An International Statement of Solidarity on Copyright and Libraries:

Library Futures, #ebooksSOS, and Knowledge Rights 21 have authored an “international statement of solidarity to support balanced copyright and the rights of libraries.” The statement is below, If you agree and wish to sign on as an institution or individual, please see here.

Support the International Statement of Solidarity as an Individual or Institution

Libraries have historically been society’s great equalizer, providing free access to knowledge to all citizens, regardless of their ability to pay, education, identity, or physical ability. But today libraries are being challenged: as we transition from physical media to digital, the rights of libraries to provide digital access to information and preserve materials for the future is under attack. Proprietary publishers do not respect the balance provided by copyright law, as they refuse to sell ebooks and audiobooks to libraries, sue to halt the common library practice of controlled digital lending, and charge exorbitant prices for eBooks in the education, health services, and public library markets. This is affecting researchers and our economy in turn, as access to digital material has ironically become more difficult than access to the analogue.
In the face of these attacks, the rights of libraries in the digital age must be championed, communicated, and defended.
We are coming together to rethink copyright and help usher in a sustainable future for libraries. Unfair licensing terms and a lack of clarity in digital copyright law to protect the public could spell the end of libraries as they have existed for millennia. We can and should do more.
We believe:
* Copyright must be updated for the digital age and exceptions and limitations must be made for libraries to best serve the public
* Controlled Digital Lending and other innovative lending practices should be legally protected
* Digital first sale, the principle of exhaustion in intellectual property law, and ownership of digital objects is the only way to ensure full access to information by libraries and cultural institutions
* Libraries should be able to purchase and lend all eresources at reasonable prices
* Licensing has created a pervasive market failure that must be investigated by regulators and governments to ensure that the public has access to relevant, timely, published information to support education, research and economic growth
* Libraries have a responsibility to advocate for policies that will affect their communities
We must achieve ideal, universal access to knowledge for all patrons regardless of socioeconomic status, identity, or ability

Digital enclosures hurt us all. The market must be corrected by smart policy, limitations and exceptions, and a community approach that respects the right to lend.

Welcome Audible!

Director of Ebook Services at DPLA Micah May has shared the following announcement:

As part of our efforts to expand access to ebooks and audiobooks, we are currently in talks with Audible about making audiobooks available to libraries through Palace Marketplace (formerly the DPLA Exchange).

We are in the process of working through details about exactly which titles will be available and when, but we can share that we are working toward titles being available in Palace Marketplace in the first quarter of next year, with titles added on a rolling basis. We expect that titles will be available via a variety of licensing models, similar to the deal we announced with Amazon Publishing earlier this year.

At DPLA our mission is to maximize access to information and to ensure that in the digital age knowledge becomes more, not less, accessible. Any agreement we develop with Audible will, like our previous publisher agreements, be embedded in library values: access, equity, and patron privacy. Any titles made available to us will be available to libraries through Palace Marketplace and served to patrons through the Palace app, which you can download now from the Google Play and Apple app stores.

We will share more information about this project when we have it. In the meantime, if you’d like more information about the DPLA Ebooks program or Palace Marketplace, please email me. You can find more information about the Palace app and The Palace Project here.

Lots of good news here. A hold-out from the library market is coming on board. One will be able to access the titles directly through a library app, without having to be kicked over to Audible for fulfillment. Multiple license choices are always welcome. It isn’t all titles available through all library vendors, as might be ideal, but this is an important step. Thank you to DPLA and Audible for working towards a deal for library users.

What Libraries Should Have, At The Very Least

The tyranny of the license continues, preventing libraries from fulfilling basic parts of their mission to share and preserve content. ReadersFirst does not necessarily seek to undo licensing completely—fairly done, it can be acceptable—and we certainly wish authors to be compensated. But adjustment are necessary to many of the licenses that are forced upon us if we wish to have any access if we are to operate as we should to serve the public.

