[resf]

Although descriptive of the legal situation, I object to the term "pirate library". There is no practical difference between a pirate library and a brick and mortar library, except the larger stock of books online. My local library even has a photocopier.

A library is a place where you can choose a book, and read it for free. That's how it's been for thousands of years. Copyright is a modern intruder and has no right to brand bone fide libraries as "pirate".

[krapp]

> There is no practical difference between a pirate library and a brick and mortar library, except the larger stock of books online.

Physical libraries purchase the books they own, own them legally, and can legally lend them out. The practical difference between the two couldn't be more stark - physical libraries operate within the law, pirates operate in spite of it.

>My local library even has a photocopier.

They don't intend for you to use it to copy the books they lend you, though. There's a reason that libraries don't run printing presses in the back and only carry limited copies of a book - because they depend on copyright law for their survival.

[Dylan16807]

> Physical libraries purchase the books they own, own them legally, and can legally lend them out. The practical difference between the two couldn't be more stark - physical libraries operate within the law, pirates operate in spite of it.

The law is broken. There is no legal mechanism to lend out a digital file. That's the law's fault, not the lender's fault.

> libraries don't run printing presses in the back and only carry limited copies of a book

Now that is an important difference. But no one bothers trying to make a lend-only digital library because it's more difficult and no less illegal.

[Yetanfou]

> The law is broken. There is no legal mechanism to lend out a digital file. That's the law's fault, not the lender's fault.

Oh yes, there are laws covering lending out digital files. They might not have been written specifically for the purpose but they're used anyway. Lending out digital files is, as anyone who has an insight in the industry, fraught with all sorts of silly artificial restrictions. In Sweden it is actually much more expensive for a library to lend out a digital publication that a physical one, especially when the publication is recent and popular. Depending on the contract the library has with the publisher they'll have to buy a one-time license any time a publication is lent out, other contracts stipulate a fee per loan plus an artificial 'wear' limit on digital publications. In contrast a physical publication is bought once - at a higher price than that charged in a book shop - after which it can be lent out until it falls apart.

I do not borrow digital publications from the library for this reason. Where digital technology could be used to further the mission of libraries it is now used to counter them. How... very much expected. Fortunately there are alternatives, as mentioned in the article.

[syphilis2]

Maybe I'm not following the conversation correctly, but plenty of US libraries lend digital copies of books, audiobooks, movies, tv shows, etc.

[Dylan16807]

But they have to get special licenses, at the discretion of the copyright holder. They can't rely on the first sale doctrine.

[resf]

Imagine you go to Ancient Greece and tell them: "in the future there will be a library of over 1 million books and papers containing the knowledge of the world, that any person rich or poor can access from almost anywhere in the world"

Do you think their reaction will be: A) wonder that such a library can exist, or B) to tell you that it is not a library because of the flagrant copyright violations.

Libgen and scihub are among the most amazing products of humanity, that will receive a prominent place in human history. That they are illegal is an almost boring item of trivia.

[DanBC]

You know authors get payments from loans that libraries make, right? (At least, in UK and Ireland)

https://www.plr.uk.com/

[stinkytaco]

Not in the US. US libraries are protected under what is referred to as the "first sale" doctrine, meaning that once a physical object is purchased, it's the purchasers prerogative to do whatever they like with it, including loan it. Publishers and libraries have a bit of a love/hate relationship. Even though publishers would like to prevent loaning, libraries buy a lot of material and also purchase quite a bit from the back catalog of titles that would otherwise not sell much any more.

[belorn]

Also not in Sweden, but the government uses a small trick where tax money is diverted to Swedish (exclusively) authors that have a book loaned. This is technically not part of copyright law since Berne convention prohibits countries from making a distinction between authors of different nations.

[throwaway7645]

Are there a lot of writers publishing Swedish only? I'm learning Swedish very slowly, and would love to know how the Nordic languages are fairing amidst English's cultural domination.

[nugator]

It depends on what you would consider a lot. The swedish writers organisation has about 3000 members [1] and 1720 Swedish books of fiction was published 2016 [2].

[1] https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sveriges_F%C3%B6rfattarf%C3%B6... [2] http://www.forlaggare.se/den-totala-bokutgivningen-i-sverige

[fellellor]

If Elsevier or IEEE had a subscription model priced like Netflix, I'd be glad to give them my money. But as it is, access to academic and research material at low rates, to me is a question of survival. I'm glad and extremely grateful for the work of scholars like Elbakyan. They are basically doing God's work as far as I am concerned.

