Digital Publishers Find Shared Purpose at W3C Publishing Summit – 13.11.2017

The article comments on the discussions that took place during the World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C) Publishing Summit on the topic of digital publishing.

Le prêt numérique en bibliothèque : bientôt la schizophrénie ? (E-lending in libraries : soon schizophrenia ?) –  30.11.2017

On the 10 November 2016, the Court of Justice of the European Union clarified that the European Directive 2006/115/CE of 12 December 2006 on rental and lending rights was applicable both to the physical and digital lending of books. However, since France didn’t transpose this Directive into national law (because national law already had a provision referring to “books” in general), the question whether the court’s decision was applicable remained. The article describes the decision of the French Association of Librarians (Association des Bibliothécaires de France, ABF) to consider that the lending exception in French copyright law covers e-lending.

Les Français piratent moins de livres numériques qu’avant (The French pirate less ebooks than before) – 05.12.2017

A study on  e-book reading habits in France with 2006 interviewees shows some interesting numbers:

  • 21% of the French population aged more than 15 has read an ebook
  • 72% of the population is not planning to use ebooks
  • 30% of the readers use several devices to read an ebook (starting from one device and continuing on another)
  • 19% buy more than 4 ebooks per year
  • 73% of the readers have acquired part of their books for free
  • The readers spend an average time of 67 minutes per day reading