• Libraries should be able to license eBooks and eAudiobooks made available to individuals—on reasonable terms and without special restrictions. Current prices from many publishers—though mercifully not all!—are far above what we pay for print equivalents. Copyright has resulted in libraries and publishers reaching equitable terms—digital circulation should not cost three and four times (conservatively!) what we can do with print. The type/duration of licenses is relatively unimportant if costs are print equivalent.

• Readers should be able to excerpt and make use of digital copyright-protected work under limitations currently defined as fair use.

• Libraries Should be able to make archival copies of eBooks and eAudiobooks to preserve the cultural record, and the DCMA should be amended to allow this practice. Libraries should be able to lend these copies under the guidelines applicable to ILL, taking appropriate care to ensure that the content is digitally protected.

To serve the public (and students and faculty) and to perform our basic duties, and for the pubic to use materials fairly, these three points are necessary. ReadersFirst calls upon all library stakeholders to affirm this much, whatever else they may wish to seek as fair or work towards (such as agreed-upon OWNERSHIP of digital content, as some publishers are now allowing). Caught between a need for traditional means of sharing content and an ever-increasing demand for digital, libraries face a time of unique challenge. The future of information—for all, and not just those who can use a credit card—is at stake.

News from Our Partners at Library Futures and the Internet Archive

Our partners at Library Futures and the Internet Archive are scheduling interesting sessions and looking for your stories.

If you’re reading this newsletter, there’s a good chance you think about copyright more than most, so join us Monday, November 15 from 12-1:15 PT!

Retired Georgetown Law professor Michelle Wu will discuss her new paper “The Corruption of Copyright” with Colorado Law’s Blake Reid, who will focus on his forthcoming paper “Copyright and Disability.”
Amanda Levendowski, Associate Professor of Law at Georgetown Law, will moderate the panel, which is supported by Library Futures and Internet Archive.

 Join us

Internet Archive needs your story

Our coalition partners at the Internet Archive are subject to legal action for their use of Controlled Digital Lending in the National Emergency Library. As part of the case, they are collecting stories from people who made use of their extensive lending library. If you are one of them, you can still submit your story until November 19. Defend the right to loan!

Welcome to the Coalition!

We are thrilled to welcome two new coalition partners: the University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries and American Southeastern Research Libraries (ASERL). UMass Amherst is old hat at resource-sharing as part of the Five College Consortium, and they’ve had a long-standing commitment to open scholarship.

Our other great partner ASERL recently endorsed the statement on Controlled Digital Lending for Interlibrary Loan and submitted comments to the Copyright Office. Don’t miss their “Future Thinking” report on Controlled Digital Lending for Research Libraries.

If you share these values and want to join the coalition, please reach out!

Join the Coalition!

Promoting Balanced Copyright Globally

To fulfill our mission and to promote a balanced copyright regime worldwide, we were granted leave to intervene in an important Canadian copyright case with our colleagues at the Canadian Associations of Law Libraries.

Learn more

Building equitable local news access

We are thrilled to announce our new project with our coalition partners at the Albany Public Library and the news team at Hearken to pilot better access to local news and support communities in their information seeking needs.

 Read on

Indie Author Day--Today and Tomorrow

Indie Author Day—so good that it lasts two days!

Indie Authors are a great way for libraries to expand their digital collections at sustainable costs. You get great reads and help promote new and perhaps more diverse authors, often at a fraction of what you pay for best-sellers and often on better terms. Find out more today and tomrrow!

Indie Author Day 2021 LIVE stream events!

This year, our 2-day live stream events will take place starting on Friday, November 12 through Saturday, November 13. These virtual events kick off with the announcement of the winners of the 2021 Indie Author Project regional contests and continue on with panels of indie authors and industry professionals discussing topics such as Diversity in Indie Publishing, National Novel Writing Month, and Indie Book Curation and Discovery! Below are a few extra details so you can schedule your Indie Author Day plans accordingly:

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 12

Introducing the Winners of the 2021 Indie Author Project Regional Contests
3 pm EST / 12 pm PST
Join us for the announcement of the winners of the 2021 Indie Author Project (IAP) regional contests!
REGISTER

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 13
(all sessions are 45 mins with a 30 min break in between)

Indie Book Curation + Discovery
1 pm EST / 10 am PST
REGISTER

National Novel Writing Month
2:15 pm EST / 11:15 am PST
REGISTER

Diversity and Inclusion in Indie Publishing
3:30 pm EST / 12:30 pm PST
REGISTER

All events will be free and available to anyone hosting an Indie Author Day. These sessions will also be available in our archive for on-demand viewing. Anyone wanting to view these sessions live must register ahead of time using the links above for each session.

