holders of copyright allow books to go out of print and still insist that photocopying it is a crime.

The holder of copyright is the author. The author never takes the decision that the book should go out of print. That's the publishing house.

Both you and Laurent seem to be behind by some years. The question of not-for-resale photocopying has been settled by a system where academic institutions etc pay annual rights that are redistributed to authors and publishers. (Though I can't answer for Spain).

Also, lending is not that same as giving away.  And unlike files and other media, books are not easily replicated.  Have you ever tried to photocopy an entire book?  It would be cheaper to buy it it.  So there is no real danger of bootlegging.

The only complaint is that a person could read (as opposed to own) it for free instead of having to buy it first.  All moral and academic concerns about access to knowledge aside, this is still a stupid complaint, as someone at some point, be it an individual, a community or an institution, DID buy the hardcopy.  So long as it is not being replicated and copies distributed, once that hard copy is sold, who has access to that hard copy is up to the owner of it, not the author.

Seems the fight they want to pick is with copyright laws and those who abuse them and perhaps with their publishers ... not libraries.

"Pretending that you already know the answer when you don't is not actually very helpful." ~Migeru.

Licence Globale and tax on blank media are equivalent in my view (indirect financing), the problem is the implementation of the repartition of the current tax which is to say the least opaque (see cour des comptes regular mentions) and probably quite unjust.

Not to mention it became a weapon against politicians in the hand of SACEM: if you don't vote for us, you don't get copie privee money for your city music festival.

One of my biggest beefs with the way we run our society is selective enforcement. If all laws were enforced life would grind to a halt, which means the laws are absurd. But, in addition, if they're really out to get you they can get you on a multitude of normally unenforced small civil (an possibly criminal) violations. Which means the potential for totalitarian repression is already there.

As an example, a friend of mine was once being questioned by a police officer and it turned out he has a tube ticket that someone else had bought for him. As tube tickets are "nontransferable" the ticket was confiscated. Just an example of the kind of nonsense we could be exposed to if teh authorities wanted to make our life impossible.

Can the last politician to go out the revolving door please turn the lights off?

I am not good with numbers, statistics, but the history of public libraries pretty much parallels that of mass market publishing.  Before that it was scholarship, private libraries and privately commissioned work, etc.

The "market" for the mass public consumption of books has evolved, but has basically always to accommodate for the existence of either reprinters (before copyright) or public libraries (thereafter).  It would be shocking to me if the publishers did not factor it in when trying to make a profit.  I understand your point, which is where is the incentive to buy when you can have it for free?  But 1) the books lent are bought, and 2) the borrower does not get to have the book, but to access it for set amount of time.  (For that matter, you can go to a bookstore and read the book there for free...)  And considering most libraries have at most 2 copies of new releases, the supply & demand factor still rests mostly in the marketplace.  And if a book does not sell well initially, a publisher is going to slash production and stores will slash prices anyway.  You'll be lucky to have as many copies on the bookstore shelves as on the library shelves.  But that's not the fault of the library.  In fact, without the library, these authors would often have no other means of distribution...  

You also have not addressed the way personal lending and institutionalized resale of books figures into your Utopian vision of royalties-per-read v. royalties-per-initial-sale.

"Pretending that you already know the answer when you don't is not actually very helpful." ~Migeru.

Forbiding free lending doesn't change much here, no?

One must eat & pay the bills.  And get tenure.  And be able to boast and feel important.

"Pretending that you already know the answer when you don't is not actually very helpful." ~Migeru.

which leaves artists and authors out there nit doing a public service (there's no such thing as public and no such thing as service) but struggling to make a million small sales to a million disparate customers.  the internet and PoD may change this dynamic quite a bit.

a question about intelprop that nags at me is this:  for how long should someone be allowed to collect revenue for having one bright idea or a moment of inspiration?  since no one creates in a vacuum, how much of our work is really "ours" in an ownership sense (hell, how many of the cells in my body are "me"?  we are colony organisms;  Maggie may have had it all backwards and there is no such thing as the individual).  should an author, film maker, artist live for decades off one painting, one film, one book, one hit song?  would a teacher live for decades off educating one student, a garbage collector live for years off emptying one trash can?

hmmm.  to what extent is the artiste/auteur rightfully asking for a fair barter/exchange rate for many hours of deep thought and hard mental work (I've written for deadline and for publication and I don't demur as to it being hard work at times), or trying to live as a rentier extracting tribute w/o honest labour?

