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Post by Deleted on Dec 15, 2020 15:07:30 GMT
I thought this wasn't even legal but apparently it's a thriving business, mainly in the US. Why bother buying a copy of your book when someone can rent it from a company instead, they pay out once for a print copy then go on to rent it out by the month and keep all the money. The rental fee in some cases is even pretty close to the original selling price, it's not like you rent them for a dollar a week, and in-demand titles can make quite a bit of money for the rental company over the months. Of course every rental is a potential lost sale to the author and I suspect you can't even count on that one sale to the rental company as they appear to list (mainly non-fiction) pretty much everything and probably only order a book from Lulu, Amazon or wherever if and when someone first rents.
I had a look at one of the biggest US text book rental companies (CBR) and they definitely offer at least one of the latest books from one Forum member here so it may be worthwhile seeing if any of yours are up for rental as well. I'm not sure what can be done about it though, I couldn't find any way of requesting a takedown for a title on any of these sites and it may well be the case they would argue that they are free to do what they want with a book once they've bought it. Do you put distribution restrictions in your works as well, because another argument would be that since you haven't expressly forbidden rental then they are free to do so.
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Post by Retread-Retired-Cameron on Dec 15, 2020 16:23:00 GMT
Are you losing sales because a library buys a copy of one of your books and lets people read it for free? It really depends upon the person reading the book, since some people buy a copy if they like it.
Regarding book rental, often enough textbooks, it's not much different from textbook sales where the buyer is charged an exorbitant amount then gets next to nothing when selling it back to the store.
Also consider that even if an author were to put "Buyer is not allowed to..." in the front matter it would be unenforceable as law enforcement and the courts ground to a halt.
Renting out or selling a copy of a book after buying it is one matter, which is legal. Infringing upon an author's Intellectual Property Rights is a different matter.
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Post by Ken on Dec 15, 2020 16:50:48 GMT
In the United Kingdom public libraries have a statutory duty to allow authors to receive payments when their books are loaned out.
This is called Public Lending Rights.
PLR was established by the Public Lending Right Act 1979 which gave British authors a legal right to receive payment for the free loan of their books by public libraries. The Act established PLR as an intellectual property right, entirely separate from copyright.
There may be similar legislation in other countries.
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Post by Retread-Retired-Cameron on Dec 15, 2020 17:17:16 GMT
In the United Kingdom public libraries have a statutory duty to allow authors to receive payments when their books are loaned out. This is called Public Lending Rights. PLR was established by the Public Lending Right Act 1979 which gave British authors a legal right to receive payment for the free loan of their books by public libraries. The Act established PLR as an intellectual property right, entirely separate from copyright. There may be similar legislation in other countries. Ken,
You taught me about something the US doesn't have [and yes there is a lot the US doesn't have].
Then again there are a lot of readers in the US who would prefer it if authors wrote for free, since we're all independently wealthy and just write for the joy of it [snort, cough, hack, wheeze].
If my books were in libraries I wouldn't mind them being lent out, regardless of not receiving a remuneration.
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Post by Ken on Dec 15, 2020 17:27:42 GMT
It’s nice to be n the presence of so many wealthy colleagues.
A little more UK biased info that many are not aware of.
When you publish a book in the UK with an ISBN number there is a legal requirement to deposit 6 copies of the book in various places.
This is termed Legal Deposit.
The recipients should be The British Lending Library, Bodleian Libraries University of Oxford, Cambridge University Library, the National Library of Scotland, the National Library of Wales and the Library of Trinity College Dublin.
If a book is deposited n the British Library a consumer in their home town can request a loan of the book through their local library.
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Post by Retread-Retired-Cameron on Dec 15, 2020 18:00:26 GMT
Ken,
I've been walking around with a broken tooth for almost seven years. If I were wealthy it would have been fixed a good while back.
In the US if a writer registers their copyright they submit a copy [physical or digital] to the Library of Congress.
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Post by benziger on Dec 22, 2020 23:42:41 GMT
In the United Kingdom public libraries have a statutory duty to allow authors to receive payments when their books are loaned out. This is called Public Lending Rights. PLR was established by the Public Lending Right Act 1979 which gave British authors a legal right to receive payment for the free loan of their books by public libraries. The Act established PLR as an intellectual property right, entirely separate from copyright. There may be similar legislation in other countries. That's no loss! Register with the relevant collecting society and you get money for your books being lent out in libraries or teachers giving a copied page to students at school. Or someone burns your e-book onto a CD and gives it to a friend. That's why you always pay a few centimes copyright fee for blank data carriers. In Switzerland, this is ProLitteris. ProLitteris grants users the following rights of use in particular: - Broadcasting of texts or images in a radio or television programme, - distribution of texts or images via communication networks, - reproduction in public places (restaurants, salesrooms, etc.), - photocopying and digital reproduction for personal use, - recording on storage media/recording media for private personal use, - rental in libraries and - use in schools. The rights of use represented also cover the international repertoire; this is based on numerous reciprocal agreements with foreign sister societies: VG Wort in Germany, SACD in France, SIAE in Italy, CASHK in Hong Kong, JASRAC in Japan, SOCAN in Canada, VOIS in Russia, etc - just as for music with SUISA (CH), GEMA (D), ASCAP (USA) or PRS (UK). In principle, these flat-fee services - be it music, be it books - also have to pay copyright fees, which are then distributed to the authors, minus administrative costs. |
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