[PLUG-TALK] Why Multnomah County Library will stop buying e-books from Macmillan Publishers

[Paul Heinlein]

On Wed, 6 Nov 2019, Tomas Kuchta wrote:

> I say, finally, the ebook licensing and pricing terms are 
> unsustainable and byzantine. Here is independent piece about the 
> current issue, not to mention their requirement to constantly 
> repurchase their ebooks at pretty high prices and other nasties.
> 
> https://slate.com/business/2019/09/e-book-library-publisher-buying-controve
> rsy-petition.html

The move from selling artistic content to licensing it has, in my 
opinion, some very mixed results.

On the upside -- and I think there is one -- licensing allows people 
to step into the broad, current flow of books, music, and video at 
relatively low cost. A monthly subscription to a decent content 
aggregator (Spotify, Kindle, Netflix, and many others) allows people 
access to a much wider catalog of material than they'd enjoy if they 
were forced to buy it all or wait for it to show up on the radio, at 
the movie theatre, or in the local library.

The downside is that long-term ownership (or "licensing until the 
original media is no longer usable") becomes harder and more subject 
to the whims of publishers. Libraries obviously get the brunt of that, 
but so do collectors of music or video. As it becomes harder to 
purchase physical media, we become more beholden to publishers.

-- 
Paul Heinlein
heinlein at madboa.com
45°38' N, 122°6' W