Soccer player causes e-book loan explosion

[Ekaros]

Yeah, in nordic countries there is certain drive for modern tech. And those fees were carry over from some years past when ebook-readers and devices weren't available.

Still, for government(or municipal really) service in a small country, there is some sense to support culture in way of off-setting losses from lending books. Only a few writers here can make their living by writing.

If you think about it, public lending is like piracy, only you circulate the same copy... Hmm, is that illegal, make a network where you circulate copies of stuff so you aren't copying it but transfering ;D

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by Ekaros

If you think about it, public lending is like piracy, only you circulate the same copy

1.)They have a contract allowing them to lend the book to others.
2.)They make additional payments for each time they lend the book.
3.)No additional copies are being created.

This is nothing like piracy. Now, of course, the payment of 3 Euro is ridiculously high (not that that would make sense for pbooks). They will find a solution soon, I guess.

[soulfuldog]

Originally Posted by ATDrake

Well, apparently there's this in-comic joke going around about Finland being a hard-drinking depressive knife-wielding homicidal maniac because his national dish looks like something plopped on a plate

Ah, that explains it now

[Ekaros]

Originally Posted by l_macd

Ah, that explains it now

I still think it's better than rotten fish which Sweden prefer, or shark, or lutefisk...

Sure we are quite inward nation, I mean only idiots and crazy persons talk or look happy right?

[ATDrake]

Originally Posted by Ekaros

I still think it's better than rotten fish which Sweden prefer, or shark, or lutefisk...

Funny you should mention those*...

* And speaking further of Danish food, or at least its pronunciation...

Originally Posted by Ekaros

If you think about it, public lending is like piracy, only you circulate the same copy

According to that logic, you would have to criminalize:
- used book stores, since they do not distribute their profits to authors
- thrift stores, since their proceeds go to charities rather than authors
- public schools, since they effectively lend books to students

etc.

Not only that, but that logic is also a fundamental violation of property rights and I wonder why it couldn't be applied to almost anything. After all, lending a car to a friend represents a lost sale to automakers. Selling a blender because you decided that you really don't need it represents a lost sale to kitchen appliance manufacturers.

etc.

[Ekaros]

Originally Posted by BWinmill

According to that logic, you would have to criminalize:
- used book stores, since they do not distribute their profits to authors
- thrift stores, since their proceeds go to charities rather than authors
- public schools, since they effectively lend books to students

etc.

Not only that, but that logic is also a fundamental violation of property rights and I wonder why it couldn't be applied to almost anything. After all, lending a car to a friend represents a lost sale to automakers. Selling a blender because you decided that you really don't need it represents a lost sale to kitchen appliance manufacturers.

etc.

I think publishers and media companies agree.

It's not piracy, but if it's done by government they should pay. Or publishers and others should have the right to not allow this usages of their products... Compensation for lending isn't a bad thing if it's resonable.

Originally Posted by Ekaros

It's not piracy, but if it's done by government they should pay. Or publishers and others should have the right to not allow this usages of their products... Compensation for lending isn't a bad thing if it's resonable.

Erm, publicly funded libraries do pay: they buy the books. With pbooks and ebooks they pay for the number of copies that are in borrower's hands. Even libraries that accept donated books (and it seems as though rather few will do so for lending) have indirectly paid for those books via the donor.

I also don't understand how governments figure into the picture. What is the difference between a public library (government funded), a university library (partially government funded), and a private library (no government funding)? For that matter, what is the difference between a public library and a used book store? Sure, money changes hands in the latter case. Yet none of that money goes to the author or publisher.

As for competition in lending, it already exists. Universities will gladly offer you a library card (for a fee). Many organizations offer libraries for their members. Everything from community centers to grocery stores will have a free book exchanges (which is really just lending with informal bookkeeping). The main difference is that public libraries are open to everyone while those other libraries are exclusive. And that openness to all avenues of society is what makes public libraries a good thing.

[CyGuy]

I have such a difficult time believing that anyone could be opposed to library lending.

Let’s say a library purchases a book for $10. They then loan out this book one thousand times. That is ten thousand dollars saved! Money kept in the pocket of average Joe. How in the world anyone could think that this is a bad thing is beyond me. If you don’t like to save money why don’t you just burn the money you have?

[Hellmark]

Originally Posted by CyGuy

I just read the article and I find this very disturbing. The library should simply purchase the book for full price and then make it available to loan without paying any recurring fee. I can't believe that the tax payers are expected to fund this recurring fee, for a product they already funded to purchase! Wow, just wow. I sure hope they don't get away with this in the US.

