Internet Archive's 'National Emergency Library' Has Over a Million Books To Read Right Now (cnet.com) 45
The Internet Archive will suspend its waiting lists for digital copies of books, as part of its National Emergency Library, the organization said. From a report: "Users will be able to borrow books from the National Emergency Library without joining a waitlist, ensuring that students will have access to assigned readings and library materials that the Internet Archive has digitized," according to a blog post. The move comes as schools around the country are shut down in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic and as it's become more difficult to get goods of all kinds. The post noted that many people can't physically go to their local libraries these days. The waiting lists apply to more than 1.4 million books. The Internet Archive said it would keep the waiting list suspended until June 30, 2020, or "the end of the US national emergency, whichever is later."
Are these all Out of Copyright books? (Score:5, Informative)
The Authors Guild does not seem too happy
https://www.authorsguild.org/i... [authorsguild.org]
"The Authors Guild is appalled by the Internet Archive’s (IA) announcement that it is now making millions of in-copyright books freely available online without restriction on its Open Library site under the guise of a National Emergency Library. IA has no rights whatsoever to these books, much less to give them away indiscriminately without consent of the publisher or author. We are shocked that the Internet Archive would use the Covid-19 epidemic as an excuse to push copyright law further out to the edges, and in doing so, harm authors, many of whom are already struggling. "
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Re:Are these all Out of Copyright books? (Score:5, Informative)
"The Authors Guild is firmly entrenched in our position that our heads are shoved very far up our own rectums."
Re: Are these all Out of Copyright books? (Score:4, Insightful)
Fuck the Authorâ(TM)s Guild, and anyone else responsible for the woefully unbalanced clusterfuck that is modern copyright. This pandemic is really showing peopleâ(TM)s true colors better than anything else could have.
Re: Are these all Out of Copyright books? (Score:1)
And fuck Slashdot as well for being unable to properly accept an apostrophe from my iOS device. Itâ(TM)s not 1999 anymore, donâ(TM)t you know?
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It's your fault for not turning off the insane default. The single quote has been a part of ASCII for a long time. There's no excuse for using curly non-ASCII characters to write plain text.
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UTF-8 and UTF-16 have been long in use and the default for various projects. Some even call it racist and against their COCKKK not to support it.
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Fix your IOS device to send a real apostrophe.
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I'm all for copyright reform. Cut it to 28 years, 14 even, that's fine. But unless you're a total anarchist there's got to be some point where people are allowed to try to sell their books with protections that keep others from giving them away, right?
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But unless you're a total anarchist there's got to be some point where people are allowed to try to sell their books with protections that keep others from giving them away, right?
Sure. That point occurs when you first provide a copy of the book to someone else. Up till then you can do with it as you please. Keep it all to yourself if you like. Hold out for a big up-front payment. Only let people see it under an NDA. No one can force you to publish. But if you do publish your book to the world (even under NDA) then at some point it's going to end up beyond your control, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. That's the nature of information. What is wrong is the systematic f
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"Sure. That point occurs when you first provide a copy of the book to someone else. Up till then you can do with it as you please. Keep it all to yourself if you like. Hold out for a big up-front payment. Only let people see it under an NDA. No one can force you to publish."
Right and the other big factor here its on you to isolate and protect that book. Ideas copy naturally and freely as soon as people are exposed to them. Someone breaks in the house and reads your manuscript he has prison coming for the br
Pubic libraries? Horrid, absolutely horrid! (Score:3)
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The fair use doctrine is an EXEMPTION to copyright. Copyright isn't actually a right, it's a limited legal privilege we provide to encourage people to write things.
Re:Libraries are obsolete (Score:5, Informative)
Libraries are far from obsolete and serve as a vibrant community resource in many areas and many ways, particularly for young mothers and in lower income communities where access to digital media is less prevalent. The idea that they need to go the way of payphones purely because they offend you somehow is absurd. Reading programs, mommy and me story times, access to books for kids that have limited technology in the homes... libraries are still a vital community asset in a huge number of ways.
Re:Libraries are obsolete (Score:5, Informative)
You are woefully under-informed. Libraries are more important than ever. Not only do they do a lot more than just lend books, they are important parts of the communities they serve. Not every book is available in a digital format and not every person has the luxury of being able to read books digitally. They also serve as ways for people to get connected to the Internet and others. They help with literacy and research. They reach out to the poor, disabled, and people with learning difficulties. And yes, they still lend books for free which helps stop the money from flooding the corporate coffers of Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
Re: Libraries are obsolete (Score:5, Informative)
I'm one of those diminishing number of people who find the experience of reading on actual paper quite pleasurable, not least because it is quite a robust format, and puts less strain on my aging eyes. (To admit that would be almost sacrilegious to my 20-25 years younger self, who always was at the cutting edge of digital developments.)
That said, I'm also a bit opposed to clutter (from even before the current craze) and furthermore think it unreasonable to pay full price for an item I'll use only once. Hence I'm an ardent visitor to my locale's libraries, which are funded from municipal rates and taxes and hence free to residents. I've also borrowed from the Internet Archive [archice.org] when I could not get a specific title locally (having to get out an online device to read made it slightly more cumbersome, since connectivity is still patchy around here).
I'm not sure whether the ability to borrow digital images of the contents of a book supports or contradicts your assertion, though :-)
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puts less strain on my aging eyes.
The exact main reason I had for switching to e-books. Instead of searching for the right light to read by, I have the font and size set to exactly what I want, and white-on-black.
I even still remain a local library patron by using Libby.
Re:Libraries are obsolete (Score:5, Informative)
No no no... (Score:3)
I REALLY don't need a Mr. Bevis Twilight Zone reference right now!
"But there's time... time enough to read...."
That's completely useless! (Score:1)
How am I gonma find a good one among a *million*?
Are *any* of them good? For me?
I don't give a flying fuck about the 200000th historic drama about a small town in a moral struggle.
And no, we got computers, I will not manuall read into all of them, to know of if they might be good!
Direct link (Score:5, Informative)
To save everyone the trouble of finding the hidden link to the actual library:
https://archive.org/details/nationalemergencylibrary [archive.org]
To hell with books (Score:2, Funny)
When is the Internet Archive going to release its emergency supply of toilet paper?!
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When all the books have finally been scanned, and all the pages have finally been used as wipes, only outlaws will wipe with eReaders.
Or something like that.
Can we hava a National Emergency Auto Dealer? (Score:2)
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If you have a machine that makes a copy of a car at a negligible energy cost, go ahead!
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Time to catch up. (Score:1)
Before anyone complains. (Score:1)
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Okay, but a lot of those books *are* recent, so can they complain after all?
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There's no need to randomly search and guess. Toward the top left there's a filter based on year of publication with precise numbers. The last 2 or 3 years are sparse, but they've got 109,000 books from the last 10 years. I don't know why you'd arbitrarily pick 10 years, though, especially when your original argument was that a lot of the books had been *out of print* for 30 or 40 years.
Even the founding fathers gave copyright 14 + 14 years. Things really ramp up just past 2010, so they've got 243,000 books
Let's Remember the US Copyright Law (Score:2, Informative)
108 - Limitations on exclusive rights: Reproduction by libraries and archives - https://www.law.cornell.edu/us... [cornell.edu]
So, screw you "The Authors Guild" !!!! Stop republishing old books with three extra lines at the end to justify a stupid copyright !!!
It is time... for OS/2 Warp !!!! (Score:2)
I guess this is all the fuss about the "National Emergency Library"
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