I hope to write up some of my thoughts on the Harper Collins/Overdrive controversy this week, but for now, I’m posting an eBook User’s Bill of Rights sent to me by a librarian I trust and respect greatly, Sarah Houghton-Jan.
The eBook User’s Bill of Rights is a statement of the basic freedoms that should be granted to all eBook users.
The eBook User’s Bill of Rights
Every eBook user should have the following rights:
● the right to use eBooks under guidelines that favor access over proprietary limitations
● the right to access eBooks on any technological platform, including the hardware and software the user chooses
● the right to annotate, quote passages, print, and share eBook content within the spirit of fair use and copyright
● the right of the first-sale doctrine extended to digital content, allowing the eBook owner the right to retain, archive, share, and re-sell purchased eBooks
I believe in the free market of information and ideas.
I believe that authors, writers, and publishers can flourish when their works are readily available on the widest range of media. I believe that authors, writers, and publishers can thrive when readers are given the maximum amount of freedom to access, annotate, and share with other readers, helping this content find new audiences and markets. I believe that eBook purchasers should enjoy the rights of the first-sale doctrine because eBooks are part of the greater cultural cornerstone of literacy, education, and information access.
Digital Rights Management (DRM), like a tariff, acts as a mechanism to inhibit this free exchange of ideas, literature, and information. Likewise, the current licensing arrangements mean that readers never possess ultimate control over their own personal reading material. These are not acceptable conditions for eBooks.
I am a reader. As a customer, I am entitled to be treated with respect and not as a potential criminal. As a consumer, I am entitled to make my own decisions about the eBooks that I buy or borrow.
I am concerned about the future of access to literature and information in eBooks. I ask readers, authors, publishers, retailers, librarians, software developers, and device manufacturers to support these eBook users’ rights.
These rights are yours. Now it is your turn to take a stand. To help spread the word, copy this entire post, add your own comments, remix it, and distribute it to others. Blog it, Tweet it (#ebookrights), Facebook it, email it, and post it on a telephone pole.
To the extent possible under law, the person who associated CC0 with this work has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to this work
There are parts of this that are really great, but some is just pie-in-the-sky. Does “the right to access eBooks on any technological platform” mean I should be able to access eBooks on my old Super Nintendo? And what would “guidelines that favor access over proprietary limitations” look like? Our entire copyright system seems aimed at favoring property over access. I would love for all four tenants to be held true at all times, but it’s clearly impossible. A less ambitious, clearer declaration might help. If libraries and our professional institutions could, say, get behind a particular file format/eReading app and then advocate universal status for that, we would be making more progress.
“Does ‘the right to access eBooks on any technological platform’ mean I should be able to access eBooks on my old Super Nintendo?”
If you can pull it off, damn straight.
The right to do something is different from the requirement that the publisher do all the necessary work for you. So for example, the right to have a book read aloud to you is different from requiring all books to be published in audio formats.
I didn’t write this, Anonymous Librarian, and I tend to be a little more concrete, but, to me, this feels more like a statement of principles that eBook vendors/publishers should keep in mind when designing systems, restrictions and policies that govern their eBook content. It’s clear to me that the vendors who have created the best interfaces for eBook reading have been thinking more about access and usability than ones like eBrary who were clearly focused primarily on protecting copyright (which is a legitimate concern, I agree). I probably would have written instead “guidelines that focus on enabling legitimate use while still respecting copyright.”
And I totally agree with Mark that “the right to access ebooks…” is more about vendors adopting open formats that allow for interoperability so that others can hack things to get them to work in previously unconsidered ways.
As I commented on the original post: The only way to make these “rights” “Rights” instead of “suggestions” is to boycot eBooks and eReaders until the conditions are satisfied. I am concerned that the LIS and academic communities’ rush to adopt eBooks before these conditions have been met will make it even harder to get them met in the future. Please see my original comment at: http://www.lisnews.org/ebook_user%E2%80%99s_bill_rights#comment-45812
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Hey,
I truly agree with your article. But I want to react to Grant comment, “boycott” will not be a solution because some people don’t care about those right and will still use ebooks anyway. The boycott can be useful only if it’s a massive boycott. But it’s hard to generate a boycott when we have no way to inform all ebook users about this boycott.
The solution will arise by itself. Someone will start offering Ebook respecting all those “rights” in order to differentiate from other ebook competitors. And the best thing we can do is to promote those “right” ebooks providers to make them more popular and to force indirectly others to act the same way.
I agree with Alfred saying “And the best thing we can do is to promote those “right” ebooks providers to make them more popular and to force indirectly others to act the same way.” Boycotting Ebooks won’t work because the shine hasn’t worn off yet; too many people are curious and want to try it out without concerning themselves about their rights as of yet. But as time goes on and this technology becomes a more standard way of accessing information, rights of access will come to the forefront, be demanded, and those companies offering the best service will be most successful.