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Whether you read a book on a piece of glass or a piece of wood pulp the story is the same. Paper books and ebooks should be treated the same. There is a difference in how long it takes to wear out the paper book though, but this should not be considered in my opinion.
No library should be restricted by the publisher or the author. If the book is for sale to the public the library should simply purchase a copy (or copies) and loan them out as usual. This idea of paying-per-loan is just ridiculous to me. Once the book has been purchased the publisher/author has made their sale and it should end there. Any recurring fees paid to loan out the book come out of the tax-payers pocket, which is not acceptable.
A book might be purchased by a library for $10 and then loaned out a thousand times. That is $10,000 saved in our pockets! Not to mention that the library may purchase more than one copy, and there are thousands of libraries across this country. This idea of wasting potentially millions of dollars is just insane to me. The library system works, it is a great concept, it keeps millions of dollars in our pockets.
This whole “libraries-are-pirates” idea is ludicrous. If a library makes COPIES of a book they may be guilty of copyright infringement, but if they are just loaning out books that were PURCHASED then nothing bad is happening. On the contrary, money is being saved in our pockets…
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