The 2010s were supposed to bring the ebook revolution. It never quite came

guest · Dec 29, 2019

The 2010s were supposed to bring the ebook revolution. It never quite came
Publishing spent the 2010s fighting tooth and nail against ebooks. There were unintended consequences
December 23, 2019
https://www.vox.com/culture/2019/12...ment-of-justice-publishing-lawsuit-apple-ipad

At the beginning of the 2010s, the world seemed to be poised for an ebook revolution.
The Amazon Kindle, which was introduced in 2007, effectively mainstreamed ebooks. By 2010, it was clear that ebooks weren’t just a passing fad, but were here to stay. They appeared poised to disrupt the publishing industry on a fundamental level.

Instead, at the other end of the decade, ebook sales seem to have stabilized at around 20 percent of total book sales, with print sales making up the remaining 80 percent.
And in part, Albanese tells Vox in a phone interview, that’s because the digital natives of Gen Z and the millennial generation have very little interest in buying ebooks.

Ebooks aren’t only selling less than everyone predicted they would at the beginning of the decade. They also cost more than everyone predicted they would — and consistently, they cost more than their print equivalents.
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To figure out the answers, we’ll have to dive in deep to a lawsuit filed by the Department of Justice in 2012 against Apple — newly entered into the ebook market with the advent of the iPad — and five of what was then the Big Six publishing houses.
[...]
Antitrust law professor Christopher Sagers argues that the outcome of the DOJ’s ebooks case shows that the real problem with the industry is not just that Amazon has a monopoly. The big trade publishers, he says, have a monopoly too.

Friedman points to the way the entire book market has contracted and consolidated itself, so that nearly every phase of a book’s life is dominated by a tiny subset of companies.

“There used to be hundreds of publishing companies. They’re now mostly owned by five,” Sagers says.
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guest · Mar 4, 2020

Libraries Could Preserve Ebooks Forever, But Greedy Publishers Won’t Let Them
March 2, 2020
https://gizmodo.com/libraries-could-preserve-ebooks-forever-but-greedy-pub-1841922375

There are currently 342 potential borrowers waiting for 197 digital copies of Ronan Farrow’s investigative thriller Catch and Kill at the Los Angeles Public Library.

But why can only one person borrow one copy of an ebook at a time? Why are the waits so damn interminable? Well, it might not surprise you at all to learn that ebook lending is controversial in certain circles: circles of people who like to make money selling ebooks.
Publishers impose rules on libraries that limit how many people can check out an ebook, and for how long a library can even offer that ebook on its shelves

Ebooks could theoretically circulate throughout public library systems forever, preserving books that could otherwise disappear when they go out of print—after all, ebooks can’t get damaged or lost.
But the Big Five have contracts in place that limit ebook availability with high prices—much higher than regular folks pay per ebook—and short-term licenses.
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My annoyance at having to wait months for the Catch and Kill ebook to appear on my virtual bookshelf suddenly seems like small potatoes compared to the loss of knowledge that could occur with limited ebook licenses.

Those licenses last about two years, on average, and cost $50-$60 per ebook, according to the ALA.

“We think the library pricing is egregious,” Inouye said. “It’s unjustified and awful. You as a consumer would pay $12 or $14 for a bestseller ebook that you would have for the rest of your life. The library buys the same ebook, one user at a time— [...] Ebooks might be worth a little bit more, but not five times more. That’s crazy—not to mention the two-year limitation.”
Ebook pricing has a fraught history.

For publishers, that’s the point. If you have to wait weeks to check out a new ebook, you might just cruise on over to Amazon and pay $14.99 to have it delivered immediately to your Kindle or the Kindle app on your phone.
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guest · Jul 6, 2020

Amazon Removes Active Content Section of the Kindle Store
Amazon Stops Selling 'Active Content' Games in Kindle Reader's Store
July 5, 2020
https://the-digital-reader.com/2020/07/05/amazon-removes-active-content-section-of-the-kindle-store/

I was just reading over at MobileRead that Amazon has finally removed the Active Content section of the Kindle Store.

AC is the clunky name that Amazon gave to the apps that were developed to run on Kindle, Kindle Touch, and Kindle Paperwhite. At one point it included over 490 games, tools, crosswords, test prep apps, and even choose your own adventure type books such as Dusk World (or Coliloquy’s apps).
The feature launched in 2010/2011, and was essentially abandoned by 2014 when Amazon launched the Kindle Voyage.

Amazon decided to not support Active Content on its then newest ereader. Later Kindle models also lacked support for Active Content, and that meant it was only a matter of time before Amazon also removed the section from the Kindle Store.
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And now one of the last remaining holdovers from that crazy time when ebooks were new is now gone.

There was a time, back in the early ebook era, when everyone was throwing really cool ideas up against the wall to see what stuck. Enhanced ebooks, for example, got tried a dozen times in around 7 years, and failed to find a market every time.
Augmented reality ebooks was also tried several times, and for the most part failed because the tech wasn’t there (AR was always going to be a niche product, but it’s time will come).

And now Kindle Active Content is joining all the other formerly great ideas in the ebook graveyard.
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guest · Nov 20, 2021

After COVID boom, ebook aggregators face licensing questions from Congress
November 18, 2021
https://www.theverge.com/2021/11/18...andom-house-overdrive-libby-app-harpercollins

A Democratic senator launched an investigation into how publishers license ebooks to libraries on Thursday, calling on nine major ebook aggregators to provide details on the licensing agreements they make with libraries.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), along with Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-CA), sent letters demanding that aggregators like Overdrive and EBSCO provide them with examples of standard ebook licensing agreements for every major publisher they work with, including Penguin Random House and Simon & Schuster.

“Many libraries face financial and practical challenges in making e-books available to their patrons, which jeopardizes their ability to fulfill their mission,” the lawmakers wrote.
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In September, Wyden and Eshoo first questioned publishers over the terms they set for ebook licensing. The COVID-19 pandemic forced many public libraries to shut down in-person service, and people began using online services like Overdrive’s Libby app to borrow digital books in lieu of physical copies.

Major publishers have sued organizations in the past over copyright violations for offering free copies of ebooks. In June 2020, Hachette, Penguin Random House, Wiley, and HarperCollins filed suit against the Internet Archive for copyright violations related to the Open Library project. The project launched in 2006 and allowed users to borrow ebooks scanned from physical copies of books.
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The 2010s were supposed to bring the ebook revolution. It never quite came

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