[jcoffland]

When you sign up for IEEE they SPAM you relentlessly for years even after you close your account. I'm not a fan of the IEEE for that reason or for their highly conservative political stance.

[throwaway7645]

Yes, they use call centers with pressure tactics to get you to keep it up. Almost all EE research is done via an IEEE whitepaper though, so not much of a choice.

[delinka]

I've never heard of such in the US. I'm now reading your link, but I'd like to hear if anyone know of similar arrangements in the US.

[kasey_junk]

In the US libraries pay for their physical books, which pay royalties per usual.

For digital media they usually have a negotiated rate where they pay royalties and limit the number of copies "out on loan".

[stinkytaco]

Negotiated might be strong term. Most libraries work through middlemen who do that negotiation and are then given a rate that they can take or leave. There's no "shopping around" for digital media since publishers control the pricing and availability. This is proving to be a budgeting challenge since digital media is more expensive that physical. There are no discounts from wholesalers for bulk purchasing. Many libraries get physical media at up to a 40% discount from retail because they buy so much.

Of course, digital media does not need to be maintained. It does not need to be cataloged and reshelved; it does not wear out or get damaged. But libraries are still adapting to this shift since there still is a great deal of physical media checking out and that staff is still needed.

[kasey_junk]

The library landscape is surprisingly varied in the United States. Big systems such as New York, Chicago and Los Angelos exert a huge amount of control on the "middle men" that service them (and a 40% discount is where all systems start and always have). This is of course not surprising. Like all parts of the book industry the ecosystem surrounding libraries is changing very fast.

The digital media side is not as clear as you are making it out to be. Publishers do not in fact set the pricing and availability, because the publishers don't particularly want to be in the business of servicing libraries (just like they don't want to be in the business of library binding and cataloging) so they have to allow third parties the ability to do some negotiations. In many ways its just like physical books (the cost of physical books is largely not the act of creating the physical copy).

The difference is that the classic rift between desires of libraries and publishers is more stark with electronic books. Libraries want to provide access as cheaply as possible usually as a governmental agency and publishers want to have a profitable business.

That doesn't even begin to talk about the existential crisis libraries are going through. Its a fairly interesting thing to watch as an outside observer.

I don't work in this space but my wife does and I've had drinks with enough publishers, jobbers and librarians to see it as fascinating

[stinkytaco]

I am a librarian who works with digital media, so I see this industry close up as part of my job. So a few things:

The vast majority of libraries are not NYPL, LAPL, King County PL, etc. Most are medium to small and servicing almost every town in the United States. They are arranged in a dizzying array of geographic, bureaucratic and budgetary configurations. I once worked with a library that was a unified system with shelf level access to items, but every municipality funded its own local branch, so money went into a central system and had to be accounted for when purchasing items. They handled 15 different budgets. It was staggering.

This make negotiation impossible. We rely on vendors like Overdrive, Baker and Taylor, Midwest Tape, Recorded Books, etc, to provide access to digital materials. And though there are sales, digital materials are unquestionably more expensive. I work in a system with a service population of about 500,000 (it's a statewide consortia of local libraries), and hold lists can run into the 100s for a popular title. If the title is from Penguin Random House, it will likely cost more than $50 per copy, leading to thousands of dollars just to keep hold times down to a few months. If the publisher is Harper Collins or Simon and Schuster the price will be more reasonable, but we lose copies as we check them out. For example, say we buy 15 copies that have 52 checkouts each. As soon as we've checked those 15 copies out 52 times, we're down to 14 copies. It is very challenging and if we exerted influence, it would not be like this. And our that our most popular device, the Kindle, is controlled by a vendor that is fanatical about its control over the service and was dragged kicking and screaming into working with libraries.

But physical materials still remain our most popular items. E-book sales have stagnated at around 35% (not including Amazon's nebulous self-publishing numbers) and we've seen the same in libraries. That makes it difficult to shift staff. As a colleague of mine once said, "In government I can't lay everyone off and rehire people with the right skills". Over time it will work out, but in the short term the budgetary challenges are limiting access.

All that said, we are healthy. The library as a physical space and American institution will be OK because people have a strong attachment to the idea and the use case.