Well, playing the role of one of the hornets, considering the fact that the
right to equal access is the law of the land, I would have to ask your
husband the following.
Is he supporting, or recommending, that as a nation we take up the
challenge of 'Fahrenheit 451?'What I mean by this, is if people should not
be provided with free access to books, we have a great many public
libraries we need to start shutting down. When my son gets a book from the
school library, he is reading a book that he didn't pay for, and more than
one other person has already read it, or will read it. So considering your
point, that he is getting free access to a book, we certainly need to shut
down that school library. Ah you say, but someone has purchased that book,
and he is reading the hard copy edition. Well, with the exception of books
provided by the publishers, the books on Bookshare were all purchased by
someone, and we aren't hacking into the publisher's database and grabbing
these files. In recent months, I have probably purchased at least 8 books
myself that I probably wouldn't have bought if not for becoming aware of an
author or series on Bookshare. But you say, once you download a book you
can have it forever. Well, since my recent computer crash of a few months
ago, and being particularly remiss in my backup regime, I would have to
question the concept of forever. The nice thing however, is that those 8
or so books that I purchased are still on my bookshelf, or maybe in my
son's room. Perhaps I should go get them out of there, as he didn't buy
them, and I guess therefore he shouldn't be reading them. Regarding those
books, 3 or 4 I can go and get from Bookshare so I won't have to scan them
again, and the others I have yet to scan.
While I don't want to belabor the point, and yes I realize that my
arguments were extreme and silly, I don't feel that they are any more
ridiculous than someone asking the question, 'do blind people have the
right to free books?'Please also remind your husband, that Bookshare has a
$50 a year subscription fee, just as many public libraries do.
Dave
At 10:00 AM 6/9/2004, you wrote:
Hi all,
Well, I maybe stepping in a hornet's nest here, but here goes ...
On an introductory note, my husband is part of a panel that is presenting a session at the upcoming AHEAD conference next month dealing with blind access and copyright law. As you can imagine, there's been lots of hot debate around our dinner table on this topic lately. Though we're still a ways away from a cease fire, *grin* he does raise one point which I think is an extremely valid one: are blind people entitled to free books?
