Around a hundred years ago, some publishers tried to make licensing stick, putting a notice in the flyleaf very much like the software licenses that we have all become used to — the publisher retained the right to the content, the book could not be sold or lent to third parties, etc. Attempts to enforce such strictures were thrown out of court, but those were more progressive times.

By the way, Jason Epstein has a fascinating review of the changes in the publishing industry over the past sixty years, as well as his guesses for the future, in a recent NY Review of Books.

I agree with the issue at hand, however. How can you stop a library from distributing books? This is where traditional publishers really get under my skin. On one hand, they claim that ebooks aren’t really significant and they actually go as far as not calling them real books. On top of that, they claim traditional books are superior. On the other hand, they’re book stores are rapidly closing and they don’t want distribute their ebooks through libraries, presumably because of lost revenue from an inferior product. Nope didn’t lose their mind. Always only about the money.