As many readers know, I have been fighting for months, very publicly, calling out the publishers for overcharging libraries for ebooks and eaudio. You can read all of my posts here or go straight to the letter of testimony I delivered to the IL State House in person back in March.
Well, while I was on vacation the publishers showed their hand big time. That hand? They are scared of us. Our arguments about the unfairness and our pursuing legislation based on the fact that the pricing hikes for libraries violates contract laws and takes advantage of the taxpayers is working! If it was not working why would they pay for studies like this one. From the PW report on this study
Study Says Library E-book Lending Hurts Industry Sales
As some states consider legislating how publishers negotiate with libraries over e-book agreements, the Association of American Publishers and the Authors Guild have released a report which found that increased e-book library lending is supplanting sales of print books.
Titled “An Empirical Study of the Impact of Library E-Lending on the Book Economy” and conducted by Secretariat Advisors, the report predicts that “decreases in library e-book prices or certain other changes to licensing terms, as required in recent state legislative initiatives, would cause further harm to commercial markets,” including publishers, authors, and booksellers.
The report’s authors emphasize the role of libraries as both public institutions and market participants, acknowledging that “collection budgets have not meaningfully increased even as states and localities expect libraries to offer both print and digital formats to their communities.”
However, the authors argue that the imposition of government controls on the distribution, purchase, and pricing of e-books and audiobooks in library channels “would effectively undermine the commercial marketplace by demanding more digital copies for libraries for less money immediately upon first publication with little regard for the larger ecosystem.”
In a joint prepared statement, AAP president and CEO Maria Pallante and Authors Guild CEO Mary Rasenberger said that “fully funding libraries should be an urgent priority for all lawmakers, and the Authors Guild and AAP stand firmly behind efforts that would increase taxpayer funding at every level of government and support new ideas for private sector support.” They continued, “It should be obvious to policymakers that both the mission of libraries and the intellectual property of authors and publishers are equally invaluable to the public interest, not a tradeoff.
Click though to read more. But as you can see in the intro above, they are clearly scared. They wants to keep bilking us for extra money but also, they know people are mad that they are picking on libraries in general and stealing their tax dollars in particular.
Well we are not falling for it. Well, to be fair, some libraries are. They tell me, but Becky what if they stop selling to us if we fight? To them I say, you are joking right? With margins so tight already,
These are the same people who obey in advance when it comes to soft censorship, so they can just shit their mouths. They are wrong and keep proving over and over again that they are unwilling to fight for what is correct when push comes to shove.
But I digress. Here is what I know about their scare tactics. The smartest people on books are not buying this crap. Take Ron Charles' Substack article on this issue: Libraries Are Not the Problem: A new publishing-industry study takes aim at ebook lending just as public libraries are fighting for their lives.
Click through to Ron Charles' well argued essay, click here for the PW report on the study, and of course, keep following my coverage and FIGHT here.
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