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>Four major book publishers again thwarted the online repository’s defense that its one-to-one lending practices mirrored those of traditional libraries How does it not? I don't get it... why are physical libraries in the clear if it's still a 1:1 borrow?
Can you imagine, if public libraries weren't already a thing, convincing some Americans to build one in 2024?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Traditional libraries lend out the physical copies they bought. For ebooks, they have an agreement with publisher to lend out a certain number of copies. Owners are allowed to make digital copies for personal and archival use. They aren't allowed to transfer copies. The rights of digital ebook are in the license and most prohibit transfers. The rights of physical book are attached to the book. Nobody notices or cares…
As far as I know, IA owns the physical books they scanned, so why shouldn't they be allowed to lend them out 1-to-1 digitally the same as a physical library?
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.ca2.609... On one hand: the court opinion. On the other, a breaking news tweet from Publisher's Weekly with hundreds of tedious low effort takes ready to melt precious brain cells. Please read the opinion.
Reading and understanding the opinion is the way for this one, for a simple reason as I understand it. The judges get to basically make up an opinion about the matter, which could be anything. And they can support basically any opinion using whatever they want, and it can be made to sound ok. The whole point is that the judges are forming a judgement. It's, like, their opinion on the matter. The judges don't have to…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Traditional libraries lend out the physical copies they bought. For ebooks, they have an agreement with publisher to lend out a certain number of copies. Owners are allowed to make digital copies for personal and archival use. They aren't allowed to transfer copies. The rights of digital ebook are in the license and most prohibit transfers. The rights of physical book are attached to the book. Nobody notices or cares…
As far as I know, IA owns the physical books they scanned, so why shouldn't they be allowed to lend them out 1-to-1 digitally the same as a physical library?
"IA maintains that it delivers each Work “only to one already entitled to view [it]”―i.e., the one person who would be entitled to check out the physical copy of each Work. But this characterization confuses IA’s practices with traditional library lending of print books. IA does not perform the traditional functions of a library; it prepares derivatives of Publishers’ Works and delivers those derivatives to its users in full. That Section 108 allows libraries to make a small number of copies for preservation and replacement purposes does not mean that IA can prepare and distribute derivative works en masse and assert that it is simply performing the traditional functions of a library. 17 U.S.C. § 108; see also, e.g., ReDigi, 910 F.3d at 658 (“We are not free to disregard the terms of the statute merely because the entity performing an unauthorized reproduction makes efforts to nullify its consequences by the counterbalancing destruction of the preexisting phonorecords.”)."
This is really an issue that has to be fixed legislatively rather than in the courts.
I hope this doesn't bankrupt the Internet Archive (either the legal fees or the case - I don't recall what they're asking for). It would be bad if the Wayback Machine, the biggest internet archivist around, went under, and also all the books, software, et cetera that the Archive hosts. I wonder if there's any way to archive all of the Wayback Machine (82.3 petabytes), or, better yet, all of the Internet Archive (whic…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I thought the person you were responding too was saying that isn’t what physical libraries do. Also, as far as I know that isn’t what physical libraries do. They buy licenses to share e-books. And don’t physically scan anything.
I meant that digitally lending the books out that IA owns 1-to-1 in the same way a real library lends out physical books should legally be treated the same, regardless of any ebook-specific licensing.
> To entrench its position, the CJEU first mentioned that dematerialized digital copies, unlike books on a material medium, do not deteriorate with use and are perfect substitutes for new copies.
> Furthermore, the CJEU added to its reasoning that exchanging such copies requires neither additional effort nor additional cost. A parallel second-hand market would likely affect the interest of the copyright holder – contrary to the objective of the directive and the intention of the EU legislator.
1 : https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=77bb2501-995c...
"IA makes a final argument that, even if its Open Libraries project did not qualify as a fair use, we should restrict the injunction to the Open Libraries project and allow IA to continue CDL for books that IA itself owns. In support of that argument, IA argues that the fourth factor analysis would be more favorable if CDL were limited to IA’s own books. In our view, the fair use analysis would not be substantially different if limited to IA’s CDL of the books it owns, and the fourth factor still would count against fair use. So we decline IA’s invitation to narrow the scope of our holding or of the district court’s injunction."
In other words, even if one purchases a print copy of the book, fair use would not allow them to lend a digital copy of the book to one person at a time. Why the court concludes that that "would not be substantially different" is unclear from just this footnote.
Honestly the dumbest possible move by Internet Archive. IA has gotten more and more ideological as well, and it's been censoring content it doesn't like. I'm not sure if they're in the Wikipedia/Mozilla boat of screwed up political spending, but if they are, this decision should at least temper that down. I'm sure they'll be able to raise the money needed to pay off this lawsuit. It's true the Archive has a lot of am…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Reading and understanding the opinion is the way for this one, for a simple reason as I understand it. The judges get to basically make up an opinion about the matter, which could be anything. And they can support basically any opinion using whatever they want, and it can be made to sound ok. The whole point is that the judges are forming a judgement. It's, like, their opinion on the matter. The judges don't have to…
I still don't see the difference with one-to-one lending vs physical libraries as long as the archive owns the books.
Honestly the dumbest possible move by Internet Archive. IA has gotten more and more ideological as well, and it's been censoring content it doesn't like. I'm not sure if they're in the Wikipedia/Mozilla boat of screwed up political spending, but if they are, this decision should at least temper that down. I'm sure they'll be able to raise the money needed to pay off this lawsuit. It's true the Archive has a lot of am…
I haven't followed the details of this case, but as a general notion, that sounds kinda reasonable to me?
Copyright law and enforcement is terribly broken in the USA, with a handful of giant publishers wielding massive, abusive power and the average American being harmed by losing their fair use rights and independent creators being bullied and abused by the giants behind the copyright cartel.
2020 upended society in many ways and created opportunities to fix various dysfunctional parts of society. It changed things as diverse as work-from-home norms to laws around takeaway alcohol from restaurants. The possibility to also improve copyright restrictions seems reasonable.