That's a logical race to the bottom that makes me think you have never checked out a book from a US library. If you were to calculate how much an author makes from their book being in libraries it's miniscule. For starters most library books are donated secondhand and not purchased new by libraries. Secondly, most libraries only have a single copy of a given book unless it is a major title (It's not uncommon for waitlists to be booked up for months where I live). Additionally, most titles are shared across multiple libraries in a state or city. Where I live you can return a book to any library because they just circulate copies around the state. Regardless, there are roughly 9,000 public libraries in the U.S. let's pretend that every single library purchases 1 copy of a given book new (an extremely generous estimate). Most authors are not self-published and earn 10-12% royalties, but let's pretend this author is self-published and earns around 40% from their printer before operational expenses. Let's also pretend it's an absolute banger of a book and is selling for a whopping $20/copy. That means they make $8/copy before taxes, bookstore fees, shipping, and other expenses that the self-publisher does not pay for. Let's be generous and say they somehow make $8/copy after all of that. If every library bought 1 copy (which, again. They do NOT) the author would earn $72,000. That's absolute peanuts compared to what they earn on Amazon from people who can afford firsthand books. The point of libraries and piracy is not to stop people who CAN afford books from buying them. It's supposed to enable those who CANNOT. A more productive approach would be to publicly fund authors but according to Americans that's filthy communism.