The Library Market

from GalleyCat

Freakonomics co-author Stephen J. Dubner asks an intriguing question about public libraries on his blog: "If there was no such thing today as the public library and someone like Bill Gates proposed to establish them in cities and towns across the U.S. (much like Andrew Carnegie once did), what would happen?" His hypothesis is that publishers might actually try to block the initiative; "given the current state of debate about intellectual property, can you imagine modern publishers being willing to sell one copy of a book and then have the owner let an unlimited number of strangers borrow it?" he asks.

The entire post at Freakonomics