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Weekly News Digest

December 14, 2021 — In addition to this week's NewsBreaks article and the monthly NewsLink Spotlight, Information Today, Inc. (ITI) offers Weekly News Digests that feature recent product news and company announcements. Watch for additional coverage to appear in the next print issue of Information Today. CLICK HERE to view more Weekly News Digest items.

Library Futures' 'Statement on the Association of American Publishers Suit Against the State of Maryland'

We are dismayed, but ultimately unsurprised, by the Association of American Publishers’s decision to file suit against the State of Maryland for their ebooks law, passed unanimously by the General Assembly on March 10th, 2021. This law is set to go into effect on January 1, 2022. It represents the Maryland Library Association’s efforts to simply request equal access and pricing in digital content. Nevertheless, the AAP’s complaint calls Maryland’s law ‘radical.’

What is ‘radical’ is the lawsuit’s multiple spurious claims regarding the intention of the law, attempting to deflect the blame for the price gouging and rent-seeking behavior for library digital content on technology companies rather than its own members’ behaviors in the market. …

The AAP’s suit does not represent the view of authors, creatives, or even most publishing companies other than a minority of the biggest media corporations in the world. This famously litigious trade organization has tried to stop libraries before, and they have lost every time. Ultimately, the lawsuit represents a pattern of behavior that demonstrates the commercial publishing industry’s continued disdain for the librarians, educators, and the public who simply want resources to provide access to materials, combat misinformation, and provide quality education in the State of Maryland and beyond.

For more information, read the post.