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What about if they charged libraries normal consumer price for an eBook. What is it, like 99% of that already goes to the publisher, authors get tiddly squat. So the publishers are paid right off the top, up front. After that, the libraries should be done with the publishers.
Then libraries own the book and can rent it out sequentially to as many users as they want for as long as they want. They charge 10 cents for every eBook loan - of which half of that goes to the library for ongoing support, and the other half goes to the author. The publisher gets nothing more after the initial sale to the library, because they are adding nothing more after the sale. Existing contracts between authors and publishers would certainly preclude this payment scheme, but laws could be written that mandate publishers to allow it for all future books. The signing over of rights to a publisher is an idea that needs to go the way of the dodo bird IMHO. I would be willing to pay a nominal amount to rent an eBook from the library, provided the payment goes to the author (or their estate if they still have copyright protection) and the library.
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