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Old 07-19-2013, 08:20 AM   #1
fjtorres
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Storm brewing: Library book pricing

From the Huffington Post, a reminder that the fallout of the Price Fix Conspiracy is hardly over:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/art-br...7&rid=26912588

If anything, it is beginning:

Quote:
While the e-book world takes a minute to digest the court ruling finding Apple conspired with book publishers to jack up the price of e-books to consumers, it's worth noting that there is another e-book pricing battle going on.

Consumers are the ultimate victims here, also, but those most directly affected are public libraries. Some book publishers don't lease e-books to libraries at all, depriving library customers of versions of popular best-sellers. Others set the lease rates exorbitantly high, squeezing the already squeezed library budget.
Yes, having been found to be conspiring miscreants, the BPHs are now fair game for the bigger breed of predatory miscreant: politicians...

Quote:
The American Library Association (ALA), and particularly former President Maureen Sullivan, have raised the issue loudly and persistently, but the publishers haven't been terribly responsive. Now, state and local governments are just starting to become involved on behalf of their libraries and the library patrons.
Quote:
In Connecticut, Gov. Dan Malloy (D) on June 6 signed a bill requiring the state attorney general and the state librarian to conduct a study on the availability of e-books to public library customers. The study will have a broad mandate, taking in such topics as surveying current practices used by publishers and distributors (companies like Overdrive or Baker & Taylor, which supply the software to make the e-books available to libraries), to determine if there are any problems with those practices and if so, what to do about them.

The requirement of a study was the last compromise in the legislative process, which started out with a bill by State Rep. Brian Sear (D) "to require publishers of electronic books to offer such books for sale to public and academic libraries at the same rates as offered to the general public." That bill would mean the publishers couldn't charge the public $12.99 for an e-book and charge libraries $85 for the same e-book, which is the practice now.
Quote:
States should study the pricing of e-books, and pass on to Congress and Federal agencies their findings. Localities should speak up for their library users. And Congress should ask book publishers when they will recognize the harm being done to library budgets and to library users through discriminatory pricing.
More detail at the source.

The BPHs should start beefing up their lobbying deartment. Now, in addition to their Amazon FUD campaign, they are going to have to run 51 lobbying efforts to stop library book pricing from being regulated.

Of course, the same states looking at their library practices are also plaintiffs in the still-pending class action Price Fixing suits. They are not likely to be easily swayed with the usual sweet-talk and small brown paper bags...
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