DOJ Sues to Block the Bertelsmann/PRH Buyout of S&S

As noted by John Maher, Andrew Albanese, and Jim Milliot in Publishers Weekly, the U.S. Department of Justice is suing to stop the acquisition of Simon & Schuster, citing “harm to authors.” The article links to the text of the suit and capably sets out the reasons for the suit and the publishers’ unsurprising response that the suit “is mistaken” and that the buyout would "benefit all constituents, including authors, agents, retailers, and, ultimately, readers, and will do nothing to undermine the robust, competitive publishing landscape that currently exists."

RF will leave it to the DOJ to show how this deal hurts authors, simply noting that fewer publishers vying for authors seems likely to result in fewer contracts, a greater commodification of the written word and emphasis on the blockbuster best seller, and more authors having to turn to Indie publishers. Our concern is with the library market. From our perspective, a challenge to the buyout is in order.

On the surface, there is little difference between PRH and S&S in terms of library digital contracts. Their ebook terms are remarkably similar. PRH still offers perpetual-access digital audiobooks, while S&S now has metered access for two years but in some cases slightly lower prices overall in audio. A slight advantage to PRH. then So, why should libraries be pleased to see the DOJ weigh in, if PRH were to offer slightly better future terms than S&S might have?

The answer is not just the possible contraction in available titles that might result from consolidation. Maryland’s (and we can hope soon, New York’s!) law does not set market price but only requires fair terms. An even more dominant publisher, controlling ever more of the market, would be even more resistant to offering libraries “reasonable terms” than we currently see. Reducing the number of providers certainly won’t promote competition. The resulting behemoth would be even better poised to fight off legal challenges and public campaigns for a library square deal.

Libraries must advocate for Controlled Digital Lending and federal guidelines supporting the Maryland/New York laws pushing towards library rights to circulate digital under copyright and not license. In the meantime, preventing the the creation of a FrankenPublisher monster is desirable.

Kahle: Will Libraries Exist in 25 Years?

Brewster Kahle’s “Will There Be Libraries in 25 Years” in Time asks provocative and important questions. While we won’t be giving up print completely any time soon—for now, it offers the best return on tax $$, better ensures preservation, and can bridge the digital divide (while presenting access obstacles of its own), yes, libraries must become digital as well. And yes, some trends point to emergence of an information corporatocracy : “ Global media corporations—emboldened by the expansive copyright laws they helped craft and the emerging technology that reaches right into our reading devices—are exerting absolute control over digital information. . . . If we fail to forge the right path, publishers’ business models could eliminate one of the great tools for democratizing society: our independent libraries. Right now, these corporate publishers are squeezing libraries in ways that may render it impossible for any library to own digital texts in five years, let alone 25. Soon, librarians will be reduced to customer service reps for a Netflix-like rental catalog of bestsellers. If that comes to pass, you might as well replace your library card with a credit card.”

While alarmist, this statement is not hyperbole. Current licensing models from most of the Big 5, academic, and school market publishers are changing in ways that make it difficult for libraries to maintain robust and sustainable digital collections. License models are often limited in an area where one size definitely doesn’t fit all. Publishers have no incentive to offer titles once they lose commercial value, and not only have many older but valuable titles have never been digitized but libraries have no right to maintain digital copies for preservation of the intellectual record. The cost to license and relicense under the current “exploding” terms funnel access primarily to high-demand titles, starving the reading of works that might highlight “marginalized voices, providing information to the disadvantaged, and preserving cultural memory independent of those in power.”

