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posted by Fnord666 on Thursday April 02 2020, @08:28AM   Printer-friendly
from the writers-gotta-eat dept.

Authors fume as online library "lends" unlimited free books:

For almost a decade, the Internet Archive, an online library best known for its Internet Wayback Machine, has let users "borrow" scanned digital copies of books held in its warehouse. Until recently, users could only check out as many copies as the organization had physical copies. But last week, The Internet Archive announced it was eliminating that restriction, allowing an unlimited number of users to check out a book simultaneously. The Internet Archive calls this the National Emergency Library.

Initial media coverage of the service was strongly positive. The New Yorker declared it a "gift to readers everywhere." But as word of the new service spread, it triggered a backlash from authors and publishers.

"As a reminder, there is no author bailout, booksellers bailout, or publisher bailout," author Alexander Chee tweeted on Friday. "The Internet Archive's 'emergency' copyrights grab endangers many already in terrible danger."

"It is a tarted-up piracy site," wrote author James Gleick.

Previously:

Internet Archive Suspends E-Book Lending "Waiting Lists" During U.S. National Emergency


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  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 03 2020, @08:50AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 03 2020, @08:50AM (#978637)

    your supposed "ownership" of said book being revoked if the publisher or DRM tech provider go under or discontinue their auth servers

    It's worse than that. The books can be updated without your permission, which means you don't even own the static work (which is ironic since copyright is supposed to be something in "fixed form," but being able to alter it doesn't seem very "fixed"). Just as bad, on a few occasions ebook sellers have found they did not have the rights they thought they did to sell a particular ebook, and as a result rescinded the copies that were sent out. Which you couldn't opt out of, so they pretty much opened up your device and took away what they sold whether you liked it or not. They gave a refund, but that's hardly the point.

    There are reasons for piracy, and lunacies such as this are just one of the dozens (hundreds?) of reasons that go far beyond "getting something for nothing." Not that the authors will ever even bother to consider that. From what I've seen, most of them seem to think that they have an inalienable and eternal right to everything ever done to any combination of words they crap onto a page, without exception, and anyone who disagrees are thieves on a grand scale and should spend the rest of their lives in prison. Not a stance that engenders much sympathy from the public (nor should it).

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