Offline Book "Lending" Costs US Publishers Nearly $1 Trillion

An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from a tongue-in-cheek blog post which puts publisher worries about ebook piracy into perspective: "Hot on the heels of the story in Publisher's Weekly that 'publishers could be losing out on as much $3 billion to online book piracy' comes a sudden realization of a much larger threat to the viability of the book industry. Apparently, over 2 billion books were 'loaned' last year by a cabal of organizations found in nearly every American city and town. Using the same advanced projective mathematics used in the study cited by Publishers Weekly, Go To Hellman has computed that publishers could be losing sales opportunities totaling over $100 billion per year, losses which extend back to at least the year 2000. ... From what we've been able to piece together, the book 'lending' takes place in 'libraries.' On entering one of these dens, patrons may view a dazzling array of books, periodicals, even CDs and DVDs, all available to anyone willing to disclose valuable personal information in exchange for a 'card.' But there is an ominous silence pervading these ersatz sanctuaries, enforced by the stern demeanor of staff and the glares of other patrons. Although there's no admission charge and it doesn't cost anything to borrow a book, there's always the threat of an onerous overdue bill for the hapless borrower who forgets to continue the cycle of not paying for copyrighted material."

Comments

You think this is a joke?

[phliar]

Here's Pat Schroeder, then the incoming president of the Association of American Publishers, in the Washington Post of Feb 7, 2001. She was interviewed at the meeting of the AAP, hence the "brie-eating mortgage holders".

"We," says Schroeder, "have a very serious issue with librarians. ... Technology people never gave their stuff away, but now folks are saying, 'You mean the New England Journal of Medicine is charging people?' ... Markets are limited. One library buys one of their journals," she explains, pointing to the Brie eaters. "They give it to other libraries. They'll give it to others." If everyone gets a free copy, she says, the publisher and the writer and others involved in making the book go unpaid. "These people aren't rich," she says of those in the room. "They have mortgages."

These are the people arguing against making publicly funded research publicly available. Here's the full article: Pat Schroeder's New Chapter.

Facts bout public libraries

[mschuyler]

Fact 1: Public libraries are just about the best return on investment for your tax dollar. For every dollar you spend supporting the public library, you get about $8.00 back in services. If you had to pay retail (or even discounted) for every book borrowed from the public library, that's the ROI you would see. Name another government organization that can give you a better ROI. (Note: You can't.)

Fact 2: If you have a recession, usage of the public library goes up. Ironically, the library budget is subject to the recession as much as any other business or government entity. For most businesses, if traffic goes up, so does income. It's the opposite for a public library.

Fact 3: If it were not for public libraries, many books would not be published at all. That's because publishers factor in the public library market in their decision to publish. Larger public libraries buy a given title in the hundreds of copies. There are over 16,000 public libraries in the US. The market is not trivial.

Fact 4: Public libraries are largely responsible for publishers' 'Backlists' of older titles. Nobody else buys them.

Fact 5: It is an established fact that people who use public libraries buy far more books than people who do not. Public libraries help create the market that gives profits to publishers.

Fact 6: Research libraries, especially, are a captive audience for the over-priced, rip-off "scientific" journals that cost hundreds, even thousands of dollars a year that academics "must have." No individual can afford them. If libraries "just said no" those journals would fail in a heartbeat.

Fact 7: Cutting off libraries is a stupid idea. It's cutting off your nose to spite your face.