Why Should Publishers Get Paid So Much for Ebooks?

摘要

Libraries constitute only a limited market for ebooks, but an important one nonetheless. And yet, the grabbiness of what the blog The Digital Reader refers to as the "Pig Five" publishers seems almost amazing at times. In a manner very reminiscent of the big scholarly journal publishers, their pricing practices seem designed to foster and foment an open access (OA) rebellion or, at least, a redistribution of more limited payments. A January post in The Digital Reader discusses Penguin Random House's new policy of licensing perpetual access (bit.ly/1ZWHlRR). This policy places no limit on the number of circulations, although it does insist they occur one at a time. Outside of that, however, the library "owns" the ebook it licenses.