OverDriven?

September 3, 2021 11:33 AM

Writing for The New Yorker, Daniel A. Gross dives into “the surprisingly big business of library e-books”: (archive.org)

[P]ublishers [mostly] do not sell their e-books or audiobooks to libraries—they sell digital distribution rights to third-party venders, such as OverDrive, and people like Steve Potash sell lending rights to libraries. These rights often have an expiration date, and they make library e-books “a lot more expensive, in general, than print books,” Michelle Jeske, who oversees Denver’s public-library system, told me.

posted by Going To Maine (41 comments total)

As much as I love the convenience of digital lending (particularly during pandemic times), I despise the way publishers treat their e-rights. I'd be perfectly fine if they went 1-1 with the average lifespan of a library book, but where's the fun profit in that?
posted by drewbage1847 at 11:44 AM on September 3, 2021 [13 favorites]

PSA that pirating ebooks very easy these days — Z-Library is easy to use, and if you're looking for something obscure, libgen is always there.

Obviously the morality of this is complex, but it's good to know what the options are.
posted by wesleyac at 12:24 PM on September 3, 2021 [33 favorites]

soft archive is another alternative...
posted by zsh2v1 at 12:26 PM on September 3, 2021 [9 favorites]

Cryptoscrip is absolutely terrible stuff. But I wondered if that whole NFT fad could be used for something useful, such as treating an e-book like a physical book. Instead of the current rent system, a library buys a copy of an e-book and they actually own that copy, say, for the purposes of loaning it to members. As a further benefit to the writer, NFT transactions could yield additional revenue if the book is later resold, a definite advantage over used physical book sales. Some more discussion here.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 12:27 PM on September 3, 2021 [8 favorites]

e-books “a lot more expensive, in general, than print books,”

What's the right price? With hardcopy the price of a physical copy of an intelectual property was resolved over generations, technology improvements, and inflation (whatever happened to 50c novels as the supermarket). What are the forces driving the market pricing of ebooks? Amazon and a cabal of publishers and middle men? Why doesn't an author just stand up a website and sell direct from their roadside stand on the datasuperhighway?

Although I'm on the side of NFT scam scam scam, some form of regulated payment that has an opportunity cost lower than running a seedbox on a VM a few countries away... might work. Whatever happened to micropayments;-)
posted by sammyo at 12:40 PM on September 3, 2021 [1 favorite]

What are the forces driving the market pricing of ebooks?

Enforced scarcity through cryptographic locks and captured delivery channels that prevent easy sharing, regifting and reselling of old books, eliminating a major source of downward pressure on the price of new books.

We need to stop permitting rent-seeking, using digital locks to escape market forces, and effectively-infinite copyright protection, is the real problem.
posted by mhoye at 12:59 PM on September 3, 2021 [22 favorites]

Controlled Digital Lending is a concept that is probably going to be at the forefront of some interesting legal battles in the near future.
posted by Rock Steady at 1:07 PM on September 3, 2021 [2 favorites]

I can't bear to read this and learn about another fucked up process I am participating in.
posted by latkes at 1:34 PM on September 3, 2021 [41 favorites]

Z-Library is easy to use [...] Obviously the morality of this is complex

on the ethics of "shadow libraries": Herding the Wind - A journey to the strange world of the e-library in the autumn of the year 2020 is a brief essay on ebooks and Z-Library, by Finnish library activist Mikael Böök.
posted by progosk at 2:22 PM on September 3, 2021 [10 favorites]

I try as much as possible to check out only physical media from my library, largely because of this. But I do know that’s also coming from a place of privilege as it’s easy for me (having a car) to get to the library whenever I want to both borrow and return in a timely fashion. I’ve generally heard librarian staff say hey, if we offer this service WE WANT YOU TO USE IT - an ebook checked out is better than zero paper books checked out. But still, it makes me angry to see such a great public service treated so shabbily by publishing companies.
posted by obfuscation at 2:34 PM on September 3, 2021 [15 favorites]

During Covid, ebooks were/are my option. My Maine libraries all use the wretched CloudLibrary, which makes it hard to manage the flow of books. You have a couple days to accept the next book, it's usually feast or famine. I hate that it's more expensive for my library. My local library is open, with pretty long hours, my preferred library is open a few hours a day.