Two possible solutions are under challenge. Controlled digital lending is threatened with a lawsuit, while the buying of ebooks—which the Internet Archive is doing on a limited basis because few publishers will engage with them—is not a model the larger publishers seem willing to adopt, refusing even to engage in perpetual licenses.

Kahle says “As we shift from print to digital, we can and must support institutions and practices that were refined over hundreds of years starting with selling ebooks to readers and libraries.” He doesn’t say how, but the call for advocacy is clear and must be heeded. Legislation that puts digital content into the hands of readers, students, and researchers must come at a level beyond the states, though Maryland, New York, and Rhode Island legislation is a start. The balance that copyright is intended to provide between rights holders and users is, in the digital realm, tilted too far towards the holders under current licensing terms. Some redress is necessary if the mission of libraries can be continued.

PRH/ARSL Offer Grants

From PRH’s website, with thanks to Skip Dye for forwarding the information. Librarians in rural/tribal areas, take note:

“Penguin Random House and the Association for Rural and Small Libraries have partnered to launch a rolling grant program to recognize rural, small and tribal libraries that support underserved communities in the U.S. and U.S. territories.

‘The past couple years have been incredibly challenging for everyone, and we know rural areas have been especially hard-hit. In these communities, libraries have been lifelines in countless ways, from serving as trusted sources for reliable information to providing access to important services and resources. We are honored to partner with ARSL to help elevate their impact,” said Skip Dye, Senior Vice President of Sales Operations and Library Sales, Penguin Random House.

The program will award grants of up to $2,500 to libraries that demonstrate a true need. Penguin Random House and ARSL have worked together to ensure the application process is simple and straightforward to remove as many barriers to applying for a grant as possible. Grants are not limited to literacy and may be used for everything from library programming and books to resources like hotspots that help community members access important information. In-kind donations will also be considered.

For the award application and more information, please visit the library awards page on our Social Impact site here.”

PRH Extends Time Temp Permissions and Temporary Covid-19 Models for e-Content

Penguin Random House’s Skip Dye has communicated the following info to ReadersFirst:

Penguin Random House is extending our Story Time Temp Permissions program and the Temporary Covid-19 e-Content Models to March 31st, 2022.

We are not doing any formal press release announcing these extensions. Many communities, especially during this uncertain time, continue to take advantage of these 2 temporary programs, and it is our hope in extending the programs we will give stability for educators and librarians. The Story Time Temporary Permissions web page and the form are updated to reflect the new extension date of March 31st, 2022. Spreading the news about the extension of the temporary Covid-19 e-Content Models, our digital wholesale partners are communicating it to their accounts over the course of the next few weeks.

Thank you, PRH (and Skip)! Of course, ReadersFirst is going suggest that it would be a great idea to make these everyday practices—we just can’t help ourselves—but these are valuable additions and greatly appreciated!

Library Futures’ "Controlled Digital Lending: Unlocking the Library’s Full Potential"

The Library Futures group has released a position paper, "Controlled Digital Lending: Unlocking the Library’s Full Potential” that is worth a read by all library stakeholders interested in ensuring we have the ability to share content digitally, especially the millions of titles that are an important part of the intellectual record but have never been digitized.

Aimed at least in part as legislators, it concludes as follows:

CDL takes what libraries do well and makes them even better. Libraries are an economic boost

to communities, and CDL maximizes that by making the lending system more efficient and

equitable. CDL also bolsters education by supporting learning from anywhere. With CDL,

knowledge is accessible, and our sources of knowledge reflect all experiences. Quite simply,

CDL ensures that more people have access to more books, all while respecting the authors’

rights. For these reasons, we ask that you support legislation that codifies CDL and programs

that facilitate CDL through funding and a centralized set of digital resources.

RF reiterates its long-held position: CDL, properly implemented, is a legitimate use of library resources. We second the call for legislation that codifies CDL as part of copyright. The paper’s emphasis on Civil Rights and Democratization of Information is spot-on. Libraries cannot afford to lose this valuable tool if we are to meet the growing demands for digital resources.