How would a privatized library work?

[specsaregood]

With due respect, books were written for profit long before IP laws existed. You need to add more detail to make a solid argument.

Books were written before profit long before IP laws existed AND the technology to cheaply copy and reproduce the books was not in existence.

 

[Andrew-Austin]

Books were written before profit long before IP laws existed AND the technology to cheaply copy and reproduce the books was not in existence.

If people really have something to say they will write books anyways. And they will still make profits just fine, just not to the extent they only have to write a couple good books in order to be able to sit on their ass the rest of their lives.

I doubt the reason Ron Paul wrote End the Fed was to make money, actually I know it wasn't because he said the proceeds were going to some charity.

I doubt anyone who is apart of the Mises Institute writes books for profit, since a) they tend to be against IP laws themselves, b) tend to care more about spreading their ideals than making money, and c) give away a lot of books anyways.

I doubt Professors and scholars write books for money, since they make plenty of money already and are more interested in adding to their reputation/legacy/etc.

And just maybe if new books were five dollars instead of twenty dollars people would opt to read more and watch TV less.

But if you really want to give people a legal subsidy just so they can feel a bit more empowered to write a book, then whatever. Perhaps we should apply this to other industries to, just to be fair.

 

[heavenlyboy34]

Books were written before profit long before IP laws existed AND the technology to cheaply copy and reproduce the books was not in existence.

the Technology for mass production of text (prepress) is usually attributed to Gutenberg ((c. 1398 – February 3, 1468) ) in the West, and many Centuries earlier in China.

 

[specsaregood]

./

 

[heavenlyboy34]

Are you seriously contending that it was just as cheap and easy to reproduce written work then as it is now?
I'm not looking to get into an IP law debate as I have found it pointless over the many years. But you can't really argue that technology has made it much easier to "copy" such works.

No, but the technology for (considering the circumstances) relatively cheap mass printing has existed that long. The fact that it has progressed so far should, in a laissez-faire capitalist world, drive down costs accordingly. IP keeps makes resources (in this case, "ideas") artificially scarce and therefore artificially expensive.

I don't have time to delve into this in detail, but Jeff Tucker and Stephen Kinsella both have written good stuff on IP that should help you understand the libertarian/laissez-faire capitalist perspective.

viz.

[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]IP: It's a Market Failure Argument[/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Does Monopoly Create Wealth?[/FONT]


and so on.

 

[The Original Gentleman]

I was at a public library today and thinking about the problem of having libraries in an ideal libertarian republic. Libraries are interesting places to be and good places to learn (since there are other people working around). I doubt, though, that it would be too difficult to remove public funding of them eventually and replace it with charitable funds.

 

[dannno]

...
I doubt anyone who is apart of the mises institute writes books for profit, since a) they tend to be against ip laws themselves...

lol