Quote:
Originally Posted by arjaybe
Using the ebooks-are-licensed-like-software argument, shouldn't we also accept limits on how many documents we can create with a word processor? If a library is to be limited to 26 lends by the license, shouldn't authors be limited to, say, 1,000 documents by the license on their word processor? After all, you only need to buy the program once and you can use it forever, depriving the vendor of the income it's entitled to.
rjb
|
Any software publisher is perfectly free to impose such licence conditions. It's a free market, and the market will decide whether or not that's a commercially viable marketing strategy, just as libraries have decided that the licensing conditions imposed by Overdrive are acceptable to them. Nobody's holding a gun to their head and saying "you must provide Overdrive ebooks".
If you think that you can start an ebook lending system in competition to Overdrive that has less "unfair" licensing terms, go for it. The market will decide whether or not you're right.