“A US-based website that encourages the lending of books by leaving them in public places has come under fire from UK authors for denting new book sales and royalty payments.”
“Jessica Adams, Transworld author and editor of the War Child anthologies, claimed that the website, bookcrossing.com, devalued books by co-ordinating lending for which no royalty was payable. “The site’s growth should be a worry for authors and for charity bookshops who rely on secondhand books for their income.” (from The Bookseller)
Whine?
Shades of the anti-Napster arguement, anyone?
Re:Whine?
With one big difference–in the U.S., but maybe not in the UK:
Once you’ve purchased a physical book, the First Sale Doctrine kicks in: You’re legally entitled to sell it, lend it, give it away…with the unstated proviso that any of those activities means that you no longer have the use of it.
I know that the UK pays authors some amount based on the circulation of their books in public libraries; the laws are significantly different there.
UK royalites
The only way that they’ll be able to get BC to pay UK royalties is if they invoke some sort of international trade law, since BC is based in the US. If that happens, I expect that BC will simply stop allowing UK readers to join in the fun, rather than pay the royalties, or make them pay for access to the site.
From what I’ve seen, most of the high profile BCers are the types that buy multiple copies of a book, so I don’t quite get the loss of revenue complaint. If BC is the Napster of books, what are libraries? Books in libraries are circulated far more frequently than those registered on BC.
What a crock!
Most books circulated via Book Crossing areolder and out of print materials. I am a member of it. Perhaps if the whiner wrote better material she might get higher sales. I can not possibly see how books out in the wild will hurt authors. It can only help.
Re:Whine?
My first thought, also. If I found(and liked) a bk that was part of a series, I would be more apt to search for the rest of the series, whether at a bookstore or a library.