Libraries Lend Books, and Must Continue To Lend Books: Internet Archive Responds To Publishers' Lawsuit (archive.org) 70
Internet Archive, in a blog post: Yesterday, the Internet Archive filed our response to the lawsuit brought by four commercial publishers to end the practice of Controlled Digital Lending (CDL), the digital equivalent of traditional library lending. CDL is a respectful and secure way to bring the breadth of our library collections to digital learners. Commercial ebooks, while useful, only cover a small fraction of the books in our libraries. As we launch into a fall semester that is largely remote, we must offer our students the best information to learn from -- collections that were purchased over centuries and are now being digitized. What is at stake with this lawsuit? Every digital learner's access to library books. That is why the Internet Archive is standing up to defend the rights of hundreds of libraries that are using Controlled Digital Lending. The publishers' lawsuit aims to stop the longstanding and widespread library practice of Controlled Digital Lending, and stop the hundreds of libraries using this system from providing their patrons with digital books. Through CDL, libraries lend a digitized version of the physical books they have acquired as long as the physical copy doesn't circulate and the digital files are protected from redistribution. This is how Internet Archive's lending library works, and has for more than nine years. Publishers are seeking to shut this library down, claiming copyright law does not allow it. Our response is simple: Copyright law does not stand in the way of libraries' rights to own books, to digitize their books, and to lend those books to patrons in a controlled way.
"The Authors Alliance has several thousand members around the world and we have endorsed the Controlled Digital Lending as a fair use," stated Pamela Samuelson, Authors Alliance founder and Richard M. Sherman Distinguished Professor of Law at Berkeley Law. "It's really tragic that at this time of pandemic that the publishers would try to basically cut off even access to a digital public library like the Internet Archive ... I think that the idea that lending a book is illegal is just wrong." These publishers clearly intend this lawsuit to have a chilling effect on Controlled Digital Lending at a moment in time when it can benefit digital learners the most. For students and educators, the 2020 fall semester will be unlike any other in recent history. From K-12 schools to universities, many institutions have already announced they will keep campuses closed or severely limit access to communal spaces and materials such as books because of public health concerns. The conversation we must be having is: how will those students, instructors and researchers access information -- from textbooks to primary sources? Unfortunately, four of the world's largest book publishers seem intent on undermining both libraries' missions and our attempts to keep educational systems operational during a global health crisis.
"The Authors Alliance has several thousand members around the world and we have endorsed the Controlled Digital Lending as a fair use," stated Pamela Samuelson, Authors Alliance founder and Richard M. Sherman Distinguished Professor of Law at Berkeley Law. "It's really tragic that at this time of pandemic that the publishers would try to basically cut off even access to a digital public library like the Internet Archive ... I think that the idea that lending a book is illegal is just wrong." These publishers clearly intend this lawsuit to have a chilling effect on Controlled Digital Lending at a moment in time when it can benefit digital learners the most. For students and educators, the 2020 fall semester will be unlike any other in recent history. From K-12 schools to universities, many institutions have already announced they will keep campuses closed or severely limit access to communal spaces and materials such as books because of public health concerns. The conversation we must be having is: how will those students, instructors and researchers access information -- from textbooks to primary sources? Unfortunately, four of the world's largest book publishers seem intent on undermining both libraries' missions and our attempts to keep educational systems operational during a global health crisis.
Follow the money (Score:2)
The only change these publishers have is to claim that people/organizations can't legally digitize the physical books they own. That's gonna be a tough sell.
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I followed the money and got some mail from the Publisher's Clearinghouse Sweepstakes....
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That's already been covered in the 70s with the Betamax court case. And again for CD ripping. Format shifting is legal fair use.
Follow the LACK OF money (Score:2)
It's shifting the format, and then giving the works away to anybody for free that they are objecting to.
Basically, they're saying "no, authors shouldn't be paid. We'll give their work away for free and they can't stop us."
https://publishingperspectives... [publishing...ctives.com]
https://www.thebookseller.com/... [thebookseller.com]
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Who's giving it away? First sale doctrine covers lending something you own, whether it's copyrighted or not.
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They are currently lending once per copy. For a short while at the start of the pandemic, they weren't. That's fair game. But the publishers are trying to render the whole thing illegal on the basis that IA did something illegal once.
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But the publishers are trying to render the whole thing illegal on the basis that IA did something illegal once.
It would be nice if they, say, apologized for "doing something illegal once". Or maybe paid the authors that they stole from. Or at least just acknowledged that oh we did something wrong.
But they did none of these. Apparently they think that there are no consequences for "doing something illegal once". And apparently they are right.
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The consequences can include damages for all improperly lent copies. That doesn't invalidate digital lending on its own.
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Who's giving it away? First sale doctrine covers lending something you own, whether it's copyrighted or not.
