Quote:
Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg
Here's some data that could be part of that education.
Free Library of Philadelphia OverDrive collection:
Encrypted EPUB titles: 22,544
Encrypted Kindle titles: 20,768
Toronto Public Library OverDrive collection:
Encrypted EPUB titles: 73,339
Encrypted Kindle titles: Zero
I think most who aren't Amazon fans will realize which multinational company can be most plausibly blamed for blocking eInk Kindle owners, outside the US, from borrowing recent well-reviewed titles. And it is neither OverDrive, nor any of its suppliers.
IMHO, Amazon makes the US look a bit bad. And, also IMHO, Bertelsmann, majority owner of the world's largest trade publisher, is a plus for Germany's reputation. And I don't see a need for anger against either. |
Amazon Publishing should absolutely make their books available to libraries at reasonable prices. I'd also like to see Amazon work with libraries to make books available to Kindles and that's one of the reasons that I won't buy a Kindle. Others can make their own choice. None of that has anything to do with the 5 major publishing houses demanding "friction" in ebook library lending.
Since ebooks were introduced the publishers complained that they weren't happy with the ebook library lending. They could reluctantly live with paper book lending because at least people had to travel through hail, snow and rain to borrow and return the books (up hill both ways) but with ebooks people could just borrow. They didn't even have to return them. There needed to be "friction". Maybe they could make them slide down asphalt, crawl across broken glass or get dragged across sandpaper. As a minimum they should have to visit the library branches to download the ebooks. Reluctantly they had to abandon the brave fight, it might not look good if they made granny slog her wheelchair to the library to download an ebook. More importantly Amazon was starting to sell ebooks at reasonable prices, they had larger fights.
After the publishers illegally conspired to raise ebook prices they were ready to return to the library lending battle. People who didn't want to pay the higher prices were actually borrowing the ebooks from libraries, that was the final straw. They all stopped providing ebooks to libraries at any cost. They absolutely couldn't provide ebooks unless there was sufficient "friction". Unfortunately they couldn't find a "friction" model that would play well in the press. Librarians might display kids, handicapped and the elderly in bouts of library lending friction. After much deliberation they finally decided the minimum "friction" they could live with is that library patrons need to wait as long as possible and tax payers have to pay four to six times as much.
Friction causes heat. The publishers all keep repeating they need "friction" in library lending. Why should the heat be directed at the libraries instead of the publishers? Why do you think it should be directed at Amazon instead of the publishers that demand it?