Authors cannot stop libraries from buying their books and putting them on the shelf.
Or are you talking about ebooks?
In the USA, if any library pays more for a "library" price, that's voluntary. They have the complete legal right to buy an ordinary copy from any consumer channel that will sell ot them (new or used re-sold) and lend it out. And this is not a special right of things classed as libraries, it's a right anyone has. Traditionally, when it comes to physical copies, anyway.
In other countries, the "first-sale doctrine" does not exist, and this may not be true. I think in Europe libraries do pay "licensing" fees to be able to loan out books, that get redistributed to copyright holders based on use statistics, sort of how music playing licensing does work in the USA too. So argument here about whether libraries really do this or not may just be confusion over the fact that things really do work differently in different countries.
I suppose that gives us the opportunity to compare... has the right to loan out legally purchased books without licenses damaged the incentive to write books in the USA compared to Europe? Like even back in pre-ebook days? I suspect not.
But if libraries choose to pay more for a better binding, that is because of their determination that the value is worth it to them, not because there is any law that says they must to give more compensation to copyright holders. Nor is it proportionate to how many times they lend out the book or anything.
In the USA libraries are completely legally allowed to take a copy they bought legally anywhere at all, including a used booksale from someone else, and loan it out as many times as they want, without needing a license or to make any additional payments to original copyright holder. I am so so positive of this (although I am not a lawyer).
Had they not done that, the publishers knew they faced an uphill battle because of the first-sale doctrine. But once Pandora's box was opened, the publishers saw their chance to stamp out the whole thing by arguing "well they did it once, what's to stop them from doing it again?"
IA made a well-intentioned but ill-advised decision.
Perhaps you're thinking of e-books.
This comment thread gets to be part of today's lucky 10,000. :) (https://xkcd.com/1053/)
The point is that authors' revenue from books sold to libraries is the same as what they get from a retail sale.
>If people worked long and hard on something, they deserve the right to prevent it from being given away for free.
So FreeSoftware/OSS people don't work hard?
I think Ricard Stallman made a really good presentation why today's copyright is unfair for small authors but really good for the "harry potter".
That's not a fair conclusion from the parent comment at all. Software developers _do_ have the right to prevent their work from being given away for free. Them _choosing_ to develop FOSS is them voluntarily waiving that right.
But yeah its not a completely fair comparison.