Publishers STILL doing their best to screw the libraries?

[dkperez]

Well, it's been ANOTHER six months. Has there been any SIGNIFICANT movement from the publishers to get current, best-selling books that people actually want to read into the hands of libraries? At reasonable rates and WITHOUT ridiculous usage limitations?

From where I'm sitting, the vast majority of well-known books by people like James Patterson, Baldacci, John Sandford, and on and on, STILL appear not to be available to libraries through Overdrive. I had hoped the "collusion" lawsuit would shake things up and get the big six to move, but so far I don't see ANY significant change...

[darryl]

Don't hold your breath!

[JeremyR]

Why should companies be forced to subsidize consumers of mass media?

Should Hollywood provide free or low cost movie screenings? Oh wait, they already do, since most libraries carry lots of the latest movies on DVD.

So maybe a better analogy, should the media companies be forced to provide low cost/free video streaming to library patrons? It's no different than what people seem to want from the book publishers...

I understand the appeal of wanting free stuff (even if a lot is being paid for by property taxes) but at the same time, it only hurts in the long run. If authors aren't making money off the books they write, they won't write books.

[crossi]

If no one reads the FIRST book by some author because they happened to see it in a library and checked it out on a whim then they are unlikely to go on and avidly search for and buy all that author's other books. I found most of my favorite authors through the library. It's the cheapest effective promotion for an author available. Much cheaper and more effective than an expensive advertising campaign. Cutting out libraries is STUPID regardless of it's social value. Maybe like dinosaurs the big 6 are too big and stupid to survive.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by JeremyR

If authors aren't making money off the books they write, they won't write books.

Then so be it. It's not like reading is the only hobby in existence.

[Fluribus]

Originally Posted by JeremyR

Why should companies be forced to subsidize consumers of mass media?

Should Hollywood provide free or low cost movie screenings? Oh wait, they already do, since most libraries carry lots of the latest movies on DVD.

So maybe a better analogy, should the media companies be forced to provide low cost/free video streaming to library patrons? It's no different than what people seem to want from the book publishers...

I understand the appeal of wanting free stuff (even if a lot is being paid for by property taxes) but at the same time, it only hurts in the long run. If authors aren't making money off the books they write, they won't write books.

Unless I'm mistaken, the library buys the books, the DVDs, and the ebooks. I don't think there is a general demand that the publishers donate the ebooks or the infrastructure to distribute them.

The problem is not that the publishers (and via them the authors) are not getting paid, it is that they want to get paid every time anyone looks at the thing.

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by dkperez

Has there been any SIGNIFICANT movement from the publishers to get current, best-selling books that people actually want to read into the hands of libraries? At reasonable rates and WITHOUT ridiculous usage limitations?

It seems to me that reading this year's books is a luxury. I don't see a big freedom to read issue with less affluent readers having to wait 6-12 months, especially if there is an option to read a paper library copy a bit sooner. If I have to wait a year so that the team creating the book can get more income, I welcome that.

Someone may say that the bestselling authors you mention already make enough money. But I'm not sure that James Patterson's ghostwriters do. And revenue from these best-sellers subsidize many of the research-heavy titles that sell less well despite taking more work to create.

The number of books in most Overdrive collections continues to increase. I am finding a little more than half of what I want to read this way. Next month, the whole Penguin eBook catalog, aside from releases in the last six months, is scheduled to become available in New York City, via the 3M Cloud system. This means that everyone in New York State, who can visit the city once, will have them available. As you define SIGNIFICANT, that isn't, but it is significant to me.

I would be more inclined to agree with you if you distinguished between publishers that generally make their eBooks available to public libraries (most of them) and those who do not (Simon & Schuster, MacMillan, Hachette, Amazon).

[vaughnmr]

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

It seems to me that reading this year's books is a luxury. I don't see a big freedom to read issue with less affluent readers having to wait 6-12 months, especially if there is an option to read a paper library copy a bit sooner. If I have to wait a year so that the team creating the book can get more income, I welcome that.

