Some Thoughts on eBook Licensing Terms for Libraries

The news feeds picked up the move by HarperCollins to restrict library loans of ebooks to just 26.  After that, a library will have to buy an additional license for another 26 loans.  Rinse and repeat.  The magic number of 26 was derived by assuming a print copy of a book will survive that many loans before a library would have to replace it.  I think librarians everywhere would think that a book manufactured with basic quality would survive more than 26 check-outs.  But that's quibbling about the number and not the reason why the limitation on the license exists at all.  HarperCollins believes that ebooks, without the same overhead associated with print, without deterioration due to wear and tear, should be treated as an analog.  The company should not be deprived of that replacement revenue simply because it creates a product that remains pristine in its use.

Never mind that e-text can't be copied or pasted (legally).  Never mind that digital rights management enforces other restrictions on the text that do not exist in the analog world.  What's important is monetizing ebooks further by placing artificial restrictions borrowed from the old way of doing things.  How odd, to create value from a construct rather than finding ways to adapt to new forms and new market strategies.  There was a time when I characterized the music industry as one who hated its customers by assuming that every person out there was a pirate.  I think the publishing industry is moving into that same mind-set by punishing public libraries if it adopts these new licensing terms wholesale.

Consider that ebook vendors purport to sell texts for their proprietary devices "in perpetuity."  If this starts with public libraries, could not outright individual purchases turn into pay for view?  Why should the buying public pay only once in a system where the reader is replaced rather than the text.  Publishers may consider this imbalance as they as think of ways to recoup value from their product.  Portable electronic devices are created as consumption machines partially because of practical design considerations and, I think, partially to enforce a consumption mentality, one that is susceptible to constant tolls for access.  Charlie Brooker, noted Mac-hater, wrote recently that he has adopted the platform, but points out how lacking it can be when he wants to do something he can't by deliberate design of Apple.  Everything must go through iTunes, for example, even when it need not.  This is the evolving digital world, and not only from Apple.  It's called "control."  The revolution may not be televised, but it will be licensed.

I read an article once, I don't remember where, otherwise I would link to it, that suggested that piracy actually promotes preservation by allowing archiving where a rights holder deliberately prevents it.  Books can be scanned and DRM can be stripped from files.  It's a pity that the people who are trained to manage digital information collections (librarians) are the ones with the least legal right to apply that training.  In one hundred years, sadly, the richest archives of digital information will not be coming from libraries.  No wonder the publishing industry hates Google.  [MG]