Sunday, March 27, 2011

Should library ebooks selfdestruct?

From Fast Company 11.3.2011
...In a creative attempt to relive the glory days of publishing, HarperCollins will require library e-books--and their licenses--to self-destruct after 26 loans, a virtual imitation of the disintegration of library books over time. Libraries, unsurprisingly, reacted with shock and dismay. The economics of e-books is still anyone's guess, so both sides have retreated into the philosophical camps of profit vs. open information.
"Our prior e-book policy for libraries dates back almost 10 years to a time when the number of e-readers was too small to measure," said HarperCollins, in a public response to the controversy. "We have serious concerns that our previous e-book policy, selling e-books to libraries in perpetuity, if left unchanged, would undermine the emerging e-book eco-system."
Under the new arrangement, licenses would have to be renewed after 26 loans, just as the publisher expects libraries would buy newer copies after their old ones fall apart. E-books are already discounted, claims Harper Collins, so its only fair that the durability of digital content not rob them of an arrangement that has existed with libraries for decades.

http://www.fastcompany.com/1737151/self-destructing-ebooks-a-twisted-proposal-to-libraries

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