Argh, matey! Yer overdue! The future of pirate libraries

A 2015 paper considers how technology may turn libraries into virtual Wikipedias of thought:

The fate of libraries is tied to the fate of book markets in more than one way. One connection is structural: libraries emerged to remedy the scarcity in books. This is true both for the pre-print era as well as in the Gutenberg galaxy. In the era of widespread literacy and highly developed book markets, libraries offer access to books under terms publishers and booksellers cannot or would not. Libraries, to a large extent, are defined to complement the structure of the book trade. The other connection is legal. The core activities of the library (namely lending, copying) are governed by the same copyright laws that govern authors and publishers. Libraries are one of the users in the copyright system, and their existence depends on the limitations of and exceptions to the exclusive rights of the rights holders. The space that has been carved out of copyright to enable the existence of libraries has been intensely contested in the era of postmodern copyright (Samuelson, 2002) and digital technologies. This heavy legal and structural interdependence with the market means that libraries have only a limited control over their own fate in the digital domain.

Book pirates compete with some of the core services of libraries. And as is usually the case with innovation that has no economic or legal constraints, pirate libraries offer, at least for the moment, significantly better services than most of the libraries. Pirate libraries offer far more electronic books, with much less restrictions and constraints, to far more people, far cheaper than anyone else in the library domain. Libraries are thus directly affected by pirate libraries, and because of their structural interdependence with book markets, they also have to adjust to how the commercial intermediaries react to book piracy. Under such conditions libraries cannot simply count on their survival through their legacy.

Book piracy must be taken seriously, not just as a threat, but also as an opportunity to learn how shadow libraries operate and interact with their users. Pirate libraries are the products of readers (and sometimes authors), academics and laypeople, all sharing a deep passion for the book, operating in a zone where there is little to no obstacle to the development of the “ideal” library. As such, pirate libraries can teach important lessons on what is expected of a library, how book consumption habits evolve, and how knowledge flows around the globe...