Ending a HarperCollins Boycott (February 27, 2011-August 7, 2013)

On February 24, 2011, Joe Atzenberger broke the news that HarperCollins would begin distributing self-destructing ebooks through OverDrive. This was not welcome news.At the time, if public libraries wanted to lend ebooks to the communities they served, signing a contract with OverDrive was the only viable way for them to do it. The fact that OverDrive agreed to this stipulation from HarperCollins meant that libraries had no choice. Any ebooks they licensed from HarperCollins would become inoperable after 26 circulations. If libraries wished to continue to circulate these titles, they would have to pay for a license that granted them another 26 circulations.After reading Atzenberger’s post, Bobbi Newman wrote a post about HarperCollins’ self-destructing ebooks on her widely read blog, Librarian by Day. Over the next week, she updated her post, adding links to responses from OverDrive President and Chief Executive Officer, Steve Potash, as well as responses by dozens of librarians and non-librarians.One of the ideas people raised was a HarperCollins boycott. The day after Bobbi Newman’s post, my friend Gabriel Farrell and I got together and created a website to let the world know that many people were going to boycott HarperCollins until it changed its policies, and to explain why people were making this decision.