Someone may say that the bestselling authors you mention already make enough money. But I'm not sure that James Patterson's ghostwriters do. And revenue from these best-sellers subsidize many of the research-heavy titles that sell less well despite taking more work to create.

The number of books in most Overdrive collections continues to increase. I am finding a little more than half of what I want to read this way. Next month, the whole Penguin eBook catalog, aside from releases in the last six months, is scheduled to become available in New York City, via the 3M Cloud system. This means that everyone in New York State, who can visit the city once, will have them available. As you define SIGNIFICANT, that isn't, but it is significant to me.

I would be more inclined to agree with you if you distinguished between publishers that generally make their eBooks available to public libraries (most of them) and those who do not (Simon & Schuster, MacMillan, Hachette, Amazon).

Sounds like you've got your feet firmly planted in the past. Good luck with that one, it does look like the publishing world IS changing...

Originally Posted by JeremyR

Why should companies be forced to subsidize consumers of mass media?

They aren't being forced to subsidize anything, and access to free books isn't the issue here.

Property rights is the real issue. Copyright holders have certain rights granted to them by copyright law. Those rights aren't simply necessary, they are fairly balanced. Now the copyright holders want to take rights away from consumers, things like the right to resell or lend, and create an intrinsically unbalanced system.

I would argue that rights holders are actually looking back to feudal times, when power was concentrated into the hands of a few (e.g. landowners and guilds).

[speakingtohe]

Originally Posted by BWinmill

They aren't being forced to subsidize anything, and access to free books isn't the issue here.

Property rights is the real issue. Copyright holders have certain rights granted to them by copyright law. Those rights aren't simply necessary, they are fairly balanced. Now the copyright holders want to take rights away from consumers, things like the right to resell or lend, and create an intrinsically unbalanced system.

I would argue that rights holders are actually looking back to feudal times, when power was concentrated into the hands of a few (e.g. landowners and guilds).

I didn't realize the copyright holders were taking away rights to resell or lend paperback books? And are these rights or common usage?

Ebooks are a whole new area and can be sold or lent innumerable times. Are you saying this should happen? An author sells a dozen or so books for 9.99 and then it is free for everyone? Without restricting lending/copying of ebooks that is the way it would be.

If you make and sell a lawnmower and ten people use it, it will eventually wear out. Maybe you would prefer to sell one lawnmower per person right away, but you know that unless the lawnmower never breaks or becomes obsolete you will sell more lawnmowers.

Not so with ebooks. They can be duplicated infinitely. Science fiction coming to life as in the stories of replicators. Imagine anyone being able to replicate what you sell/produce. No money no job. Sure you can replicate your own cheeseburgers and diamond rings and wouldn't starve to death, just as authors could get all the books they want.

But where would you live if not a property owner. 90% of the world would be out of a job.

This is what authors and publishers fear for themselves and who can blame them. Sure they can get another job and they will of course, but I would like to see them still writing.

Publishers/authors restrict the amount of times a book can be borrowed from a library or demand that if you have one copy you lend one copy. Seems reasonable to me.

A library buys a book for say 9.99 and lends it 27 times. Chances are that 2+ of that 27 borrowers would have bought the book. Publisher/author is out money.

They may get new readers, encourage reading but if they can't have any hopes of making a living, might as well drive a garbage truck and collect union wages.

Helen

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by speakingtohe

A library buys a book for say 9.99 and lends it 27 times. Chances are that 2+ of that 27 borrowers would have bought the book. Publisher/author is out money.

I want a system of "one copy - one loan". Anyone who owns a book (digital and paper) should be allowed to loan it as many times as they want and for as long as they want. What the rights holder wants is irrelevant.

speakingtohe:

None of those points are valid, not even the seemingly legitimate "wear out" argument. As for the other points, they are just plain misleading.

Libraries are only authorized to lend out one copy of each purchase. They must then wait until the book is returned or the book expires. In that sense, it is no different from lending print books.

Even though the bits are being duplicated, an individual's right to access those bits is being restricted. So those bits are effectively useless. Now I supposed that you could argue that it is possible to crack DRM, but photocopiers can duplicate print books anyway. Again, it is no different from lending books.

