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Normal libraries have to pay quite a bit of money to participate in the digital world - purchasing the right to lend out an ebook, and only being able to distribute the book some 30-50 times before having to re-purchase the rights.

The IA is not paying these fees, and so there's some copyright questions around the distribution rights of scans of legitimate purchases to be answered.



There is no reason that these should be seperate rights to buying an ebook, once.


The right to distribute a thing at scale and the right to buy a single copy for yourself just can't be the same thing. Should a movie theater that sells ten thousand tickets have to pay the film studio for the cost of a single DVD and then be free to do whatever they want?


And yet that's exactly what you're "buying" when you crowdfund a freely redistributable work. Even some movies have been crowdfunded in this way, such as the animation movie Big Buck Bunny.


There is a reason: Profit.

Is it a good and moral reason? Not in my opinion. But it is a reason.




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