I don’t think it’s sustainable, but file sharing is resilient. That part is sustainable if what’s meant is something that will weather bad economies, legal threats, changes in technology, etc. AAAARG probably won’t. But I don’t think it matters; it’s not trying to be the new library. That said, I don’t think it will disappear, I don’t think anything ever does. The word promiscuity for the digital object I think is a really good one.
I think pdf readers are going to be another real problem because they will demonstrate that pdfs are a market, a useful copy of the real thing. (parenthetically, I love when people upload highly personalized scans. I much prefer these to fresh ebooks). As ebook readers demonstrate a market, then sites like AAAARG become intolerable because they sit right in the middle of that market and maybe demonstrate how that market is built through the production of scarcity and highly controlled supply. But like I said it never goes away. People have been scanning and sharing books for a long time.
Verso letter?
My response was “Of course we’ll comply. Cease and desist letters are no joke, especially when backed by 3 million per year in sales.” I’m in the camp that it’s not only about copyright, so I’m not going to refuse to budge. It’s about sharing and exchange of knowledge, so if someone asks that I take it down, I will. But I wish it were the author who would ask. I prefer to think more about the desires of authors and readers. Publishers have other stakes.
There’s obviously nothing natural about property, copyright, restrictions placed on distribution, etc. The kind of sharing that people find themselves wanting to engage in, if it becomes normalized, can suggest possibilities for other ways of thinking about these things (which don’t always rely on cease and desist letters, defensive postures, and territoriality).
That’s why I’m also more enthusiastic about taking a positive approach to all of this – its not about fighting copyright or standing up to publishers or something
act of sharing itself constituted a kind of conversation. Focusing too much on the comments leads to a reductive idea of conversation, although I have visited sites with great comments.
The issues section instead becomes a kind of conversation, because people add texts into other people’s issues. Also it is a way to articulate your own argument through selection, omission, etc. The “shared issues” are less predicated on “here is my collection” and more on “I wish there was this collection, but I don’t know what would go in it”. That moves it to something before the presentation/ exhibition/ publication stage — to the earlier, discursive stage.
From Wikipedia: “small is beautiful” and “make each program do one thing well”.