[Zonulet]

Here in the UK, if you go to a library and take out a book, the author does get compensated, it's called the Public Lending Right. Apparently in Denmark they've had it since 1941 so I don't think it took ebooks to make it technologically possible.

[extra88]

It looks like Public Lending Right schemes for printed books exist in only a couple dozen countries and even fewer implement them as the UK has with payments per-loan (Canada does a one-time payment per copy).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Lending_Right

[Nemo_bis]

In USA, the system publishers love so much means that the libraries may go bankrupt when there is an increase in lending. Sure, in the short term it might sound profitable. https://www.wbur.org/artery/2020/03/20/demand-e-books-rises-... http://www.ala.org/news/press-releases/2020/05/business-gove...

The Danish system works only because the state has agreed to foot the bill for whatever amount of money gets transferred to publishers.

> In Denmark, library book loans fell from 34 million in 2000 to around 28 million in 2014. 38 E-lending has increased rapidly in Denmark since the launch of its eReolen national public library e-lending platform in 2011, but e-lending still only represented just over 2% of all book loans in 2014.39 Interestingly, eReolen has seen a surprising expansion in the number electronically loaned audiobooks, which are now outperforming e-books in the eReolen’s monthly loan statistics.

https://www.statewatch.org/news/2017/dec/ep-study-e-lending.... https://www.kirjastot.fi/sites/default/files/content/Rapport...