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Amazon Signs Up Authors, Writing Publishers Out of Deal
40hz:
@SB - not caring (in this context) is the wisest strategy. ;D
A female friend of mine had a good take on most celebrity 'news.' She said she found anybody's sex life (other than her own) to be, quite frankly, boring.
How true! ;) :Thmbsup:
IainB:
Well, the ripples from the disruptive technology of e-books would seem to be making veritable waves that we can now all see.
Amazon, doubtless, is jockeying for pole position here.
The Looming Library Lending Battle
Spoilersmitty777 writes
"The NY Times is running a piece on the tug of war between publishers and libraries for e-book lending. With the In one corner are the publishers, who claim that unlimited lending of e-books 'without friction is not a sustainable business model for us.' For example, Harper Collins claims in this corporate statement that unlimited lending would lead to a decrease in royalties for both the publisher and the writers. The NTY author further states that 'To keep their overall revenue from taking a hit from lost sales to individuals, publishers need to reintroduce more inconvenience for the borrower or raise the price for the library purchaser.' Their current solution is to limit the number of readings to 26 before a book license must be renewed. In the other corner are the libraries, who are happy that e-books are luring people back to libraries, bringing with them desperately needed additional funding. With e-book sales going extremely well this year and the introduction of more capable e-readers, this debate is likely to get worse before it gets better. The Guardian also has an interesting related piece on the pricing practices of the Big Six publishers."
Carol Haynes:
A simple and fair library lending model would be the publishers provide the books for the standard eBook price and in the traditional way the library only gets the copies they buy - that means that is the maximum they can lend at any one time. To account for the fact that books never need to be replaced they could charge a subscription of a few cents per loan. That cost could be passed on to the borrower.
To maintain the traditional interlibrary loan system books could be lent temporarily to other libraries on a similar basis but put in a delay as there is now to add 'friction' to the system.
IainB:
A simple and fair library lending model would be the publishers provide the books for the standard eBook price and in the traditional way the library only gets the copies they buy - that means that is the maximum they can lend at any one time. To account for the fact that books never need to be replaced they could charge a subscription of a few cents per loan. That cost could be passed on to the borrower.
To maintain the traditional interlibrary loan system books could be lent temporarily to other libraries on a similar basis but put in a delay as there is now to add 'friction' to the system.
-Carol Haynes (December 25, 2011, 06:28 PM)
--- End quote ---
I wonder whether this is likely to happen?
Looks like the "libraries", in London areas at least, are being "transformed": The Demise of the Public Library
I wonder if this is true?
Carol Haynes:
Pretty much I fear, the same is happening in North Yorkshire in response to government demands for cutbacks (a pretext I am sure).
I have to say I am guilty of not using the library (mainly because it is a 16 mile round trip and the local library is very small) but it doesn't alter the fact that the market town where it is located is nowhere near any other town where there is likely to be a library and that it is used for more things than just borrowing the odd Mills and Boon!
One of the things I think should happen is that collections should be handed over (preferably with the buildings) to local community trusts. That way local authorities lose the cost and local communities retain their library. What most councils fail to recognise is that libraries are bought and paid for by local people - it is not their right to destroy these faclilities without any genuine consultation.
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