Maryland Ebook Licensing Law Ruled Unconstitutional

[ZodWallop]

I know that decades ago when I regularly used the public library I would check out Stephen King mass market paperbacks. They had spinner racks of mass market paperbacks to borrow.

So at least back then, Libraries did have regular retail copies.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

I know that decades ago when I regularly used the public library I would check out Stephen King mass market paperbacks. They had spinner racks of mass market paperbacks to borrow.

So at least back then, Libraries did have regular retail copies.

The libraries around here still have quite a few mass market and/or trade paperbacks in their collections and they still use the spinner racks for them. Unlike the hard cover editions, these are considered as short term additions since they will not take the abuse that library patrons seem to give books.

[alee]

In the 1990's, when I was a grad student at SLAC, research groups usually ordered books (all technical books of some kind) through the SLAC library, because they got a cheaper library price. The books were stamped and catalogued as library books, but were on essentially permanent loan to the group that had paid for it, though anyone else could find it in the catalog and borrow it from whoever had it.

On another subject, my understanding of US law is that libraries are free to buy books through any retailer and lend them out. What I've read about Redbox's DVD / Blu-
Ray rental kiosks seems to support this. Redbox usually tries to make deals with the movie companies to buy rental editions of discs (usually lacking "extras") at a cheaper price for rental businesses during the rental window, which is earlier than the purchase window, and probably gives a cut of the rental fees back to the movie companies. Disney refused to deal with Redbox for a long time, so Redbox had to buy Disney movies at the same (higher) prices they were sold to consumers buying discs to keep. Disney even sued Redbox when they sold the free digital copy codes that came with the retail discs that Redbox was buying. I think Disney lost. Redbox recently made a deal with Disney so they could have Disney movies on their streaming service, and as a part of that deal, Disney movie discs are no longer eligible for some of the discount codes for Redbox disc rentals.

[Quoth]

The USA is about 13% of the worlds population. Other places do stuff differently.

[John F]

Originally Posted by Quoth

The USA is about 13% of the worlds population. Other places do stuff differently.

Us population: ~330,000,000
world population: ~7,750,000,000

Comes to 4%?

[Quoth]

Maybe 13% is all of North America,
Anyway, if it's really only 4% Wikipedia needs to be less USA Centric and the USA needs to stop bullying the world over Copyright, Patents, biofuel (causes hunger) and excessive consumption.
USA Libraries should pay a per loan small royalty.
Radio & TV in USA should pay the Performance rights royalty as well as creators.
Web sites should stop using the inane USA mm-dd-yy or mm-dd-yyyy
USA cups in recipes posted on the Internet.
USA fluid measure shouldn't be on the Internet as it's USA only too.
Default Letter size rather than ISO A4 on most things shipped.
Default USA keyboard.

Sorry for the rant. But it's annoying a tiny minority behaving as if the USA way is the only way and sometimes as if the best way.
NTSC 525 B&W TV was better than UK 405 line TV. UK stupidly wasted millions restarting 405 in 1946 (turned off in Sept 1939) instead of USA TV format or European 625 by waiting 2 years till 1948.
The UK is pretty irritating at the moment too.

[John F]

Originally Posted by Quoth

Maybe 13% is all of North America,
Anyway, if it's really only 4% Wikipedia needs to be less USA Centric and the USA needs to stop bullying the world over Copyright, Patents, biofuel (causes hunger) and excessive consumption.
USA Libraries should pay a per loan small royalty.
Radio & TV in USA should pay the Performance rights royalty as well as creators.
Web sites should stop using the inane USA mm-dd-yy or mm-dd-yyyy
USA cups in recipes posted on the Internet.
USA fluid measure shouldn't be on the Internet as it's USA only too.
Default Letter size rather than ISO A4 on most things shipped.
Default USA keyboard.

Sorry for the rant. But it's annoying a tiny minority behaving as if the USA way is the only way and sometimes as if the best way.
NTSC 525 B&W TV was better than UK 405 line TV. UK stupidly wasted millions restarting 405 in 1946 (turned off in Sept 1939) instead of USA TV format or European 625 by waiting 2 years till 1948.
The UK is pretty irritating at the moment too.

Whereas a single poster on mobileread should be telling the U.S. what to do. Especially someone who can't do simple % calculations.