[emmelaich]

Is that hypercapitalism or .. too much state control?

A private industry would be able to maintain the records for next to nothing by advertising or offering related services.

The govt could restrict themselves to ensuring no monopoly.

[cuu508]

Intentionally ot not, it also prevents mass scraping.

[skissane]

It doesn’t because you can negotiate a bulk discount. If you want all the titles, they’ll sell that to you - for a huge fee, but still a big discount off paying for them all individually. So essentially it prevents mass scraping by individuals and small businesses, while posing no real obstacle for megacorps with megabudgets