So let's get back to that wear out bit. Strictly speaking, ebooks don't wear out. Yet the popularity of books does wear out. So if a library buys 20 copies of an ebook to satisfy demand, they will have 20 copies of that book sitting on their virtual bookshelf in 20 years. If the same library bought 20 copies of a print book to satisfy demand, they may have 10 copies sitting on the shelf in 20 years. But both the ebook and the print book may only have 1 copy out at any given time 20 years down the road. There is no difference in the publisher's or author's revenues. Even authors who would only sell 1 copy to a library are unlikely to see a difference, since books that aren't in demand aren't going to be replaced.

What I see are a bunch of weak arguments that are intended to create an absolute sense of ownership that is meant to control how people use the products that the purchase. Quite frankly, I find that dangerous. When one side is given absolute property rights while the other side has no property rights, the many will become impoverished -- or worse.

[crossi]

I like what Smashwords is doing with libraries. They sell the rights to the library so the library doesn't have to deal with that nonsense of "wearing out" ebooks.

[dkperez]

>It seems to me that reading this year's books is a luxury. I don't see a big >freedom to read issue with less affluent readers having to wait 6-12 >months, especially if there is an option to read a paper library copy a bit >sooner. If I have to wait a year so that the team creating the book can get >more income, I welcome that.

OK, lets take the "luxury" out... I'd have no problem with the publishers making "last year's" and older stuff available. I don't care if I'm reading a new author's first book that was published LAST year as opposed to yesterday. But, like some other folks, I frequently find my new authors by trying their first book at the library.

But, for a publisher to decide a "book" is only good for 26 loans before it has to be re-purchased is ludicrous. The librarians I've spoken to locally tell me they have books that have been loaned more than 200 times and are still in very good condition. Not always, but a very high percentage of the time. So, imposing such a draconian restriction is nothing more than a way to keep libraries from obtaining books from that publisher.

Likewise, if a publisher sells a hardcover book to a library for $30 (or whatever the price may be), but wants to charge the same library $90 for the same book in electronic format, I believe it's nothing more than extortion to keep the library from getting the e-book. Or sophistry on the part of the publisher to be able to say "Oh, we make our ebooks available to libraries."

>The number of books in most Overdrive collections continues to increase. I >am finding a little more than half of what I want to read this way.

Over the past several months, I've found exactly ONE title I wanted available in Overdrive and at one of the FOUR library systems (including Philadelphia) at which I'm a card holder. The overwhelming majority aren't available to libraries, and the very few others weren't in any of the systems I have access to.

>I would be more inclined to agree with you if you distinguished between >publishers that generally make their eBooks available to public libraries >(most of them) and those who do not (Simon & Schuster, MacMillan, >Hachette, Amazon).

I'm generally not sure what publisher, through all their cutouts, actually publishes who... I'm generally looking by author. For example, these are some of the folks on my current list that I haven't been able to find in any library: Ace Atkins: Lullaby, Nevada Barr: The Rope, C. J. Box: Force of Nature, Stephen Cannell: Any of the Shane Scully series, Tom Clancy: Locked On, Lisa Lutz: Any of the Spellmans series... And on, and on.

I suspect, like many people, I buy books I'm really interested in. Those that are lower on the interest scale I"m more likely to get from the library. If the publisher won't make the book available through the library, I"ll either read it on paper, or just take it off my interest list.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by speakingtohe

Ebooks are a whole new area and can be sold or lent innumerable times. Are you saying this should happen? An author sells a dozen or so books for 9.99 and then it is free for everyone? Without restricting lending/copying of ebooks that is the way it would be.

I haven't seen anybody suggest that libraries should be able to buy one copy of an eBook and then loan it out to an infinite number of simultaneous users. What libraries actually want to do is buy X copies of an eBook and then lend out "X" copies at the same time (via DRM).

Previously, they could do that with any pBook that they wanted due to the first sale doctrine. Why shouldn't they be allowed to do the same thing with eBooks?