Quote:
Originally Posted by BWinmill
Here's the thing: 50 years ago libraries and book stores were on roughly equal footing. Both of them provided access to print books, and you had to physically get the book.
Today, they are not on equal footing. Libraries still have their traditional inconveniences (e.g. waiting lists, due dates) but certain publishers are attempting to make libraries irrelevant by restricting their access to ebooks. They are effectively telling librarians and library patrons that they cannot reap the conveniences of ebooks, while businesses are allowed to benefit from ebooks. That would be kinda like the auto industry saying that they will sell vehicles with internal combustion engines for private use, but public transit can only use horse drawn carriages. Public transportation would sink into irrelevance.
Which is why we need strong property rights for purchasers. The moment that those rights cease to exist is the moment that society becomes subservient to the interests of businesses. That is not a very happy thing. You only have to look at the history books to realize that.
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Correct me if I am wrong, but it seems as if you are saying that not providing all ebooks to the libraries will put the libraries out of business? That libraries are in direct competition to bookstores? I see them as a supplemet to bookstores, but I am sure that many, if not all, publishers agree with your POV and in fact may wish to eliminate libraries and probably have always wanted to do so.
I do not think they will succeed in the near future by restricting lending rights to 27 or as 27 people will be able to read the book for the price of one. But that is only an opinion, not a thing I know for sure. I am also not saying that usage should be restricted to this number but it does not seem particularly draconian.
Publishers want to sell books and the world's libraries are a big market, and publishers are a big market. But... publishers (aside form the big six) also view other publishers as competition so in time the situation should self-correct.
I do not agree that 50 years ago, the libraries and bookstores were equal. I got my first library card in 1954 and the city library had one room of poorly looked after books. The children's section was 1 shelf and the books more often than not were scribbled over in crayon. The elementary school library was one small room with maybe 5 bookshelves. We were dirt poor but my parents did buy books. No idea of the price, but they were nice and shiny and for the most part were kept that way. Bookstores had a much wider selection, wider variety, newly published books, while the library did not. Library books were poorly maintained, missing pages, written or scribbled on (the patrons fault in most instances) and overall they were unfriendly places for children at least. Other than my highschool library this seemed to be the case into the early 70's(50 years ago). I had been to quite a few libraries by then and even in bigger cities they were kind of butt ugly. Maybe other countries were different. Many smaller towns and even some small cities in Canada did not have a library other than a school library in in the 80's and 90's and some do not to this day.
The public transit analogy is interesting. Relevant to a point, in that automobile manufactirers sell taxis and police cars etc. Perhaps they also manufacture large buses and mass transportation services such as skytrains people movers etc. If so, I doubt that they, as individuals or a group, would have the moral fortitude to pass up a sale in the millions or even billions in the hopes they would sell more cars. And would they pass up the chance of repeat sales. Someone would be making those humongous sales to governments and the restrictive ones would lose out. I would think that the same thing will happen with ebooks.
And of course, why would someone manufacture a bus or people mover system if only for private use. Would they sell enough of them to pay engineering costs? I agree the analogy is apt and that if publishers can make more money selling to libraries than on individual sales they will leap at the opportunity, just as automobile manufacturers did.
In my mind at least, publishers are a business, and libraries are a public service. A public service is rarely set up with convenience in mind. Public services are usually there primarily to provide necessities to the public, not to give the public exactly what they want when they want it.
Social services do not give you a decent wage, Public transit does not drive you to the door and is nonexistant in many places. There is no highschool in the town I live in and students are tranported to the nearest city (106 mile away) on Monday and brought back on Friday.
Publishers must make money to publish books, pay rent, employees, taxes, and hopefully a profit or why stay in business.
Libraries are under a funding constraint and must receive enough funding to pay employees, rent premises and buy books. So it is the government in essence who determines what they can buy. Some can buy lots and some can buy little. Many do not have ebooks because of funding. Publishers fault?
I don't think that restricting publishers in ways that other businesse are not restricted is fair or equitable. I certainly do not think that laws should be passed affecting only publishers. Business is business, and if the publisher are acting in a legal manner what can we say. All books should be available to all people is not a concept that I am against. But if applied to books why not cars, food, housing, medical care etc. In a perfect world everyone would have everything but we know it isn't so.
Helen