The difference between theory and practise in practise ...

http://www.lelibraire.com/din/tit.php?Id=9654

 La Brouette et les deux orphelines (Correspondances sur le droit de prêt en bibliothèque)
de Ernestine Chasseboeuf
(Ivan Davy/Deleatur, 13.00 € indisponible)

Ce fut la foire d'empoigne l'an dernier en France. Un vrai champ de bataille. D'un côté trois cents écrivains (en herbe ou non), de l'autre plus encore de lecteurs ou de bibliothécaires. Les premiers voulaient que le fruit de leur travail soit mieux rétribué, notamment par les bibliothèques qui prêtent leurs livres gratos à ses lecteurs. Les seconds voulaient préserver la gratuité de l'accès à la culture. Certains étaient du côté des premiers en même temps qu'ils militaient avec les seconds : une vache n'y retrouverait pas son veau.
Avec les avions à réaction qui affolent ses poules (au point qu'elle est obligée de couver les oeufs elle-même), cette histoire a pas mal perturbé Ernestine (l'épistolière la plus connue de Coutures). Qu'on veuille traire les lecteurs des bibliothèques; ça n'a pas plu à la brave nonagénaire. Elle a donc pris la plume et écrit à une soixantaine d'écrivains (il faut le dire vite : on trouve dans ses destinataires des Philippe Bouvard ou Pierre Bellemarre) pour demander un petit peu à chacun qu'il s'explique. Ça faisait déjà quelque temps qu'Ernestine écrivait aux grands de ce monde : ça la change, dit-elle, des activités du "Club des cheveux bleus" qui réunit les vieilles du coin.

Sa plume est bien plantée dans la terre où poussent les artichauts. Droite et solide, elle n'est pas du genre à s'incliner devant les célébrités, les titres et les diplômes. Elle dit ce qu'elle a à dire : à Jean Dutourd, "(...) je me demande bien avec tous les sous que vous avez dû mettre de côté pendant la guerre, sans compter votre paye à l'académie Goncourt, pourquoi vous voulez faire payer les pauvres pour lire dans les bibliothèques." Bien sûr, sa "pseudo-naïveté" (dixit Yves Bonnefoy dans une des réponses) fait que la vieille paysanne confond un peu les académies et les personnes : jusqu'à croire qu'Alain Decaux s'occupe de sanisettes... Mais elle montre, Ernestine, pas mal de connaissances du milieu. C'est qu'elle écoute beaucoup France Culture. Ça et l'intelligence naturelle lui donnent pas mal de bon sens : à Michel Ragon, "Vous qui êtes pour le travail manuel, pourquoi on devrait payer à chaque fois qu'on ouvre vos livres : le menuisier qui a fabriqué une porte, il demande pas cinq francs à chaque fois qu'on l'ouvre".
Bien qu'elle laisse son adresse (Ernestine Chasseboeuf 49320 Coutures) "l'usagée" du bibliobus ne reçoit pas beaucoup de réponses. Quelques-unes maladroites et embarrassées, quelques autres enjouées et rassurantes. Laclavetine ira jusqu'à lui proposer d'écrire un texte pour un livre collectif (Prêter n'est pas voler, Mille et unes nuits 10 FF). On saluera l'humour de notre prix Nobel, Claude Simon : "Chair madameu chassevache, jépalu nonplu vozeuvre con plètes..." Elle a dû être contente, Ernestine, puisqu'elle collectionne les autographes : "Si vous me répondez plus d'une page, s'il vous plaît, écrivez pas derrière la feuille parce que je veux faire des sous-verre, et ça sera plus pratique."
Le livre fait plaisir. Après les dérapages et les injures entendues ici ou là, il replace tout de même les hommes à leur juste niveau : à ras de terre. Et il fait rire; diablement rire. Inutile toutefois d'acheter l'ouvrage. Toutes les bibliothèques de France devraient le commander. Il vous suffira alors d'aller l'emprunter. Ernestine ne vous demandera pas un sou.
Dernière chose : depuis que le livre est paru, la vieille dame, qu'on entendait sur France Culture dans l'émission de Jean Lebrun, est privée d'antenne...
C'est pour cela, notamment, que le Matricule lui a proposé d'adresser sa correspondance à notre site internet (http://www.Lmda.net). On n'est pas pour la censure des vieilles dames.

Also, using the word crime is dishonest. A library which would not pay the aforementioned fees would commit an offence, not a crime.

"Dieu se rit des hommes qui se plaignent des conséquences alors qu'ils en chérissent les causes" Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet