Public-Domain Bookmobile Hits the Road

At Belle Haven Elementary School in Palo Alto, right about... *now*, the Internet Archive Bookmobile is starting its ten-day, cross-country trip to the Supreme Court. They're putting the hammer down (itinerary) (blog) to make it to Ohio for the Bookmobile Conference. Then they'll drive into Washington, D.C. on Oct. 8, the day before the nine Justices hear the copyright-extension case Eldred v. Ashcroft. The contraption is a Ford Aerostar with decals, satellite dish, wireless LAN, laptops... and a printer and binder to do on-demand printing of any of the thousands of public domain books on the internet. (The webpage says 20,000 but the decals claim 1,000,000... maybe they have 50 fonts :) Update: 10/01 01:33 GMT by T : Nick Arnett writes "The piece about Belle Haven School's bookmobile put the school in Palo Alto. It's not; it's across the freeway, in a far less wealthy and privileged neighborhood, where access to technology is much less common than in Palo Alto. (I'm on the board of Plugged In, a community technology center in the same area as Belle Haven.)"

Re:So lemme check and make sure I understand this.

[EvanED]

I don't know about you, I but I wouldn't read a book on a computer screen.

Then I suppose...

[Marxist Commentary]

You have not paid attention to the recent rulings on the federal death penalty. These opinions were explicitly influenced by public opinion.

Re:The Future of all Printing

[Planesdragon]

The benefits, of course, is that the number of copies printed matches exactly the number of copies purchased.

That's a very, VERY big advantage to a publisher. It means that there's no tax-penalty for large print runs, and thus the incentive to roll out "crappy book of the month" goes away.

Unfortunately...

The downside is that many people use hands-on browsing to find books they want, which won't be possible when the books are in digital format.

That's not the big downside; bookstores could just select a few and print them themselves, if the system works.

The problem is that it's inefficient. Book runs benefit from economy of scale, and "one book runs" may be good for out of print material like Public Domain stuff, but it's not nice as the primary book sale method.

Beat the inefficiency, and I (and all the publishers in the world) would love it. Imagine--instant corrections, no returns... it'd be great!

Re:The Future of all Printing

[michaelggreer]

I am in complete diagreement with everyone here on this issue, I believe. The copyright owners of these works are the writers, who are famously poor (a few exceptions aside). Believe me, as a writer, we are poor. Taking away copyrights from writers will not steal money from "big corporations," who make their money off distribution. Neither do I hope that the future demands digitized books, wherin writers will never make any money ever. I am not sure why all of you are in favor of this. In short, writers are in a very different situation from engineers. Their work is not "information", but art. The copyrights are in their hands, not the publishers. Just because both code and novels contain words do not make them the same.

Re:Scientology...

[Anonymous Coward]

If the copyright extension law was named after "Sonny Bono," and Sonny was a scientologist in congress, I guess if you squint real hard you could see a connection.

Maybe you don't have to squint too hard after all. According to George magazine August, 1999, after L. Ron Hubbard died in 1986, Sonny Bono wrote in tribute, "My only sorrow is that L. Ron Hubbard left before I could thank him for my new life."

Alas the Druids got him before he could do more damage.

For more info: http: http://www.xenu.net/

Writers are not engineers

[michaelggreer]

I am in complete diagreement with everyone here on this issue, I believe. The copyright owners of these works are the writers, who are famously poor (a few exceptions aside). Believe me, as a writer, we are poor. Taking away copyrights from writers will not steal money from "big corporations," who make their money off distribution. Neither do I hope that the future demands digitized books, wherin writers will never make any money ever. I am not sure why all of you are in favor of this. In short, writers are in a very different situation from engineers. Their work is not "information", but art. The copyrights are in their hands, not the publishers. No one else would have "figured out" that particular novel. Just because both code and novels contain words do not make them the same.

public domain software

[TerraFrost]

it's a shame they won't be giving away public domain software that wasn't originally released in the public domain... I mean, I can see books having really long copyrights, because people can enjoy those for a long time, but software? If Windows 3.1 was being enjoyed by any substantial number of people, Microsoft would still support it [microsoft.com], but they don't. Why on earth should people not be able to use this legally, without paying for it, for the next 120 years!? I don't really care if Mickey Mouse is public domain, or not, but for the love of god, why the heck isn't Windows 3.1 public domain!?