Not all countries do things the same way. Many countries, the library buys the book, but are still obligated to pay a royalty to the author each time it is loaned out. Now, in most countries, it is an exceptionally small amount, but some countries are a little backwards. In the backwards countries, ebooks have different rates and taxes than normal books, because they're seen as more luxury items, or simply because the laws on the books haven't been updated to recognize ebooks as being books. One example of this is that in the UK, ebooks have the full 20% VAT (value added tax), while paper books are VAT free. The Sweden situation that this thread is about is because Swedish publishers are scared of ebooks, and the change they represent, and purposely set the Public Lending Right at a much higher rate than the paper copy.

The US has no Public Lending Right set up. This really is not a good thing, as many publishers are not allowing their ebooks to be used by libraries, and others are severely limiting their ebooks to libraries (the infamous 26 checkout limit by Harper Collins). Would you rather have your library buy a completely new copy every 6 months to a year, and also not be able to get access to a large amount of books, or have them pay a nickel each time a book is checked out? Say for sake of argument, it is a full dime, and the average retail price of a book is $9.99, and the book gets check out its theoretical max of 52 times a week on overdrive (it could be done more, but it would require more people returning books early, which is only possible on ePub and PDF). $5.20 is how much they'd pay in PLR, where as under the system in the US, they'd have had to buy the book twice (and still have that second copy be considered "wore out" and "expired"). $20, vs $15.19, and the $15.19 way still allows the book to be checked out, where as the $20 way requires ponying up another $9.99.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Hellmark

In the backwards countries, ebooks have different rates and taxes than normal books, because they're seen as more luxury items, or simply because the laws on the books haven't been updated to recognize ebooks as being books. One example of this is that in the UK, ebooks have the full 20% VAT (value added tax), while paper books are VAT free.

It's nothing to do with countries being "backwards"; it's a matter of national governments having to abide by EU law, which REQUIRES eBooks to attract the full rate of VAT in each member state.

Now Luxembourg, as you know, has just reduced its eBook VAT rate from 15% to 3%. Whether this indicates a change in EU law, I don't know, but if so, I'm sure that other countries will follow suit.

BTW, paper books are not "VAT free" in the UK, but they are rated at zero %. That's not the same thing.

[Scott Nielsen]

Originally Posted by Ekaros

Sure we are quite inward nation, I mean only idiots and crazy persons talk or look happy right?

Indeed. I think it's the Russians who say only an idiot smiles all the time.

[owly]

The price per e-book was something that was set up between the company Elib and the Public Library of Stockholm about 10 years ago when they where trying to figure out a viable payment model. It probably seemed reasonable at the time and I suppose it just stuck.

[Andrew H.]

Originally Posted by SeaKing

In a lot Socialistic countries especially in the Nordic countries where they have long fed off the fatted calf of the North Sea Oil Reserves (which are now disappearing) they had a lot of these kind of laws to protect (i.e. fatten "artists"). Artists being authors, painters, etc.

These kinds of policies are different in form - but not in effect, nor even in terms of money spent - from similar policies we have to support the arts in the US.

I mean, if you really want to talk about socialism, the US has a huge library system in which books are bought from artists and stored in air-conditioned rooms, where they can be borrowed by citizens for free.

And there are a lot of other forms of government support for the arts, too, (although generally not directly buying art and storing it away.)

WRT the Swedish E-lib system, I'm not convinced it is as bad of an idea as it seems at first. If a library buys, say, 10,000 e-books up front, they are out that money regardless how many people use the books. Which could be a good or a bad deal. With the Swedish system, they aren't out any money until people check out a book. Again, which could be a good or bad deal. One advantage of the Swedish system is that it permits the library to inexpensively acquire less popular books.

To see whether this is a good idea or not, you need to look at the overall expenses - is the large amount paid for the soccer biography offset by lower amounts paid for less popular biographies, for example.

And it's also relevant that many libraries in the US buy more than one copy (err, license) of/for an e-book that they think will be popular. My library bought 16 licenses for the newest Lee Child novel - that's probably $400 or so, or 130 Swedish checkouts.

Of course, the Swedes may be paying too much for their books (or I may not understand how their system works). But it's not clear that that's the case based on this example.

[Kumabjorn]

You are fairly spot on. What the system didn't account for was this exceptional demand (think Tiger or Tebow auto-biography) that appeared instantaneously. According to a librarian friend the normal check-out for an e-book is around six times a year (her library may or may not be "normal") but the Zlatan biography got checked out eight times in a day. That caused some budgetary concerns.