[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by Renate

Any idea what licenses cost? At one point I thought that they just bought a book. That's how it used to work, didn't it? You could buy a brand new (paper) book and give it to the library, right?

Libraries can buy paper books on the open market and pubishers have no right to interfere with that. But for ebooks they have to deal directly with the publisher or authorised representative and they have little or no bargaining leverage.