With physical books the library doesn't need to pay anything to lend it; with digital books it has to pay for every view. Why is it so? Shouldn't the buyers of digital books have the same rights, i.e. the right to re-sell or lend it?

As for authors, nothing changes here: libraries lent their physical books without paying before.

The difference between physical books and digital books is apparently wear

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41452031

Although at least in the local library that I'm familiar with, wear is nowhere near as severe as what e-book lending licenses might suggest. From a quick search in the US those often seem restricted to two years or twenty-six lends. The former condition seems totally ridiculous (my library has tons of books older than two years) and even the latter seems questionable – from back when they used to stamp the return dates into the books [1], quite a few books had managed 26 lendings without falling apart yet.

[1] My favourite library branch in my town is, while associated with the city library system, partly volunteer-run and was consequently the last to computerise its lending system, and therefore kept on using the classic system until I think somewhere around 2010 or so, whereas the rest of the city library had already switched in the 90s.

> from back when they used to stamp the return dates into the books [1], quite a few books had managed 26 lendings without falling apart yet.

I remember seeing books that had been lent easily over 100 times.

Not to mention a book can be rebound by a library if it's purchase price is high.

Spouse of a former librarian here. Books are circulated on average 25-30 times before they need to be replaced or removed due to wear.

While I understand the plight of publishers, I also think digital rights favor them too much, atm.

It is worth noting this is a US only oddity.

In almost every other country in the world libraries do pay a royalty to lend books.

It's notable that the IA service was not geofiltered to the US only.

AFAIK the IA does not operate outside the US. The notion that every entity needs to either follow foreign laws or make sure people from other jurisdictions cannot acces their services is absurd.

You don't like it, but that doesn't make it absurd. It is how every country in the world operates with sites coming into their borders.

The IA doesn't geofilter it's availability, and therefore it is subject to the laws of the country it does any substantive distribution to, same as every other website in the entire world.

Which benefits? Support your claims.

> one library unilaterally changing it denies the authors their say on the change

I mean, sure, but ~270 congressmen declaring it would also change it, and it would be viewed as legitimate. Quite probably against the same level of protest.

The amount of say the authors have doesn't actually seem to impact legitimacy much. That only seems to vary with the amount of power the person declaring the change has.

> that benefit authors on a different basis

It benefits the publishing megacorps on a different basis, authors make very little on book sales or loans.