31–40 of 59 posts
These are scans that the Internet Archive already had that they had been making available through libraries on a check-out basis, which apparently is fine under fair use. Their claim now is, because of the national emergency, it's fair use to make these scans directly available to everyone.
If you go to the site and click the 'Views' sort-by, you'll see the most popular titles. For some reason, #1 at the moment, by a factor of 3, is Sylvia Brown's 2008 End of Days . Go figure. Brown was 'a medium with psychic abilities.' Yep, that's where we're at. Viewed 20 times more than 'You Can Negotiate Anything'.
"In around 2020 a severe pneumonia-like illness will spread throughout the globe, attacking the lungs and the bronchial tubes and resisting all known treatments. Almost more baffling than the illness itself will be the fact that it will suddenly vanish as quickly as it arrived, attack again ten years later, and then disappear completely."
I think it's complete bullshit, but also no surprise why it is so popular.
Filled out the captcha, and the "Sign Up" button is just spinning forever. It's been a few minutes.
Does anyone know how they're legally able to do this, when publishers make my local library buy a license for every concurrent copy of an ebook that someone checks out?
Here is a comment on Reddit [1], from the copyright person cited in this article [2] about the legality of it. From what I can gather, libraries scanned books that didn't have digital copies already made, and offered them to patrons to "check out". They used software to make sure that they only checked out a total combined digital/print number equal to the number of print copies they had bought, with software to make…
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/03/internet-archive...
Does anyone know how they're legally able to do this, when publishers make my local library buy a license for every concurrent copy of an ebook that someone checks out?
My limited understanding is that previously they had a 1:1 backing of physical book to what could be "checked out" digitally. Now with the NEL they've removed this backing and are duplicating copies without a physical book to match.
I'd really hate for the internet archive to run afoul of the law here and have it impact the other legal archiving that they do.
Does anyone know how they're legally able to do this, when publishers make my local library buy a license for every concurrent copy of an ebook that someone checks out?
This current measure is beyond that, my guess is they're just willing to take the risk that somebody will sue them.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is not a complaint about libraries or library patrons. I love and use libraries. Authors love to see their books in libraries, including their ebooks. The details matter. Scanning a book and putting it on the internet without the right to do so is not what a library does.
Didn't Google do that too a few years ago, and get away with it?
Does anyone know how they're legally able to do this, when publishers make my local library buy a license for every concurrent copy of an ebook that someone checks out?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Here is a comment on Reddit [1], from the copyright person cited in this article [2] about the legality of it. From what I can gather, libraries scanned books that didn't have digital copies already made, and offered them to patrons to "check out". They used software to make sure that they only checked out a total combined digital/print number equal to the number of print copies they had bought, with software to make…
It is not 'apparently legal'. Ars' writers did an investigation, including talking to some independent attorneys, and the summary is that what they're doing is on shaky ground and likely to be ruled illegal. They are simply banking on authors not suing. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/03/internet-archive...