Quote:
Originally Posted by Kumabjorn
I am thoroughly confused. Are you saying that a publisher can prohibit a library from buying their book and lending it to its clients?  |
Publishers claim ebooks are "licensed," not "bought," and so libraries can only rent them on the publishers' terms, and loan them out through the software they've selected (which is currently OverDrive).
The library can *buy* anything they want. Whether they can "buy" an ebook depends on the results of a court case that hasn't happened yet, and no public library has the funds to tackle. Also, libraries are allowed to lend all they want--not distribute copies. Ebooks are typically copied, not lent. (Although there have been some libraries that bought Kindles or Sony Readers, loaded them with purchased ebooks, and loaned out the devices. For a while, Amazon was saying that was a violation of their TOS, but they seem to have backed down on that.)