EBooks

E-Books Can Subvert Book Bans, But Corporate Profit-Seeking Stands in the Way

E-Books Can Subvert Book Bans, But Corporate Profit-Seeking Stands in the Way
Exorbitant costs and restrictive licenses are obstructing libraries’ efforts to resist book bans via access to e-books.

“The ultimate aim is to try to get five or six state laws passed, and then hope that the federal government says, ‘Okay, this is a mess. We’ve been kicking the can down the road for 30 years on this digital copyright stuff. It’s time for us to look at this and say, libraries have a vital function. We need to carve out special exemptions for them and make the terms under which they get books more fair.’”

March 10, 2024 by Censorship EBooks

The Coming Enshittification of Public Libraries

The Coming Enshittification of Public Libraries

Alternative platforms already exist: one promising place to start might be the Palace Project and the associated Palace Marketplace, which right now mostly seems to let libraries buy ebooks and audiobooks from indie authors, and access out-of-copyright classics. The company behind it, Lyrasis, is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit; that doesn%u2019t mean it%u2019s immune to mismanagement, but it%u2019s a better legal framework than a for-profit B corp. And its board is teeming with actual career librarians, instead of one token librarian and a handful of investors and executives, like OverDrive. The Palace app is designed to combine content from multiple vendors, including OverDrive, which could help with transition. But the Palace Project so far has relationships with less than 5% of US libraries.

August 4, 2023 by EBooks

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