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https://torrentfreak.com/there-is-more-to-copyright-than-financial-incentives-internet-archive-argues-in-court-240423/

The Internet Archive is doubling down on its position that its digital lending library service operates under the bounds of fair use. Major publishers assert that digitizing books without appropriate licensing amounts to infringement but IA counters that the practice is in the public interest. It also fits copyright’s ultimate purpose; to promote the broad public availability of literature and other arts.

    • FaceDeer@fedia.io
      210·
      7 months ago

      I expect them to not provoke the $200 billion lawsuit in the first place. They should never have done the “Emergency Library”, it was an obvious boneheaded decision.

      Then, once they had done it and the inevitable lawsuit came down on them, they should have tried to settle the lawsuit. Not fight to the bitter end, not double down. They’re only making it worse for themselves. It’s not simply losing the lawsuit that could destroy them, it’s refusing to negotiate.

        • FaceDeer@fedia.io
          25·
          7 months ago

          The emergency library followed the same legal framework that ebook lending follows at local libraries.

          No, it did not. From the Wikipedia article:

          On March 24, 2020, as a result of shutdowns caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the Internet Archive opened the National Emergency Library, removing the waitlists used in Open Library and expanding access to these books for all readers.

          Emphasis added. They took the limits off.

          What the libraries do is already in a legal grey area, the publishers just don’t go after it because it’s more trouble than it’s worth and would bring bad press. Like how most rightsholders ignore fanfiction. But the IA went way beyond that and smacked them in the face.

          Don’t blame IA for fulfilling their mission to make knowledge free.

          Their mission is archiving the Internet. a mission that they are putting at risk with this stunt.

            • FaceDeer@fedia.io
              2·
              7 months ago

              As I said, the “traditional” CDLs were also in a legal grey area. But once the publishers are suing IA for going full Library Genesis anyway, why not also include those?

              I went back to one of the older articles I could find on this subject, from before the lawsuit was filed. Some particularly-relevant excerpts:

              Until this week, the Open Library only allowed people to “check out” as many copies as the library owned. If you wanted to read a book but all copies were already checked out by other patrons, you had to join a waiting list for that book—just like you would at a physical library.

              Of course, such restrictions are artificial when you’re distributing digital files. Earlier this week, with libraries closing around the world, the Internet Archive announced a major change: it is temporarily getting rid of these waiting lists.

              …

              James Grimmelmann, a legal scholar at Cornell University, told Ars that the legal status of this kind of lending is far from clear—even if a library limits its lending to the number of books it has in stock. He wasn’t able to name any legal cases involving people “lending” digital copies of books the way the Internet Archive was doing.

              …

              The legal basis for the Open Library’s lending program may be even shakier now that the Internet Archive has removed limits on the number of books people can borrow. The benefits of this expanded lending during a pandemic are obvious. But it’s not clear if that makes a difference under copyright law. “There is no specific pandemic exception” in copyright law, Grimmelmann told Ars.

              Ironically the FAQ that Internet Archive put online has been taken down, but I found it in their Wayback Machine. It says:

              The library will have suspended waitlists through June 30, 2020, or the end of the US national emergency, whichever is later. After that, waitlists will be dramatically reduced to their normal capacity, which is based on the number of physical copies in Open Libraries.

              So it seems pretty clear to me that by “suspending waitlists” it means that they’re going to “lend” more copies simultaneously than they actually have.

              The Internet Archive had been poking a bear with a stick for years and the bear had been grumbling but not otherwise responding. So they decided to try giving it a whack across the nose with the stick instead. Normally I’d just sigh and shake my head at their stupidity, but they’re carrying a precious cargo on their back while they’re needlessly provoking that bear, and now they’re screaming “oh no my precious cargo! Help me!” While the bear has a firm grip on their leg. That makes me extra frustrated and angry at them for doing this.

              I’m not siding with the bear here, I should be very clear. The publishers are awful, the whole concept of copyright has become corrupt and broken, and so on and so forth. But the Internet Archive isn’t supposed to be fighting this fight. They were supposed to be protecting that precious cargo, and provoking the bear is the opposite of doing that.