DC Ebooks Bill Becomes Law
/Kyle Courtney has sent a press release from the Ebook Study Group celebrating that library ebook legislation drafted by the group has been signed into law. Thanks are due to “Ward 3 Councilmember Matt Frumin, his tireless legislative team, and Mayor Bowser for standing up for D.C. readers.”
The “Library E-book Pricing Fairness Amendment Act” (fulltext here) respects copyright and rests on existing DC procurement and consumer protection law. Publishers are in no way restricted in how they price their ebooks or set other license terms. They can do whatever they want. If they wish to license ebooks in Washington DC libraries—a large market presumably used by many federal legislators—their licenses must meet certain terms:
titles may not be prohibited from being loaned, including through interlibrary loan platforms (erasing one way that licenses prevent sharing digital as we share print)
titles must be available to the library on the same date available to the public and no restrictions may exist on the number of titles licensed then (no “windowing” rannygazoo, thank you!)
the disparity between library price and consumer price may not be “unconscionable”
the library may not be restricted from freely sharing any license terms (allowing other libraries to understand the terms and so perhaps bargain—and a little competition won’t hurt, will it?)
may not set a time limit on a license (i.e., one or two years) unless a “commercially reasonable” pay-per-use or perpetual option is also available (vital for keeping digital sustainable: the need to renew “exploding licenses” is clobbering library collections—and budgets)
The law is very much in line with the many state bills (and Connecticut’s law) under consideration—no accident, as the Ebook Study Group has also advised on those.
Like some of those efforts, the bill has a “trigger” clause. It will come into effect once 10 states with a population of at least 50 million have laws in place. This clause exists so that states might move forward without fear of being isolated. It has the benefit of having substantial economic clout: library revenues from such a group would be enough to make negotiations for exact terms attractive. Of course, some states have terms that might trigger laws earlier. If such states become isolated by the publishers, the larger library community will need to consider action.
No doubt the AAP and other publisher connected players will present determined opposition to all future efforts. This is to be expected. Their half-truths and outright lies are combatable. We wish you the same luck that you had in your determined opposition to DC’s law. Legislators simply get it when we present the facts. It is to be hoped that OverDrive will not again join the opposition against libraries. The testimony OD presented against the DC legislation was overwrought, riddled with inaccuracies, and, frankly, embarrassing. Sorry, folks, but you don’t know DC Library’s ebook business better than the library itself does. A note to any who wish to oppose library efforts: a little aggression is natural in the give and take of debate, but kindly refrain from saying our efforts are “book banning.” Using this term in a time we are all fighting organized efforts to suppress the freedom to read is tone deaf, inaccurate, and utterly reprehensible. It will be called out and roundly resented.
RF joins the Ebook Study Group in thanking D.C. government and library, and also thanks Mr. Courtney and the Ebook Study Group for its efforts to help create a sustainable library ebook ecosystem that allows us to conduct operations as freely and effectively as we do with print. Let the effort continue!