New neighbors put up a little free library and somebody adds good books, I am so grateful. I add books as I can.
posted by theora55 at 3:13 PM on September 3, 2021 [7 favorites]

New neighbors put up a little free library and somebody adds good books, I am so grateful. I add books as I can.
posted by theora55 at 3:13 PM on September 3
There are these little give-away libraries scattered around Austin, I often peruse them just because hey, who knows, right? I also put books into them, not junk books but just books I'm done with, which is most books in the past 20 years, once I've read them, and/or if I haven't read them, and am not going to.
posted by dancestoblue at 3:40 PM on September 3, 2021 [4 favorites]

Finnish library activist Mikael Böök.

I am kissing my fingers like a chef over here.
posted by mhoye at 3:53 PM on September 3, 2021 [32 favorites]

Metafilter: I can't bear to read this and learn about another fucked up process I am participating in

(It's a tired joke, I know, but that's gold, Jerry, gold)
posted by DeepSeaHaggis at 4:21 PM on September 3, 2021 [13 favorites]

Obviously the morality of this is complex, but it's good to know what the options are.

Nope. You are stealing from the author. It's not that complex at all.
posted by PhineasGage at 6:29 PM on September 3, 2021 [12 favorites]

If your library offers Hoopla, it’s nice, but the library is also charged per usage (hence the usual caps on patron usage.)
posted by aesop at 6:39 PM on September 3, 2021 [1 favorite]

Nope. You are stealing from the author. It's not that complex at all.

Reasonable people can come to different conclusions, of course, but it's surprising to see someone taking this stance after literally decades now of lively debates about the morality of digital piracy given the non-rivalrous nature of digital goods, unevenly distributed access, critiques of industry consolidation and poor treatment of [authors/artists]. See Internet Culture vs Metallica, 2000ish op cit et al idem and so forth.
posted by col_pogo at 8:30 PM on September 3, 2021 [11 favorites]

In my experience, understanding of basic morality rarely requires elaborate lit citations.

Perhaps MeFite authors cstross and jscalzi and others will also share their views on the morality of pirating rather than paying for an author's commercially published work.
posted by PhineasGage at 9:11 PM on September 3, 2021 [7 favorites]

I will admit - the push/pull of "ooh, I could try all these works" versus "hey, son of a gun, my books are here too".
posted by drewbage1847 at 9:31 PM on September 3, 2021 [1 favorite]

I can’t speak for all writers, but I will put in my halfpenny. The years I’ve put into writing and art projects are years that I was NOT using my time, energy, education, and experience to do something else. Say plumbing, for example. Or bagging groceries, selling real estate, whatever…you pick. Creative work is work. Getting paid for my creative work makes it possible for me to continue making that choice of time allocation instead of taking plumbing jobs, interviewing at Publix, or studying housing markets. We can agree that it sucks that publishers are exploiting libraries. But until we change our entire social and economic system, I hope you’ll choose not to steal from creative professionals.
posted by Nancy_LockIsLit_Palmer at 9:38 PM on September 3, 2021 [17 favorites]

> Nope. You are stealing from the author. It's not that complex at all.

Really? I agree that authors should get paid for their work, but saying that does not make the morality of the situation simple, because the royalties that authors get from different channels can be pretty wildly different depending on the specifics of the contracts, which are typically impossible to know precisely as a reader. TFA mentions several cases where checking a ebook out from the library wouldn't result in any marginal royalties for the author, and that is basically the default for print books (except that maybe if you wear the book enough to destroy it the library will reorder it, so that's morally good, since it means the author gets paid?). Here's a Ask about this topic, which mentions several other complexities. (If you're interested in understanding ebook royalties more this spreadsheet and blog post might be helpful, although I don't know how accurate it is). I also think there's something to be said for pirating ebooks that would otherwise be exclusivly available on Amazon. I similarly think that if you want to read a book by someone whose views you find morally reprehensible, purchasing it is probably not the right move. Another consideration is whether the author is even alive, and if they aren't, whether their estate is owned by an entity that you feel is deserving of receiving the royalties. I agree that authors deserve to be paid for their work, but the take that downloading ebooks illegally is stealing and thus fundamentally immoral regardless of circumstances strikes me as cartoonishly black-and-white.
posted by wesleyac at 10:27 PM on September 3, 2021 [17 favorites]

...the royalties that authors get from different channels can be pretty wildly different depending on the specifics of the contracts...

