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Internet Archive ends "emergency library" early to appease publishers:
The Internet Archive has ended its National Emergency Library programs two weeks earlier than originally scheduled, the organization announced in a Wednesday blog post.
"We moved up our schedule because, last Monday, four commercial publishers chose to sue Internet Archive during a global pandemic," the group wrote. The online library called on publishers to "call off their costly assault."
[...] If the publishers dropped their lawsuit now, they would be tacitly conceding the legality of CDL[1] and potentially endangering the revenues they currently earn from licensing e-books to libraries for digital checkout. Also, the Internet Archive's decision to stop its emergency lending now is unlikely to protect it from liability for lending it has done over the last three months.
A win for the publishers could easily bankrupt the Internet Archive. Copyright law allows statutory damages for willful infringement to go as high as $150,000 per work, and the Internet Archive has scanned 1.4 million works and offered them for online download. So the Internet Archive could easily face damages in the billions of dollars if it loses the lawsuit. That's far beyond the group's ability to pay.
[1] CDL - controlled digital lending - One electronic loan per physical copy in the library.
Previously:
Publishers Sue the Internet Archive Over its Open Library, Declare it a Pirate Site
Authors Fume as Online Library "Lends" Unlimited Free Books
Internet Archive Suspends E-Book Lending "Waiting Lists" During U.S. National Emergency
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 13 2020, @03:00PM (2 children)
How many readers were underprivileged blacks who couldn't afford to purchase books from the oppressive white-owned publishing houses with their intellectual "property" monopolies? This subjugation must stop... #EliminateCopyright #EverythingForEveryoneForFree
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday June 13 2020, @03:09PM (1 child)
Copyright already had its skull bashed in by the internet. Copyright law is merely performative now.
1337x.to/sort-search/New%20York%20Times%20Best/time/desc/1/
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Touché) by fustakrakich on Saturday June 13 2020, @03:54PM
Copyright law is merely performative now.
It provides pretext to knock your door down and steal your computer whenever their dogs get hungry
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 13 2020, @03:17PM (2 children)
And yet copyright reform is still far away into the future.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 13 2020, @11:04PM (1 child)
Campaign finance reform is necessary before we can have copyright reform. Right now the content publishers bribe^H^H^H^H give contributions to the politicians who will do anything the publishers say as long as the money keeps flowing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 15 2020, @09:19PM
Don't forget: people happily fork over their $$$$$ to the content publishers.
The publisher then gives $ to the politicians to keep the rules in their favor, $ to the performers and creators, lose $ on most of what they back, but ultimately then take $$ for themselves.
And most people find this system acceptable.
The creators who don't market it themselves. Some make $$$. A very few make $$$$$. Most don't make even $. (In other words, those middle men really do have reasons to exist).
Many consumers who don't want to do this break the law. Most probably get away with it. The few who don't are then hounded for $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ when they only have $$$$$. Nothing prevents the consumer from forgoing their music and instead giving their $$$$$ to the politicians so that the law gets changed. One could form a PAC for this purpose, come to that. But such people have already proven they don't want to work within the confines of the law or change it, it's more convenient to just break the law and hope you ain't the one caught.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 13 2020, @03:32PM
Even the mighty G caved to these assholes.
Good thing Brewster never had any warning this would happen.
(Score: 2) by Flyingmoose on Saturday June 13 2020, @10:38PM (4 children)
Did Internet Archive actually think this would turn out well? We already know the publishers love to sue...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 13 2020, @11:14PM (1 child)
They wanted to make a 'splash' about what they were doing. They got the attention of everyone.
They would have been better off just switching it off and not saying anything. Just present 'available for loan' and not say anything. *NO* one would have known any different probably for months. If it came up 'oh have to look into that, that does not sound right'.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday June 14 2020, @12:50AM
The lawsuit could reveal the numbers of books "loaned" out, also revealing that people don't want to read books.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 14 2020, @01:45AM (1 child)
A huge library of out-of-copyright books and films, accessible to everyone, makes rewriting the history that much more complicated.
Closing the project down for some contrived reason, could make people suspect something.
A self-destruction by judge, however, may be sold to the masses as "unintended consequences of a good deed".
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Monday June 15 2020, @09:25PM
I think you misread the story. Internet Archive / libraries are still free to loan e-copies of the books to the limit of licenses/copies that were purchased. Including in-copyright books. (Indeed, if one wants out-of-copyright books the place is Project Gutenberg, not Internet Archive).
What's being eliminated here was Internet Archive's notion that they could lend as many copies as they wanted to without worrying about licensing because "emergency."
This sig for rent.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 14 2020, @06:22AM
True as always