Comment by irjustin | Hacker News Reader

Comment by irjustin | Hacker News Reader

> As a consumer, when you buy an e-book or e-audiobook, it costs about the same or sometimes even less than the print book version. But for libraries, the e-book or e-audiobook version of a title actually costs up to three times or more than the print version.

> This is because publishers use a licensing model for selling e-books to libraries. Each copy of a digital book title requires a purchase of a license. While there are many types of licenses, the most common license needs to be purchased and then re-purchased every year.

Something went very wrong in negotiations here. That's all I can say. Who allowed this deal to be penned in its exact fashion? The first publisher to set the pattern probably got a huge payday that should have never existed. LTV of the library should be cheaper vs the individual buyer because volume, but >3x!???!!

I love public libraries. I grew up in them as a safe place to hang out after school waiting for my working parents to be able to get me.

It makes the funding pie shift materially from other things like facilities, staffing, etc. If you're unfamiliar with the Seattle area, the Public Library covers a number less privileged neighborhoods where a safe place is very much needed. This actually makes me angry.

Copyright has a thing called the first sale doctrine. You buy a book and now that copy is yours. You can sell it to someone else or lend it out etc., which is what libraries do. They don't have to negotiate with publishers at all, they just go to a book store and buy books.

Publishers claim that ebooks are totally different and have to be licensed instead of purchased because it's the internet. This is, of course, a naked money grab, but then they threaten to sue anyone who tries to call them on it. Most libraries don't have the resources to litigate it. The Internet Archive is currently making the attempt. Give them money or call your legislators and tell them to pass a law making it clear that the first sale doctrine applies to digital.

> Copyright has a thing called the first sale doctrine. You buy a book and now that copy is yours. You can sell it to someone else or lend it out etc., which is what libraries do. They don't have to negotiate with publishers at all, they just go to a book store and buy books.

Part of the challenge is that reselling digital goods in a way that doesn't allow you to resell to multiple people isn't a solved problem. Crypto is probably the closest to a solution, but obviously that isn't widely adopted in a way that would work for ebooks yet.

> reselling digital goods in a way that doesn't allow you to resell to multiple people isn't a solved problem.

Replace "digital goods" with "artworks", and yes it is a solved problem. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Certificate_of_authenticity

COAs are physical, and as referenced on that page, NFTs are the main solution to this.

NFTs are a (highly problematic) attempt to do this without a central authority: there's no reason not to have an authority, so we can use regular old public-key cryptography.

Why are NFTs highly problematic? I'd argue that a central authority is highly problematic as it will end up looking like the existing Google / Apple marketplaces with no ability to resell, etc. Removing the central authority would allow organic resale markets for form, etc rather than "approval" blocking any real technical progress.

"Central authority" in this case would be the equivalent of the property registry that governments maintain. Since governments are also the ones who actually protect your abstract property rights when it comes to that, there's no reason for this registry to exist on a blockchain.

> Part of the challenge is that reselling digital goods in a way that doesn't allow you to resell to multiple people isn't a solved problem.

This isn't even close to a new problem. Anyone with a printing press can print thousands of copies of someone else's book, make them look like the original and sell them. The thing that prevents this is that if you do it you can be sued. There is no technical measure preventing it, it's just against the law to do that.

If anything digital copies make this easier, because each copy could have a randomly generated UUID and then if you're selling 50 copies without 50 distinct legitimate UUIDs, you're caught.

> Something went very wrong in negotiations here. That's all I can say. Who allowed this deal to be penned in its exact fashion?

I'm not sure this is the right way to look at it. It's more likely that nobody "allowed" the situation to happen, and the publishers just had much stronger bargaining power. So libraries either pay to participate and adjust their budget accordingly, or don't have e-books to lend out.

Or, put more provocatively in a forum run by a startup incubator: capitalism allowed this to happen.

My local library does appear to have a large enough budget to cater for this new demand but I can understand if many other city libraries don't.

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