As much as one hates giving attention to misinformation, sometimes half-truths and flat out lies need debunking. Such is the case with the recent launch of “Protect The Creative Economy,” brought to you by lobbyists dedicated to making sure we end up with an economy in which everything is licensed for use, nothing is owned, and libraries docilely pay usurious prices for digital content so that mega-corporations, often foreign owned, can get fat at the public-fund trough.
First off, let’s clarify that many, indeed most publishers work well with libraries. We thank you! You know who you are. The poor starving giants that these lobbyists are protecting are the problem.
I have yet to see any publishers, much less their K Street hired guns, seriously engage in the real reading fight of our times: the organized, well-funded, Astro-turfed efforts playing out locally and, yes, in state legislatures to control what people can read with fake charges of obscenity covering up Christian nationalism. Joe McCarthy, your mean spirit lives on an even more dangerous attack on democracy. Publishers, where’s your coalition? Where’s your website? Where’s your damn money? A very few press releases from some of you ain’t much. Oh well, never trust corporations to fight for intellectual freedom. Might lose a sale! Good thing librarians are there on the front lines.
Let’s just look at the website header from our good friends at K Street:
“Anti-copyright groups are working in state legislatures across the country to devalue intellectual property through attacks on licensing that are dangerous as well as unconstitutional. They are pushing measures that threaten the viability of competitive markets, the livelihoods of creators, and the future of the entire creative economy.”
“Anti-copyright groups are working in state legislatures” WRONG! We’re librarians. Who are these unnamed groups? I can answer for Maryland, and indeed for many other state bills, that librarians are working with legislators. We’re not anti-copyright. Librarians are strong supporters of copyright. And the legislators get it. Not a single negative vote in Maryland. Only one “nay” in New York. As soon as they, and residents, see your prices, they understand publishers are simply UNFAIR.
“Attacks on Licensing.” WRONG! No state bill has attacked licensing. Licensing can be managed. What is being attacked is your UNFAIR PRICES, with rates often many times higher than identical titles in print format. You don’t seem to mind library sales in print, though they are far more numerous than digital licensing amounts. Are those sales putting you out of business? They don’t seem to be. Why not offer equivalent prices for digital? Is it because you know you can’t unfairly charge libraries for print (but wish you could!) but simply can with UNFAIR practices that let you screw librarians who feel compelled to offer titles in digital due to high demand?
“Unconstitutional.” WRONG! The Maryland law was ruled so in a case in which even the judge said “there is inequity and an unfairness on how publishers have treated public libraries.” But we’ve learned. Many new state bills say that libraries may not engage in unfair contracts. How is it unconstitutional for a state to say how its money should be spent? It’s on the publishers to decide if they wish to negotiate terms that will be acceptable. If they don’t, then they lock themselves out of a market, not libraries.
“the livelihoods of creators.” WRONG! How is it that you publishers don’t understand that if you offered fair terms, your creators would get more digital money, if perhaps a bit less print money. We won’t spend less. We would move more funds to digital if it offered a better return. The established best-selling authors might see a bit less—but then, they may not need it as much as others—as we licensed more new, mid-tier, and especially diverse authors. The overall expenditures would remain the same. How is anyone’s livelihood threatened? Stop LYING to your authors. What about the sales they get through people discovering their books in libraries and from librarian recommendations. Why do so many new authors GIVE us books to boost recognition? The problem isn’t libraries. It’s YOU! Any author (or musician) who wants a truthful view of what you face, please read Chokepoint Capitalism by Rebecca Giblin and Cory Doctorow. Buy it if your library doesn’t have it (you’re welcome, PRH! And yes, I bought my copy.) The intersection of Amazon, the publishers, and authors makes for enlightening if depressing reading.
I could go on an on. There is so much in this benighted site that is so very wrong. Librarians, we have one good take-away: the publishers are NEVER going to come forward voluntarily for fair negotiation. They may have suborned their K-Street killer flunkeys to attack libraries in their stead, but this is them talking to you and saying all efforts to get fair prices will be fought. Let’s ramp up the state efforts. The legislators will know the truth when they hear it. In the meantime, federal Representatives and Senators, what happened to the Wyden/Eschoo inquiry into publisher/library vendor practices? A wealth of information is there so you to can see what is true. Has big publisher money/corporate pressure somehow bottled it up? Release the results!
