A library ebook embargo lasted less than a year
ALA's own statements record the embargo's terms in 2019 and Macmillan's reversal announcement in 2020.
- Historical event
- July 25, 2019
- First source published
- July 25, 2019
- Site publication
- September 18, 2026
The record
On 25 July 2019 the American Library Association denounced a new library ebook lending model announced that day by Macmillan Publishers. As ALA's statement describes it, the policy allowed a library to buy one copy of a new ebook title at release, priced at $30 with perpetual access, after which the publisher would impose an eight-week embargo before selling additional copies; after the embargo, further copies would cost $60 each for two years of access. The policy took effect 1 November 2019. Eight months later, ALA's statement welcoming its cancellation records that on 17 March 2020 Macmillan announced it would return to the pricing terms in effect on 31 October 2019, ending the embargo.
What the documents show
ALA's July 2019 statement, issued the same day as the announcement it describes, states that the new policy was an expansion of an earlier, narrower embargo the publisher had applied only to its Tor imprint beginning in July 2018, and that Macmillan stood alone among the then Big Five publishers in embargoing new titles at all, since the others had adjusted access terms without an embargo. ALA President Wanda Brown is quoted calling the policy unacceptable and asking Macmillan to cancel it; the statement does not, and by its nature as one party's public advocacy cannot, establish what evidence Macmillan itself cited for the claim that library lending was affecting retail sales. The March 2020 statement is comparatively brief, crediting the reversal to changed circumstances without detailing Macmillan's stated reasoning at that later date.
Why it stays interesting
This is an editorial note: the exchange is a documented case of a publisher and a national library association disagreeing openly about the evidentiary basis for a distribution decision, with each side's own statement, not a neutral study, as the available record. A reader evaluating similar disputes today should notice that ALA's account states the embargo's mechanics precisely, price, copy limits, and duration, while attributing Macmillan's rationale only in general terms; the underlying sales data that would have supported or undercut that rationale is not part of either cited document.
What to read next
A reader could next check the 2018 statement on controlled digital lending, which addresses a related but distinct library access question, or the subsequent state-level ebook licensing bills in Maryland and New York, which show library advocacy on ebook access moving from public pressure on individual publishers toward proposed legislation.
- What did the publisher's own public statement, if issued, say about its evidence for the sales-cannibalization claim?
- Did other Big Five publishers adjust library access terms during the same period without adopting an embargo?
- What changed operationally at the library between the embargo's start and its cancellation seven months later?
The embargo and its reversal are, on this record, a policy adopted and then withdrawn within less than a year, documented from the library side in specific commercial terms and from the publisher's side only in the fact and timing of its own reversal announcement.
Sources & reading trail
States the embargo's terms, pricing, and duration, and ALA's public objection to it.
Source published: 25 July 2019 · Retrieved: 16 September 2026
States the date and fact of Macmillan's reversal and the embargo's effective start date of 1 November 2019.
Source published: 17 March 2020 · Retrieved: 16 September 2026
Reports, filings, records and studies establish the entry; the reading of why it stays interesting is Chapter Ledger editorial analysis. This retrospective draft does not imply the site published on the event date.
Continue reading
- Libraries built their lending case on owning, not licensing
- A federal court found library ebook scanning was not fair use
- Maryland's library ebook law fell to a federal preemption ruling
- Browse the complete the ledger archive
Sources & reading trail
- ALA denounces new Macmillan library lending model, urges library customers to voice objections
Source published: July 25, 2019 · Retrieved: September 16, 2026 - ALA welcomes cancellation of Macmillan embargo
Source published: March 17, 2020 · Retrieved: September 16, 2026
The documents above establish the record. The reading and the questions are this publication’s editorial analysis, written after the fact.
Published September 18, 2026, not on the date of the event described.