put it another way: permanents checkouts are just a variant on how to purchase the content, which if adopted would essentially transform libraries into non-profit bookstores. While some publishers might be interested in giving advantageous terms to non-profits, this is not something that I would like to see made compulsory on all publishers.

As for social DRM itself, remember the idea reached me from none other than Adobe’s Bill McCoy. I think it would be wonderful if Adobe and other IDPF members participated in experiments—both library- and retail-related—with the SDRM approach.

Publishers would receive higher compensation from libraries than for books that expired. No free lunch expected. Patrons would have yearly or month quotas, which they could pay extra to raise.

Or—gasp—there could also be ad-supported biz models, like Wowio’s, in appropriate situations. The ads could be spread around, Google-fashion, and librarians could screen out ads disguised as books.

I’d rather see books without ads, and I know that advertising is not a panacea; just one possibility. It would also help to have a TeleRead-style plan to provide for mass financing of library e-books, while taking care to keep the private sector alive, given the freedom of expression issues involved.

Bottom line: I’m well aware of all the issues SDRM raises, and believe there are solutions if people will look beyond tech alone and think more about business models.

Thanks,
David