Senator Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) is urging the Federal Trade Commission to crack down on digital platforms that mislead consumers into believing they own purchased content when, in reality, they are only granted temporary access. In his statement, Wyden highlights how companies selling digital TV shows, e-books, music, and video games often retain the right to revoke access, leaving consumers without the content they paid for. He calls on the FTC to enforce transparency and prevent these deceptive sales practices. Read the full letter.
This push for fairness and transparency in digital media sales is important for libraries as well as consumers. Over the last decade, publishers have fundamentally changed the relationship between libraries and their collections, phasing out digital sales and even “perpetual access” license models in favor of subscription-only access models. While the companies behind these changes claim they will improve library services through enhanced discovery and integration of research content, librarians and scholars argue that renting rather than owning materials ultimately harms the libraries and their patrons.
“[T]he transition to subscription-only access represents more than a change in purchasing models – it fundamentally undermines the ability of academic libraries to build collections that serve their specific institutional needs. It is likely to impede our ability to maintain comprehensive research — let alone teaching — collections.”
Siobhan Haimé, Birkbeck, University of London
The shift to a streaming-only model doesn’t just harm libraries and consumers—it’s also devastating for artists, authors, and independent publishers. Without the ability to sell their work outright, creators are forced into licensing arrangements that give platforms control over distribution, pricing, and even availability. Independent publishers are pushing back, albeit unsuccessfully, as seen in their failed lawsuit against Amazon, alleging that the company’s dominance in digital books forces unfair terms on publishers and authors alike. Musicians, too, are speaking out—Max Collins, lead singer of famed alt-rock band Eve 6, explains how his band with popular songs averages a million streams each month on Spotify, paying out $3,000, on average, per month. As Collins writes in his op-ed, “It’s a pretty sick deal…for the corporations.”
Senator Wyden’s letter isn’t a sudden development—it’s the culmination of years of warnings about the risks of a “streaming-only” model and its impact on libraries and the communities they support. The shift away from ownership to perpetual leasing threatens long-term access to knowledge and culture. To explore what’s at stake, check out these additional resources:
The End of Ownership: Personal Property in the Digital Economy
By Aaron Perzanowski and Jason Schultz
From the publisher, MIT Press: If you buy a book at the bookstore, you own it. You can take it home, scribble in the margins, put it on the shelf, lend it to a friend, sell it at a garage sale. But is the same thing true for the ebooks or other digital goods you buy? Retailers and copyright holders argue that you don’t own those purchases, you merely license them. That means your ebook vendor can delete the book from your device without warning or explanation—as Amazon deleted Orwell’s 1984 from the Kindles of surprised readers several years ago. These readers thought they owned their copies of 1984. Until, it turned out, they didn’t. In The End of Ownership, Aaron Perzanowski and Jason Schultz explore how notions of ownership have shifted in the digital marketplace, and make an argument for the benefits of personal property.
- Buy the book
- Download a PDF of the book from the authors.
Data Cartels: The Companies that Control and Monopolize Our Information
By Sarah Lamdan
From the publisher, Stanford University Press: In our digital world, data is power. Information hoarding businesses reign supreme, using intimidation, aggression, and force to maintain influence and control. Sarah Lamdan brings us into the unregulated underworld of these “data cartels”, demonstrating how the entities mining, commodifying, and selling our data and informational resources perpetuate social inequalities and threaten the democratic sharing of knowledge.
Four Digital Rights For Protecting Memory Institutions Online
By Lila Bailey, Michael Lind Menna
The rights and responsibilities that memory institutions have always enjoyed offline must also be protected online. To accomplish this goal, libraries, archives and museums must have the legal rights and practical ability to:
- Collect materials in digital form, whether through digitization of physical collections, or through purchase on the open market or by other legal means;
- Preserve digital materials, and where necessary repair, back up, or reformat them, to ensure their long-term existence and availability;
- Provide controlled access to digital materials for advanced research techniques and to patrons where they are—online;
- Cooperate with other memory institutions, by sharing or transferring digital collections, so as to aid preservation and access.
The Publisher Playbook: A Brief History of the Publishing Industry’s Obstruction of the Library Mission.
By Kyle K. Courtney and Juliya Ziskina
Abstract: Libraries have continuously evolved their ability to provide access to collections in innovative ways. Many of these advancements in access, however, were not achieved without overcoming serious resistance and obstruction from the rightsholder and publishing industry. The struggle to maintain the library’s access-based mission and serve the public interest began as early as the late 1800s and continues through today. We call these tactics the “publishers’ playbook.” Libraries and their readers have routinely engaged in lengthy battles to defend the ability for libraries to fulfill their mission and serve the public good. The following is a brief review of the times and methods that publishers and rightsholder interests have attempted to hinder the library mission. This pattern of conduct, as reflected in ongoing controlled digital lending litigation, is not unexpected and belies a historical playbook on the part of publishers and rightsholders to maximize their own profits and control over the public’s informational needs. Thankfully, as outlined in this paper, Congress and the courts have historically upheld libraries’ attempts to expand access to information for the public’s benefit.
- Read the article
- Watch the book talk with authors Kyle Courtney and Juliya Ziskina
Vanishing Culture: A Report on Our Fragile Cultural Record
By Luca Messarra, Chris Freeland and Juliya Ziskina
In today’s digital landscape, corporate interests, shifting distribution models, and malicious cyber attacks are threatening public access to our shared cultural history. Vanishing Culture: A Report on Our Fragile Cultural Record aims to raise awareness of these growing issues. The report details recent instances of cultural loss, highlights the underlying causes, and emphasizes the critical role that public-serving libraries and archives must play in preserving these materials for future generations. By empowering libraries and archives legally, culturally, and financially, we can safeguard the public’s ability to maintain access to our cultural history and our digital future.
Chokepoint Capitalism: How Big Tech and Big Content Captured Creative Labor Markets and How We’ll Win Them Back
By Cory Doctorow & Rebecca Giblin
This book examines how monopolistic corporations have structured markets—especially in digital media—to extract wealth while limiting access and competition. It also explores ways creators and the public can push back against these restrictive systems.