Funny, that seems like an issue between the author and publisher. I'm really having a hard time seeing how any of this relates to the morality of a reader simply deciding to help themself to a copy of a book without paying anyone. It's easy to self-justify all kinds of behavior, but let's not claim that taking an author's commercial product without paying is moral.
posted by PhineasGage at 10:40 PM on September 3, 2021 [6 favorites]

> Nope. You are stealing from the author. It's not that complex at all.

100% this.

If you pirate and read a book instead of paying for it or borrowing it from a library in way that you find unsavory you are stealing - you are doing something that does not pay the author any money that would otherwise pay the author money.

If you think DRM is bad you can buy or borrow (or get public domain!) books in a manner that are not encumbered by DRM. They may not be the exact books you want, but sometimes making a principled stand involves making sacrifices. If it is an unprincipled stand, then go ahead and pirate books, but don't delude yourself.
posted by 3j0hn at 10:55 PM on September 3, 2021 [5 favorites]

I agree that authors should get paid for their work, but saying that does not make the morality of the situation simple, because the royalties that authors get from different channels can be pretty wildly different depending on the specifics of the contracts, which are typically impossible to know precisely as a reader.

What royalties does the author get if you pirate their work?
posted by star gentle uterus at 11:03 PM on September 3, 2021 [10 favorites]

Old time publishing was a service to handle the infrastructure to get creative works out to readers. This included sourcing a printer and a binder and distributing the trees as widely as possible. Nobody expected authors to do those things. I wrote a [academic] book in 1989; printed 200 optimistic copies; advertised it on Usenet and eventually sold 14 copies for £5 incl postage and a floppy disc with the data. The local bookstore agreed to take >five< copies, which they put in their front window and sold quickly on a 50:50 price split. But that was the limit of their risk-taking. After sending freebies to a dozen colleagues in the field, for the next 20 years, I toted a xerox box full of the remainders from home to home.

What's a bit galling is that publishers have continued to take a large slice of the cake when the product is electrons rather than trees and glue. There was a time [1989?] when things might have gone a different way: if we'd had to pay 1c /Mb like we pay for electricity then we'd have been more circumspect in our usage: an outcry at admin appending a 1Mb logo to an e-mail sig; only one meme a day; much fuzzier porn. In that world 10% of the world's electricity would not be serving servers and blowing the sky's carbon gasket.

There was optimistic talk about the internet serving The Long Tail and giving niche interests a place in the sun but that requires consumers to actively seek minority authors . . . and pay t'buggers. Universal Basic Income would be a start to keep the lights on and the gloves off in garrets. That's on each of us: take a risk on books that don't make the lists and tell our pals if we discover gold.

30 years ago the Irish Government set up a quango Aosdána which inducted a few hundred writers, dancers, artists into a club and supplied a Cnuas scraping €17K salary to those who needed it to pursue their craft. It's N<500 elitist but it's still going.
posted by BobTheScientist at 3:01 AM on September 4, 2021 [6 favorites]

System seems capable of improvement. How about this?

Libraries pay a lump sum to, say Bertelsman for say, a year's access to the entire catalogue. Instead of a librarian buying/renting by title, the lump sum is whittled down on a per check-out basis. That is, the library patron gets to choose, Bertelsman deducts not the whole price of the book, but a small fraction. No more multiple purchases of the latest Grisham draining the library ebook budget at the expense of R.J. Uppencomer in the garret who has maybe six possible readers, but could have more if the book were more readily available.*

(Bonus feature - author gets a cut for each check out, same as in the UK).

Smaller presses could piggyback on the big four, or Overdrive could take that part of the market.

No doubt there are objections I've not thought of, but it would seem to make a wider selection available to more people. Cuts down on waiting time for popular titles. I suppose the Grisham addicts might blow the entire budget on his latest in one month, might need some kind of throttle, and/or a sliding cost scale based on a books popularity. Still, might work. Thoughts?

*(Personal note - Overdrive in my library system does not offer my books. Perhaps it does elsewhere. They suggest I suggest my library buy them. Change the payment system, this issue disappears.)
posted by BWA at 5:42 AM on September 4, 2021 [1 favorite]

Nope. You are stealing from the author. It's not that complex at all.
Am I stealing from an author when I borrow an analog book from a library? The dichotomy of print and electronic books is part of the discussion. I've heard writers grumble, but library use is generally seen as a Good Thing. Back when I sold books, there was a significant cost to editing and printing, justifying the publisher's large share of the price. An awful lot of ebooks are lightly copy-edited at best, the writer supplies digital text, the publisher inserts it into a template. They still do marketing, but distribution of ebooks is vastly simpler. This isn't apples:apples. As a reader and former bookseller, I want a healthy publishing industry, but MacMillan is now massive, as are many publishers, Thankfully, as always, it's still possible for new publishers to launch, some survive, a few actually thrive (yeah, before being bought out, sigh).

