From: Lee Daniel Crocker (lee@piclab.com)
Date: Tue Jan 14 2003 - 17:55:15 MST
> (Emlyn O'regan <oregan.emlyn@healthsolve.com.au>):
> A distributed international library - that's a very cool idea. I'd
> contribute access to my admittedly small technical library.
>
> It needs a website for organisational purposes, so people can request books,
> or find out what's available and the status of books (available, borrowed,
> etc).
>
> In the context that dead trees are the only way to legally get your hands on
> a lot of important information, this is a spectacularly extropian idea. EXI
> would do well to at least host the site.
Why not work toward eliminating the problem that killing trees and
burning gasoline to ship them around is the only legal means of getting
the ideas where they're wanted. If the law is the only impediment to
using the "distributed international library" we already have, then
let's fix the laws.
In my more generous moments, I am occasionally willing to concede that
keeping some kinds of books off the net for a short time (especially
"entertainment" books) might be a reasonable trade-off to encourage
their production. But there is no excuse for keeping old out of print
books, or educational books, off the net for any reason. Especially
when the evidence is that putting them on the net actually /increases/
sales of the dead trees after the initial "novelty" phase is passed.
This is not a technical problem, it is a cultural one, and needs a
cultural solution.
-- Lee Daniel Crocker <lee@piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lee/> "All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past, are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC
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