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Comment on Rogue Academic Downloader Busted by MIT Webcam Stakeout, Arrest Report Saysparent

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My local library is like that. I've had to wait on checking out a PDF because all available copies were taken.

Yay, future!

Pleas please please tell me this is a joke? Set numbers of PDF checkouts? I don't know if I should weep or vomit.

Physical books impose a natural limit on the number of simultaneous checkouts. If a book is very popular, the library will buy more copies to accommodate demand. If a PDF is popular, the publisher expects the library to buy more copies.

It's artificial scarcity, but this is hardly new. The number of books in a library was never limited by the cost of paper.

Artificial scarcity is possibly one of the most perverse things to come out capitalism.

The particular 1 bits he took were of unusually high quality.

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