Years ago, I had a bookstore. I had friends who had small retail stores, one of them dreaded visited from pushy and obnoxious sales reps. But not books. Books sales reps were, and I'll bet still are, educated and informed people who love books, literature and bookstores. Book customers are nicer and more interesting. I still believe that books are magic. An afternoon in a good bookshop is a treat. Publishing and bookselling are Capitalism, Business, but I want some of the magic to remain. That means authors need fair pay, publishers need to be healthy, booksellers and libraries need to exist. Readers need to be able to afford books, too.
posted by theora55 at 5:56 AM on September 4, 2021 [12 favorites]

So off the piracy derail but onto a derail of my own, my university's Kanopy help page is very passive-aggressively worded to say that they aren't going to add the movie you requested because it costs too much. I can only assume that Kanopy is running a similar business model.
posted by Literaryhero at 6:31 AM on September 4, 2021

Am I stealing from an author when I borrow an analog book from a library?

You need a particular set of blinders on to hew truly to the idea that making one more copy of a thing that can be reproduced an infinite number of times at no cost to its creator or current audience constitutes some sort of moral injury. It's not "theft" because of what you have, it's because of what you've taken away.

The whole idea of "intellectual property" is an artificial construction that started life as a modest - and as originally intend, chronologically very brief! - way to spur new creation; it was never intended to grow into a lifetime-long control mechanism for markets (and, apparently, for whole thoughts, once that propaganda exercise has taken deep enough root.) But a lot of people - many of them in this thread! - can't seem to tell where the artificially constructed power structures of an exploitative system end and their righteous moral frameworks begin, and it's disappointing how many people don't really get that there's bright line to be drawn between their ardent desire to have their favourite artist to get paid and, say, the price of insulin.

Nope. You are stealing from the author. It's not that complex at all.

Do you honestly think that the whole idea of a public library would be permitted to exist at all, if we started from where you are right now and tried to bring it into existence?
posted by mhoye at 8:00 AM on September 4, 2021 [18 favorites]

Do you honestly not understand that libraries pay for books?
posted by PhineasGage at 8:17 AM on September 4, 2021 [5 favorites]

Do you honestly not understand that libraries pay for books?

The differences in how libraries pay for physical vs ebooks is pretty central to this discussion. Tell me: the last time you lent a friend a paperback, who'd you mail the cheque to?
posted by mhoye at 8:30 AM on September 4, 2021 [12 favorites]

No one. The same as when I borrowed the neighbor's lawn mower. The point of the original article, yes, is the difference in how libraries are and should be charged for lending ebooks. What I and some of the actual authors in this thread are objecting to is the idea that piracy of ebooks is a victimless crime.
posted by PhineasGage at 8:39 AM on September 4, 2021 [3 favorites]

Nope. You are stealing from the author. It's not that complex at all.

I used to believe before the Sonny Bono Act when it became clear that copyright had morphed into endless rent seeking that steals enforcement resources from the very public they deprive on the behalf of rights holders rather than the authors who in some cases are even long dead. That copyright is supposed to be a gift from the public to authors in return for creation is something that tends to be forgotten in these debates.
posted by srboisvert at 10:56 AM on September 4, 2021 [11 favorites]

Perhaps MeFite authors cstross and jscalzi and others will also share their views

was actually hoping jessamyn might chime in with a librarian’s take..
posted by progosk at 11:33 AM on September 4, 2021 [1 favorite]

The Internet is quite literally in everyone's pocket and has the chance to be the great equalizer. There are 68,670 people employed in the industry in 2021. There are 300 million, Internet connected devices. If there were a $2 tax per month, that's $104,000 per year for everyone involved in book publishing. The average salary currently is $77,000 with $150k for top earners.

Obviously my socialist idea of simply imposing a low tax on everyone capable of reading a book then blanket subsidizing currently involved in publishing isn't the best idea. If we cut out people involved in selling off rights and things that aren't needed now that we're giving books away for free, I'm guessing those very top end earners who literally aren't needed and produce nothing probably get 7 figures plus, we can up the average even higher.

