Publishers have long hated libraries; here’s the history, and the next attack – Walled Culture

peter.suber's bookmarks 2023-03-20

Summary:

"The most recent example in “The Publisher Playbook” of companies doing their utmost to limit what libraries can make available is the terrible lawsuit against the Open Library for daring to increase access to books during the Covid pandemic. Today, 20 March 2023, the Southern District Court of New York will be hearing the oral arguments in this important case.

The penultimate example of the new research is litigation against US state legislation promoting fair and equitable ebook access. Walled Culture wrote about this back in December 2021, when US publishers sued to stop a Maryland law that would require publishers to license ebooks on “reasonable terms”. Hardly unreasonable, you might have thought, but the publishers disagreed, sued – and unfortunately won....

The model language has been introduced in bills in two states, Massachusetts and Hawaii, but more are in the works, apparently. Of course, publishers are already trying to paint this approach as “unconstitutional”, and they will doubtless challenge proposed laws in the courts. And so the battle between libraries and the publishing industry continues...."

Link:

https://walledculture.org/publishers-have-long-hated-libraries-heres-the-history-and-the-next-attack/

From feeds:

Open Access Tracking Project (OATP) » peter.suber's bookmarks

Tags:

oa.new oa.ia oa.litigation oa.usa oa.copyright oa.cdl oa.libraries oa.publishers oa.aap

Date tagged:

03/20/2023, 08:59

Date published:

03/20/2023, 04:59