Libraries Enlist States in Fight Over ebook Rules (axios.com) 32
Libraries are successfully convincing state legislatures to help them win better terms for ebook licenses from Amazon and other publishers. From a report: Libraries say it is crucial for them to continue to service their communities, especially as digital access to books became even more important during the pandemic. "What a tragedy it would be if in a digital context, Americans and American library users have less access to knowledge and information than they did in the analog era," John Bracken, executive director of the Digital Public Library of America, told Axios.
A Maryland law set to take effect in January and a similar bill in New York would require publishers that sell ebooks to consumers to also license them to libraries on reasonable terms. Libraries pushed for the legislation because they say publishers charge high prices, require re-purchases of licenses, limit the ability to circulate digital copies, and, until recently in Amazon's case, refuse to license some ebooks to libraries at all. "We've had enough of this," Alan Inouye, senior director of public policy & government relations for the American Library Association, told Axios. "Libraries really need to have reasonable access."
A Maryland law set to take effect in January and a similar bill in New York would require publishers that sell ebooks to consumers to also license them to libraries on reasonable terms. Libraries pushed for the legislation because they say publishers charge high prices, require re-purchases of licenses, limit the ability to circulate digital copies, and, until recently in Amazon's case, refuse to license some ebooks to libraries at all. "We've had enough of this," Alan Inouye, senior director of public policy & government relations for the American Library Association, told Axios. "Libraries really need to have reasonable access."
So what's the problem here? (Score:2)
So when I was young, and still going to libraries, even the "big" college library in my town only had one copy of each book. Though I admit I didn't spend much time in the fiction section. Are they asking to be able to loan out more copies at a time now? Otherwise, just do ebooks exactly like regular books - one at a time. Or just x number of copies for big city libraries I guess.
Re:So what's the problem here? (Score:4, Insightful)
There's always a vague aspect of law. As much as we want the law to be perfect, it tends to get into 'vague' terms of reasonableness in many areas (monopoly law...).
In this case:
"A Maryland law set to take effect in January and a similar bill in New York would require publishers that sell ebooks to consumers to also license them to libraries on reasonable terms."
I don't think any publisher wouldn't want to also sell a license to a library. It's more money. Of course what is reasonable becomes an issue. Management of copyright and the number of copies in use is definitely a thing. The law is just the start of a normally gruelling detailed discussion to take place.
Re:So what's the problem here? (Score:5, Insightful)
We DO pay for each copy. One of the biggest problems is that if I buy a hard copy, I can loan that until the heat death of the universe, but the eBook copy I can loan X times and then I have to pay for ANOTHER digital copy. And that X is set ridiculously small, in my opinion.
Disclaimer: I am a library board member in my county for almost 20 years.
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How are you accounting for the cost per use of physical books, rebinding and replacement of damaged books, staffing requirements, furniture and fixtures, building costs etc... ? I admit some of those costs (space, etc...) are effectively sunk costs, but in the very long term I'd think libraries that can transition to more digital books would have reduced staffing requirements, and either be able to reduce the size of future branches or allocate more of the branch to friend of the library bookstores or make
Re:So what's the problem here? (Score:5, Insightful)
Are they asking to be able to loan out more copies at a time now? ...just do ebooks exactly like regular books - one at a time.
Nope, they want to do exactly what you're suggesting, but they can't. Because it's licensed, not purchased, an eBook doesn't work the same way a physical book works. Imagine a world where libraries are contractually/legally obligated to do book burnings every weekend for the physical copies in their possession that have been leant a few times or that they've had for a few years, and you start to get an idea of what the eBook situation looks like for libraries. Even if all they want to do is maintain a single digital copy in their local circulation, just as you're describing, they regularly need to repurchase those licenses.
To be fair, publishers have been able to rely on libraries' physical copies becoming damaged or lost with time as a source for stable revenue, so there's an argument—a weak one—to be made for them needing an ongoing source of revenue, which they are securing by having licenses that expire with use. On the other hand, the marginal cost to produce each eBook presents a massive cost savings over the marginal cost to produce each physical book, so publishers are already raking in far greater profits for each eBook than they are its physical counterpart being sold for the same price, meaning that the need to preserve their profits has already been met and exceeded with the shift to digital publishing.
As such, they're just being greedy with these practices, but hey, what's new there?
A radical idea (Score:3)
The law should just require the publishers to sell ebooks to libraries. Then let the libraries handle the DRM, instead of the publishers.
It's none of a publisher's business when and how a library lends a paper book; the rules should be the same.
