Libraries struggle to afford e-books, seek new laws in fight with publishers
1–10 of 209 posts
Re: Libraries struggle to afford e-books, seek new laws in fight with publishers
#2In Germany the price is capped. Everyone has to sell a new book at the price that was set by the author. This also applies to libraries, for the usage libraries have to pay 3-4 cent per lending to an organisation that distributes the money to the authors(the organisation depends on tge type of the print)
Re: Libraries struggle to afford e-books, seek new laws in fight with publishers
#3In Germany the price is capped. Everyone has to sell a new book at the price that was set by the author. This also applies to libraries, for the usage libraries have to pay 3-4 cent per lending to an organisation that distributes the money to the authors(the organisation depends on tge type of the print)
That sounds like a price fix, not a cap?
Re: Libraries struggle to afford e-books, seek new laws in fight with publishers
#4The argument in publishing industry (about papers and textbooks) is that if you cannot afford to buy/rent at the current market value then you still can use a public/university library to get it. This became actually more of a cliché than an argument over time.
Now with a significant portion of textbooks (and books in general) become mainly E-books, the industry limited library capabilities and required pay per lend and restrict number of simultaneous lends. For papers, many universities canceled access contracts because it became too costly. Not to mention that smaller universities couldn't afford most of these subscriptions anyway.
Publishing industry really needs more regulation. Free market hardly work there.
Re: Libraries struggle to afford e-books, seek new laws in fight with publishers
#5When ebooks hit off the public libraries in Stockholm and perhaps all of Sweden starting paying (costs of running all physical libraries)/(number of books borrowed) with some obvious discounts to those values. Not sure how this has changed in the last two decades. "Libraries need to renew their leased e-material." that is impossible this is not how things should work. Libraires should have every book not being bound by publishers. It is clearly the case that you need new negotiators and laws for public libraries.
We should have an international law that allow libraries to lend photocopies of books, like archive.org does, or just a digital copy. There has been a rise in really good digital interactive books were there is no standard way to make an (pirate) archive, so change is comming even if such a law passes.
Re: Libraries struggle to afford e-books, seek new laws in fight with publishers
#6I get so frustrated by these games.
Publishers should lose copyright to every work they do not offer in perpetuity with every purchase in every format, and there should be no postsale restrictions on any item beyond what is implied by copyright.
Re: Libraries struggle to afford e-books, seek new laws in fight with publishers
#7In Germany the price is capped. Everyone has to sell a new book at the price that was set by the author. This also applies to libraries, for the usage libraries have to pay 3-4 cent per lending to an organisation that distributes the money to the authors(the organisation depends on tge type of the print)
That sounds like a price fix, not a cap?
Yeah he means fixed. It's a common way to stop bookshops being squeezed out. They abolished it in the UK in the 90s which combined with internet sellers emerging led to the odd effect that book prices didn't really rise for 20 years.
Re: Libraries struggle to afford e-books, seek new laws in fight with publishers
#8The argument in publishing industry (about papers and textbooks) is that if you cannot afford to buy/rent at the current market value then you still can use a public/university library to get it. This became actually more of a cliché than an argument over time. Now with a significant portion of textbooks (and books in general) become mainly E-books, the industry limited library capabilities and required pay per lend…
If I buy an ebook, can I give it "used" to a library? I would like to, but I don't even know if that's a thing.
(Let's assume for the sake of the question that the book I buy is also DRM free.)
Re: Libraries struggle to afford e-books, seek new laws in fight with publishers
#9Because e-books are digital, publishers will use the the technology for increased telemetry, control, and ultimately to extract more resources. Much like music or movies, there's not inherent reason why e-books would need to work this way, but the publishers can't help themselves. For the average consumer, the solution seems obvious. Pay for physical books, and pirate e-books.
Re: Libraries struggle to afford e-books, seek new laws in fight with publishers
#10I have consulted in this sector, specifically academic publishing and textbooks. My sense is that publishers in the education market are biding their time while old pedagogies wane.
Every new paper book soon becomes a used book, worth zero or even negative revenue, whereas ebooks are sold de novo to every student at nearly full price with much lower fixed costs (print, distribute, stock, return). But publishers are wary of being seen as interfering with academic freedom by pushing to ebooks.
There are a couple of use cases where students overwhelmingly prefer paper. Cost savings with used books is obvious, but also, for example, if a prof -might- allow a paper book on an exam but -wouldn’t- allow laptop ebook access, most students will -never- take the risk of being disadvantaged, even if it’s only in rare cases.
I’d have to think about corresponding forces in the general publishing and public libraries realm, which I’ll assume is more complex but roughly analogous.
Publishers are waiting until there are a few successful targeted solutions and generational overturn, then paper will disappear in a blink and they will get a fat profit boost. Tech to enable this should be a nice little unicorn.