I generally prefer to walk over to my local library branch and browse their film collection in-person.
Put another way, if my library dropped Kanopy, almost no one would notice. So it's hard to claim Kanopy is being "predatory" as another commenter mentioned.
I get that the infrastructure for streaming isn't cheap, and neither are the licensing fees, but this feels like price gouging. I know price gouging is a specific legal term but I'm speaking in the vernacular sense.
I also understand that my library has a lot more data to make the decision than my feeling of guilt. There's no need to speculate. Email your library and ask them:
"Would you prefer I stream title X from Kanopy, or check out the DVD?"
And also ask
"Would you prefer I stream title Y from Kanopy, for which you don't carry the DVD?"
Feel free to provide the context, expressing concerns that it'll potentially cost them over $150, and you're worried that they are being abused by Kanopy.
If the library's not willing to tell me to prefer the DVD, then I'm not concerned.
I feel better about $2, but it would still make me really think about whether I'd want to watch a movie that badly.
SFPL's annual operating budget (not including capex, and not including notional rent on buildings) is $160MM.
That's about $17/month per SF resident. Many SF residents don't use library services at all, so the $/month per MAU is likely mich higher ($50? $100?)
This offer here would be something I'd look into, except learning it hurts the library more than expected is a downer.
Which is likely an incentive for libraries to not expose those costs on a per-request basis. As thebitstick mentioned here[1], libraries want to encourage usage. Overall usage volume has already been budgeted for, so the variances between one request and another for a typical patron won't materially impact the overall capacity of a library from serving their patrons. Inversely, if exposing the individual request costs disincentive enough conscientious patrons from making those requests, it makes it more difficult for the library to justify the service at all and could result in the loss of budget to continue covering it. Which ends up being a net loss of access for those patrons which do not have the means to access it elsewhere and were reliant on the library for it.
Sounds like it’s not that far from a point where it’d be cheaper to just print a book on demand, mail it, and tell ‘em to just keep it or pass it on.
But to publishers, increasing the volume of printed copies of a given title is absolutely not equal to a library purchasing a single copy and physically handling it in circulation until it naturally degrades to the point of being trashed. Physically printing brand new copies for patrons to keep every time a book was 'checked-out' would pose such a materially large impact on sales volume that publishers flat out wouldn't allow it.
Even a perpetual license to loan a single copy of an ebook can cost a library upwards of $100[1], due to potential revenue impact to publishers/authors from having it in circulation in perpetuity without physical deterioration naturally limiting it's lifetime/volume of loans. And the number of simultaneous loans for a given title is generally restricted to the number of individual licenses you've paid for. If that's the case even for ebooks, you can imagine what they'd require to print a title on demand and give it away to a patron forever.
[1] https://www.authorsguild.org/industry-advocacy/a-new-twist-i...
There's an app and it's nice to d/l a film to watch when I'm on the spin bike.
Books cost libraries money, too. Budgets come out of the taxes I pay.