Issue 83: Author’s CDL Thoughts, WWE’s Monopsony, Child’s Library Book

Issue 83: Author’s CDL Thoughts, WWE’s Monopsony, Child’s Library Book

Greetings from the wintery mix that is central Ohio.
The local school district called off school yesterday afternoon in preparation for what came today.
Also yesterday: Ohio’s own «Buckeye Chuck»
predicted an early spring
.
Let’s be grateful for snow days (and teenagers who shovel snow) and for predictions of early spring.
In the meantime, the threads this week:
Author Speaks Up for Controlled Digital Lending
The Wrestling Monopsony
Self-publishing the Local Way
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Author Speaks Up for Controlled Digital Lending
The controversial tweet.
The Big Five publishing houses’ share of the approximately $25 billion book publishing market is estimated at 80%. And it’s Big Publishing that is indeed throwing its weight around by suing the Internet Archive (the “org making reproductions” referenced here, which is actually a California state library and leading institution for digital preservation, not some random “org”).
Again, [Controlled Digital Lending] provides the legal framework for any library to make
one copy
of
one paper book
that it owns and loan it to
one patron
at a time.
—
What Kind of Writer Accuses Libraries of Stealing?
Maria Bustillos on Popula, 22-Jan-2022
Maria Bustillos wrote approvingly of controlled digital lending (CDL) in a quoted tweet of the Internet Archive. In response, she received a flurry of negative responses that seem to misunderstand a fundamental tenant of CDL: the own-to-loan ratio. If a library owns a copy of a book and takes the steps to physically sequester it, the library can loan a digital copy to patrons. I’ve read a lot on the library’s perspective of CDL, and it was useful to hear how an
author’s
perspective aligns with the goals of the library.
The Wrestling Monopsony
In the 70s, there were 32 wrestling promoters in the North American market, all competing for audiences and performers, all bidding to sew up TV rights with different broadcasters. Wrestlers like Andre the Giant were able to improve their working conditions by playing off rival leagues against one another.
In a single lifetime, the market has collapsed, with 85% market-share going to WWE and McMahon, the billionaire major Trump donor whose loyalty was rewarded when his wife Linda, a WWE executive, was given a plum job as head of Trump’s Small Business Administration.
—
Grappling with Big Wrestling: Vince McMahon has a monopoly on violence
, Cory Doctorow’s Pluralistic, 31-Jan-2022
Pulling through a thread from last week about
Worldwide Wrestling Entertainment’s video archive
…I included a quote from WWE’s Director of M…