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Originally Posted by spec
... or it can be donated to any library at any point after purchase similarly to what is possible and legal to do with paper books. I really hope that is only because the technology needs to catch up, not because publishers intend to make the licenses for ebooks more strict compared to paper versions.
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John Sargent's (CEO Macmillan) view on Library ebooks
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"That is a very thorny problem", said Sargent. In the past, getting a book from libraries has had a tremendous amount of friction. You have to go to the library, maybe the book has been checked out and you have to come back another time. If it's a popular book, maybe it gets lent ten times, there's a lot of wear and tear, and the library will then put in a reorder. With ebooks, you sit on your couch in your living room and go to the library website, see if the library has it, maybe you check libraries in three other states. You get the book, read it, return it and get another, all without paying a thing. "It's like Netflix, but you don't pay for it. How is that a good model for us?""
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However, you can get Macmillan audiobooks via Overdrive including the Mother of All Macmillan cash cows - The Stephanie Plum series. I don't think anybody has ever asked Sargent to clarify why he differentiates the Overdrive model between audio and text. I'd be interested in hearing him try to explain it.