Re: A radical idea (Score:2)
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It's disgusting that the publishers act like the libraries are untrustworthy. No one with any familiarity with how local government works thinks that there's a risk of a public library overlending an ebook.
There just needs a non copyable way to distribute a book so that one copy actually represents one copy.
Just like we need to be able to compress random data and achieve perpetual motion.
What we need is to quit acting like there is a technical solution to the problem of people copying files that they're not allowed to.
Unconstitutional? Federal Law? (Score:1)
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Do I not have the right to decide how my work will be distributed while the copyright is active?
Not traditionally, according to the first-sale doctrine. [wikipedia.org] Unfortunately, the copyright holders have succeeded in sezing that control for digital copies of works.
Re:Unconstitutional? Federal Law? (Score:5, Interesting)
Do I not have the right to decide how my work will be distributed while the copyright is active?
You do, and that's the problem. See, copyright is a right, the right to make copies, granted by a government, who uses its police force and threat of violence to make sure other comply with your right to make copies. All of that is good and well, since the goal of the this scheme is to make sure contents gets distributed with content producers being paid. But a problem arises when one gets the right to make copies and then refuses to make copies, all the while preventing others from making copies. Then the purpose and spirit of these laws are subverted.
There's an old adage according which to every right corresponds a duty. In the case of copyright law, though, we have a right without a corresponding duty, which is an aberration. To fix that copyright should require, to remain valid, copyduty: you get the right to block others from copying a work as long as you provide those copies. You'd still be allowed to, in principle, set any terms you wanted for this copy-offering, but you'd have the obligation to make it available to all interested parties. And if you refused to fulfill your copyduty for some interested party, then you'd lose your copyright for that interested party, at which point the government would appoint to someone else the copyright, the right to make copies, for that specific interested party.
This in a way already happens when it comes to blind people, whose needs overcome those of the copyright holders who refuse to make Braille versions available to them, but that's just a specific case of something that should be a general principle.
In short: Want a right? Do your duty.
Re: (Score:2)
"Copyduty" could easily be defeated by every author offering their work for sale for a default of $1,000,000,000,000. Then they can meet the terms requiring the work to be available to the public but with terms that can never be met.
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So you want to force content creators to sell rights to their works for an amount they don't get to determine?
I understand that for necessities such as food, housing, etc. Not so much for Beatles songs.
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So you want to force content creators to sell rights to their works for an amount they don't get to determine?
Yes. The default value authors receive under a system of pure natural rights is whatever they negotiated with their patron before making the work, if anything, and $0 for any subsequent copies, since in the strictest of senses intellectual production is a service intellectuals provide and nothing more. Afterwards, work done, if someone makes a copy of it that's another service, to be paid to the copier according whatever the copier asks. Outside those atomic service contracts there's no right to further com
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If you want the protection of copyright laws, you have to agree to statutory royalties. And, as I said, those rates are higher - usually much higher - than the usual negotiated rates. If you write a song, you can pick the first recording artist, but after that, you have to let others perform it.
federal law forces screen reader access! (Score:2)
federal law forces screen reader access!
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As an author, you get extra special Constitutional protections for your work for a period of time. With those protections comes extra rules. The rules can always be changed.
Digital Feudalism (Score:5, Insightful)
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Print them (Score:2)
Maybe the balance would be libraries be able to print eBooks. It wouldnâ(TM)t have the convenience of an eBook, but it would retain physical access to the content. Sure it could seem like a quirky way to access the content, but surely some access is better than no access.
Good for libraries (Score:2)
For one, libraries *do* have multiple copies of popular books.
For another, UNFUCK Big River and their DRM. I can easily point out that Baen and Tor, major publishers, explicitly - you can go to their websites and read - refuse to use DRM.... and yet if I buy a book from amazon, they have (illegally) ADDED DRM.
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They have not illegally added DRM, the contracts they have with those publishers explicitly allow for Amazon's DRM to be used on ebooks sold on their platform (I remember the discussion on Baen's forums talking about this)
Back in the old days... (Score:2)
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The "lower taxes" crowd (AKA Republicans) would prefer to have an ignorant electorate, so they don't want to spend money on anything that would make reading cheaper or easier.
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Federal power (Score:2)
Regulating copyright is a power exclusively reserved to Congress, under Article I Section 8, and the Tenth Amendment.
Therefore, these laws are unconstitutional and should be struck down.
Note that this has nothing to do with the merits of the laws. To be honest, I think that eBook publishing houses are screwing over both libraries and the public.