[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by CyGuy

I certainly like the idea of leaving out the publisher but I still think this is fundamentally wrong overall. Why not just purchase the book outright and loan it to whoever wants to read it until it wears out and has to be repurchased?

Because public libraries are supported by tax dollars. And in some countries, the notion is, if you want to use government monies to discourage some sales of books (certainly, lots of people read more library books than they buy), then the authors of those books should be compensated for the sales they missed.

Privately-funded libraries would be a different matter. But ones supported by tax dollars are supposed to be operated for the benefit of the public--and that includes "the authors whose books are being read without purchase."

I wish we had something like that in the US; it'd make authors more supportive of libraries, and they'd be able to use library data to claim their books are more popular that raw sales numbers might indicate. It'd make communities aware that their library-tax dollars are doing something specific and useful; not just "supporting the library," but "supporting Authors X and Y."

I just don't see any reason to pay a "fee" if the book is purchased outright, you should be free to do anything you want with it other than make copies. If people like the book they can purchase their own copy.

"You" can do pretty much anything you want with a book you bought. (Copyright, these days, covers a lot more than just copies, and the definition of "derivative works" has gotten ridiculous in some areas. Still, though, you can definitely loan it out all you want.) Government-funded entities are bound by more rules.

None of that, of course, applies to ebooks; those, the library generally doesn't have the option to "purchase." They only get to license them, under whatever terms the publisher chooses to set.