Got my library card and everything that I want to read or listen to has months long waitlists. We know we can make as many copies as needed. The library is also taxpayer funded and not for profit. What gives? Is it some copyright nonsense?
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The book publishers don’t like the idea that libraries could let people read or listen to their books for free in a very convenient fashion. In the old library model, for a library to have a lot of copies of a book they had to *buy* a lot of copies. When the licensing agreements for digital content were hacked out, the publishing companies wanted limits on the number of people who could be using the content at once. The libraries don’t really have a choice but to accept the deal.
The terms of the license issued to the library only allows a fixed number of copies to be accessible simultaneously.
The library is not for profit, but the book author and publisher are. If a library could buy 1 copy of the ebook and then loan infinite copies, then the author can’t make money on the number of people reading their book, which is bad because it screws authors out of payment for their work.
So ebooks use a licensing system that makes it work a lot like physical books: The library has to buy separate licenses for a specific number of “copies” of the ebook, the same way as they’d have to buy multiple copies of a physical book. If the book is super good and popular and the library would have to buy like 50 copies to avoid a huge wait list, then it’s the same with ebooks – the library would have to buy 50 ebook licenses. Otherwise the author makes no extra money for 50 people at each library wanting their book vs 1 person wanting it.
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