Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
That's because the licensing terms are different. When you buy an ebook licence, you're buying a licence for your personal use only. When a library buys an ebook licence, they're buying an licence to lend it to multiple people.
It's not "crazy" at all. The library is simply purchasing a licence for 26 loans.
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Why can they only buy a bundle of 26 loans? Why not pay the publishers $0 for the ebooks and then 1/26th the price for each loan or 1/50th for each loan? That way the libraries don't have to pay anything for the duds that sit on the shelf.
The problem is that the current copyright laws have broken the free market system, it doesn't work when one side can make all the rules. The publishers have demonstrated that they won't negotiate a fair deal with the libraries. The governments need to step in and mandate what the publishers will be paid via the library system.