Many European countries, as well as Australia, Canada, Israel, and New Zealand, have adopted legislation that creates a “public lending right” – that is, the government recognizes that enabling hundreds of people to read a single copy of a book provides a public good, but that doing so is likely to reduce sales of the book. The universal public library could be allowed to digitize even works that are in print and in copyright, in exchange for fees paid to the publisher and author based on the number of times the digital version is read.