Letter to Illinois Senate Re: Bill Restricting Author Rights and Earnings

We are requesting the help of Illinois members in pushing back a recently passed Illinois House Bill, which, if enacted, would prejudice authors’ rights under federal copyright law and disrupt the publishing ecosystem.

House Bill number 5236 seeks to regulate how libraries license ebooks and audiobooks, encumbering authors’ rights to make decisions about their works and impacting their income from licenses. Moreover, by allowing the government to control what books public libraries can and can’t purchase the bill sets a dangerous precedent.

We have drafted a letter to the sponsor of the bill in the Illinois Senate, Senator Loughran Cappel, to caution Illinois lawmakers against pursuing this misguided approach towards the otherwise laudable goal of ensuring state libraries are able to maintain a robust collection of digital materials. We strongly support efforts to make ebooks, audiobooks, and other digital materials available to libraries, but object to legislation that will cut into authors’ incomes, particularly at a time when earnings are at historical lows.

We encourage you to take a few minutes to read our letter and sign on to it using the form below.

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