Legal Downloading

Stardate 4092.7

It appears that the New York Public Library has allowed the downloading of books to other devices...

The New York Public Library announced Monday that it is making 700 books — from classics to current best sellers — available to members in digital audio form for downloading onto PCs, CD players and portable listening devices.

Susan Kent, the director and chief executive of the branch libraries says, "... our aim is to continue to provide users with free access to materials in whichever format they prefer."

It looks like they will only allow so many "checkouts" per 21 day period when the files will be available again, but still, this sounds an awful lot like file-sharing to me. Literally, people can now go and download these books (and maybe other stuff) for FREE! Sure they pay a library member fee but that just means the library is profitting from file sharing. Yes, piracy at it's finest! I certainly hope to see a giant FBI warning on the New York Public LIbrary website soon enough...