I'm not advocating we do this or this is the most equitable way of doing things but if we blanket charged everyone $2/mo as a national tax for no copyright laws on reading that's pretty good considering we're also subsidizing an entire industry and seeing an almost 40% increase in the average salary! And presumably this is not inclusive of rights in other media where authors still will make a killing on royalties. Sure the top 10% or even top 20% will see a substantial decrease. But looking at current bestsellers we're not exactly cutting out the next Isaac Singer.

Clearly the system is broken.
posted by geoff. at 12:23 PM on September 4, 2021 [3 favorites]

I can only assume that Kanopy is running a similar business model.

I don’t remember the details, but yes, I remember my librarian friend telling me Kanopy is another predatory company.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 12:28 PM on September 4, 2021

Readers need to be able to afford books, too.

Readers even need access to libraries. In some cities, branches get shut down for apparent lack of funding, leaving some readers out.

Right or wrong, piracy can happen because the item is too expensive from the publisher (e.g., $$$ college textbooks that change editions each year) or difficult to locate (e.g., out of print, poor or no library access).

Publishers and governments have a hand in creating conditions that push readers to find alternative ways to access books.

As an aside, I find the sudden strident defense of writers on Metafilter interesting, especially in light of many posters here using archive.org or other sites to effectively post a xerox copy of articles from paywalled sites.

Lost ad revenue or lost subscription revenue may hurt a some nameless media corporate entity, but hurting their bottom line can definitely result in cuts to writer's salaries or jobs, entirely. But we post alternate links to writer's works all the time, here, specifically to get around paying to view the link.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 12:47 PM on September 4, 2021 [7 favorites]

Publishers and governments have a hand in creating conditions that push readers to find alternative ways to access books.

Perhaps addressing some of these conditions would make things fairer for writers and readers, alike.

The model I considered initially was digital music, for which piracy is much reduced from the mid-90s. Apple's music store and player did a lot to push that forwards by making deals with the major publishers. Bandcamp, Bleep and other smaller outlets resulted from that for independent artists.

But then streaming services like Spotify and others took over, which has made access easy for listeners but seems to have killed revenue for musicians.

Maybe the at-scale micropayment or pay-per-stream model wouldn't work for print. Not without some kind of regulatory oversight, which seems improbable.

I don't know what the answer is, but for print and music I think one has to look at the power dynamic between the creator, the middlemen (publishers/government or law enforcement), and the consumer.

Most of the power lies with the middlemen, currently. If you want a fair deal between creator and consumer, I think you have to start looking at the middle's hold over the ends.

Most of what motivates piracy seems to start and end with those in the middle, who not only take a huge cut, but have rigged the legal system to do so more or less indefinitely.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 1:25 PM on September 4, 2021 [5 favorites]

Apologies for my early contribution to the piracy derail. If it wasn't clear, my mind wasn't boggled that someone would favor a strict anti-piracy position in 2021, but rather that someone thought it was a simple question.

(On substance I largely agree with wesleyac and mhoye: authors--and editors, designers, and others involved in producing books--deserve to be rewarded for their work. But IP law as it currently exists produces justice for neither the bulk of authors nor the public. Instead it favors a small number of giant corporations. The squeeze being put on libraries by ebook vendors is just one example of this. My own position is heavily colored by years watching for-profit academic publishers gouge libraries and students, by the way. I'm sure in trade publishing the situation differs somewhat.)
posted by col_pogo at 1:53 PM on September 4, 2021 [6 favorites]

If you want a fair deal between creator and consumer, I think you have to start looking at the middle's hold over the ends.

If you want a fair deal between the creator and the consumer, you cannot permit the middle to dictate policy. That's quite true, but unfortunately that's where we are today, and have been for long enough that a lot of people can't even see how things could be different.
posted by mhoye at 2:35 PM on September 4, 2021 [4 favorites]

Oh man, I have read so many library ebooks during the pandemic. They are just so much more convenient since the library is not open outside of work hours anymore and a Kindle is much easier to hold while breastfeeding or holding a sleeping baby. Plus, in very lucky timing, in December 2019, I learned that San Francisco lets any California resident get a library card so now I have access to their whole digital collection instead of just what my rural library has. I guess I should start trying to check out physical books again, at least some of the time.
posted by carolr at 10:13 AM on September 7, 2021