Fight for the Future on Publisher Earnings and Our PPW

Fight for the Future has posted a thread on how “Publishing profits are better than they were 10 years ago,” even while various publishers have complained about library digital content is “cannibalizing” profits and the big publishers are “pouring money into suing the [Internet] Archive, saying that they’ve been economically devastated.”

Replying to a chart from the Recording Industry Association of America’s chart in an amicus brief submitted for the IA suit showing how in the first years of the WWWW revenues went down (while noting that now “recording industry profits are higher than ever yet musicians are struggling worse than ever”), FftF notes “There is no chart to show the same economic harm to publishing from what @InternetArchive or any other library does, not even from piracy.”

They cite a report from the Association of American Publishers (AAP) noting that revenues rose from 2012 to 2022.

They follow with a report from the Authors Guild noting that “While the tens of billions publishing is making has been at historic highs over the past several years, median author incomes, which frankly were always pathetic, have gone down over 50% since 2007.”

They conclude “It seems unfair that as publishing profits remain steady or grow, publishers are paying authors less than ever. While suing to shut down the digital libraries we need the most in this era of book bans and censorship. Who’s the real ‘Napster’? [S]how your support by heading to http://BattleForLibraries.com and by telling big publishers to leave libraries’ rights alone and start paying authors + publishing staffs appropriately!”

It is axiomatic that if public libraries, and the right of first sale that allows them to share print books, were to be proposed to be created today, the Big 5 and the AAP would probably go to court to stop it. RF suggests that FftF is correct: library digital content, including by the IA, is not destroying profits. If libraries were that harmful, we’d have undermined the publishing industry all these hundreds of years, with higher circulation at a far lower cost per use for us in print materials. Obviously that hasn’t happened. And yet look at costs. Our Publisher Price Watch 2024 update shows how the Big 5 have raised print retail prices slightly, raised retail digital (not quite as much as print), decreased retail audiobook prices significantly, but raised library digital prices across the board more than the retail increases, and much more in the case of audiobooks.

So, there’s more than one way to disadvantage libraries and our readers. Prices keep escalating. Other license terms are no better. More than one library is struggling. But we’re not the ones keeping author revenue down. Better terms and more fair prices would probably mean more money for non-best-selling authors in library digital, even at the pitiful rates the Big 5 think to pay while scooping in the big bucks. Yes, go to http://BattleForLibraries.com and voice your support. But also get ready to support fair ebook legislation next year in many states. We need your help, now more than ever.