Quote:
Originally Posted by BadBilly
It really is bizarre. it seems nothing the BPHs do is ever good enough in the eyes of so many here. This seems like a decent deal. They weren't making books available at all before. Other publishers are selling at ridiculous prices that are five or six times the price for a paper copy. Others, based on what I've read, are selling with licences that expire after 26 borrowings. Twenty-five bucks for 50 borrowings seems quite reasonable. Stuff I've read from librarians say a best-seller will normally last about 50 borrowings before the paper version is too beat up to lend.
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No one can make everybody content, and no one is saying that the authors are to be paid less or that electronic books are supposed to be free or cheaper than paperbooks. And I agree that 50 cent per "read" is not an unreasonable price to pay. What is unreasonable is the "expire" model.
Fair enough - ebooks lasts forever while paperbooks doesn't. This means that e-books are worth more to the library than a paperbook which needs to be replaced. It is therefore not unreasonable that the library should pay more for the ebook. But this only makes sense if the libraries are allowed to treat the ebook and the paperbook the same way. They allready have paid a premium for the ebook* in order for it to last forever, so why insist that the premium-paid-for-book must expire?
The publishers claim that they lose money if the library can lend a book forever. I claim that this is untrue. I'm not familiar with the american book market, but there are my reasons for for saying so for the Norwegian market:
1. Most books make money in their first couple of years. Then their popularity decreases, and new titles reach the market, making them yesterday's news. The book gets sold out from the publisher and difficult to get. Customers still interested in the book go to the libraries or the used book stores and buy/borrow it there. The publishers and the author doesn't get paid for this in any case.
2. Most books older than 5 years are impossible to find in bookstores. A second printing of books this old is rare. There often comes a second printing of new and popular books, but for older books a second printing is rare. The libraries or the used book stores are usually the only places to find these books in any case.
3. The market for most books more than 10 years old is very small. Best-sellers will always be in demand, and the best and most popular books can sell well after a decade. Most books won't, and disappears automatically from the market, going from rare to obscure.
The publishers will always do what maximizes their profit. That's their job to do so, and that's what authors pay them to do. That is why the publishers can't be trusted to be preservers of literature because preservation never generates any profit at all. This is why the libraries must be the counterweight and fight against them. It is the libraries job to secure our cultural heritage, and they wouldn't have done their job properly if they accepted Macmillans "expire" strategy without a fair fight.
*Even $25 for 50 lendings is a premium compared to a hardbound book that can last for at least the same number of lendings