Re:I sincerely hope...

[aengblom]

Wrong. (Mostly)

The Court regularly consults public opinion and does so for a reason. Most notably the court takes into effect "evolving standards of decency." More importantly, the court can only make the most logical argument when it sees and understands all of the possibilities. This is an attempt to explain what's possible.

Re:So lemme check and make sure I understand this.

[cybermace5]

Good point.

While still offering the printed version, couldn't they also put in a cheap CD writer and burn CDs with books of your choice?

Everytime they stop they could run to a Staples for a few stacks of cheap CD-R's. Probably less expensive than paper.

I don't need to eat after I'm dead & solution?

[Interrobang]

First of all, I'm a writer. Secondly, I like to eat (my reason for ongoing membership in the Great International Tech Writer Conspiracy). Thirdly, I approve of limited term copyright in certain circumstances. (There are a lot of instances where copyright comes in handy; there are also a lot where copyright is just no damn good, but that's another story.)

However, I don't think that I, my heirs and/or assigns, and/or my legal-entity estate, and/or the corporation which bought up my catalogue before or after my demise (particularly this latter) should be able to profit from my works forever, or even for three quarters of a century after I'm dead. There's no reason for it.

There are a lot of good reasons against it, though. First of all, it isn't exactly fair for other people (and/or corporations) to get fat off my legacy (let them make their own art instead of just collecting royalty cheques on my work in perpetuity). Secondly, a lot of art (books, movies, short stories, etc.) is getting "lost" in ever-extending copyright boondoggles. Many early films are decaying in their canisters, unshown and unrestored, because the copyright holder is long dead, but the work hasn't passed into the public domain. Same with thousands and thousands of what would be "mid-list" books written since 1910. Thirdly, the commonweal (that is, society at large) deserves (and, at least in the US, is Constitutionally assigned) the right to use my artistic work (after a set period) to enrich itself, which I support.

I won't need those hypothetical royalties, anyway. I'll be dead. Next question for the lawyerly types out there: Upon her demise, is it possible for an author to will her works into the public domain?

Death of the public domain

[dpilot]

We're dancing around the real issue, here. It's far bigger than how long Disney gets to keep exclusive rights to Mickey Moust. Unfortunately far worse damage is being done than merely overextending Mickey's copyright.

If retroactive copyright extension is upheld, then the public domain is essentially dead. At the very least, the last public domain music/literature ends up coming from early in the 20th century.

If retroactove copyright is upheld, does anyone believe that some Senator won't be for-hire next time Steamboat Willie is about to expire, and again and again after that.

At the moment, I don't give a %^&* about Mickey Mouse, nor of any of the $%^& Jack Valenti wants to protect "for Eternity minus one day." It's all the other stuff that gets dragged along with it. Essentially the cultural "abandonware" that sometimes becomes important much later. In the name of Mickey Mouse, we've prevented EVERYTHING from lapsing into the public domain.

It stinks, and I'd like to see retroactive extension reversed. Even better, I'd like to see terms more "limited". Even though Jefferson himself did sign extensions, I don't believe he envisioned going beyond "threescore and ten". After all, that's Eternity, to me.

If we can't have reversal or rollback, I'd prefer to require copyrights to need renewal. Abandonware (be it music, print, movie, or software) simply should fall into the public domain.

The Bookmobile

[jamesoutlaw]

This is pretty much off topic, but when I was about 10 years old, my Grandmother started a library in her home.... every 6 weeks or so, the Bookmobile (in this case, a green van from the Warioto Regional Library System) would come by her house and swap out some of the books she had. I don't know exactly when and where that system started, but it's primary goal was to start and support libraries in isolated rural communities, where a large public library was not available. When my Grandmother was young, some country stores would have a few shelves of books from the Bookmobile and you'd find them in other places.

She gave it up after nearly 20 years when she got married (again) and moved to another part of the county. At the peak, she had over 3,000 books available and several regular and casual readers. I think that library was the single most important part of my childhood education- I learned a lot more from those books than I did in school... I still remember how excited I was when I heard that the Bookmobile was coming. lol.

Ah.... childhood memories.