First sale doctrine does not cover buying one copy, giving away the copy you bought, and then saying because you bought it once, you can "lend" out an infinite number of copies for free.
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They didn't give a way the copy they bought. They still lent it with digital restrictions - just too many times.
If the publishers sued based on that, I have no argument. But they're saying that even one-to-one lending is illegal on that same basis.
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Re: Follow the LACK OF money (Score:4, Interesting)
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The 1:1 isn't legal either. You can't scan a book and republish its contents. That's what IA is doing as I understand it. Calling it "lending" or whatever else doesn't matter. I mean, I guess the people uploading to TPB are "lending" their DVDs too.
IA will of course lose this battle, I'm baffled they even think they have a case.
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They're not republishing it. They're keeping the physical copy in a vault and lending the contents using Adobe DRM. Not sure how that's comparable to TPB.
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No, they acknowledged a tweet that said:
Only one or two unique copies are kept - duplicates (which have increased over time) are donated to various charities or non-profits. The books are stored at the physical archive.
I can't tell from this statement whether they are lending more than what is kept. But their other statements are clear that the only time they exceeded the ratio of lendings to the physical copies was during the Emergency Library period. The ones they got rid of were probably not being loaned digitally - or are out of copyright and therefore a physical copy is not needed.
Re: Follow the LACK OF money (Score:2)
At some point, the revenue for a given piece of work needs to dry up. The rest of us don't reap rewards for years for work we did a decade ago. I would Imagine the guy that created the first -Hello World- example is pretty pissed right now over these residuals :-)
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Oh, I'll agree with that. The current copyright period of long after the author's dead is way to long.
I do point out, though, that if you work for a company that has a pension plan of any kind (even it it's only paying into social security), you absolutely do "reap rewards for years for work we did a decade ago." An author's backlist is essentially their pension plan.
digital equivalent of traditional library lending (Score:1)
Minus actually paying for the books you're loaning out.
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No, they did pay for the books. They have the physical books. They're letting people borrow a digital scan of the physical books using a process that ensures that only one copy is available at a time and the physical book is sequestered while the digital copy is being borrowed.
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I missed that. Thanks.
You're right, that's a huge difference. If they donated the physical copy, then different people can be using the physical and digital copies at the same time.
So a good court ruling would address the whole range of options:
* If they digitize a book and keep the physical copy, can they loan out the digital copy while sequestering the physical copy? (Please say yes)
* If they digitize a book and keep some of the physical copies, can they loan out as many copies as they bought, or only
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Another point no one seems to be raising is that the library model for royalties for authors assumes local area lending, not the ability to lend worldwide with zero friction. For that kind of lending, authors ought to get paid more than
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For that kind of lending, authors ought to get paid more
I don't follow the reasoning. In most cases books are only marketed by publishers to specific geographic areas, and the marketing costs reduce the amount the writers get paid.
Good luck ever finding anything written by CJ Cherryh in Latin America, Africa or Asia. The only way for me to read her work in Peru or Malaysia would be to have someone traveling in the US or maybe England buy it and bring it to me. If she wants her work to reach audiences in South Africa a digital library would be invaluable. Sin
NOT digital equivalent of traditional library lend (Score:3)
Internet archive paid for one book, and then decided that because of the "emergency" they can loan it out to as many people as they want, at the same time .
You missed that because it's kinda hidden away. They originally said that if they bought one book, they would only allow it to be loaned out to one person at a time; a second person who wanted to read the same book would have to go on a waitlist. But in March they announced that they were giving up the
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Yeah, that's a problem. I suppose they could have gotten away with it by finding other libraries with the books (that were closed), and asking for permission to borrow the books in question, but have the libraries hold the physical copies for them. This would have given them a ton more copies with a good bit of accounting overhead to set it up.
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"emergency", eh? Public libraries were closed around the world. The archive was providing a service to counteract that closure for that immediate period only, so that books paid for by the public would not be locked away. This action of the publishers is unconscionable - the internet archive withdrew open lending a month before the scheduled period ended as a good will gesture, yet they continued with the suit.
The actual goal of the publishers is to dismantle the ability of *all* libraries to lend books on
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"emergency", eh? Public libraries were closed around the world.
Correct.
The archive was providing a service
The "service" was "we will steal stuff and give it away for free."
to counteract that closure for that immediate period only,
The "service" was "we will steal stuff and give it away free, we say we will stop doing this after a set period of time, but since we're basically thieves, you'd be stupid to believe us.
so that books paid for by the public
delete "paid for". Substitute "not paid for".
would not be locked away. This action of the publishers is unconscionable - the internet archive withdrew open lending a month before the scheduled period ended as a good will gesture
You're saying "we stopped stealing your stuff" is a "good will gesture"???
If I punch you repeatedly in the nose, would you say that when I stop, it's a "good will gesture" and we're buddies now?
yet they continued with the suit.
Yes. The IA
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The "service" was "we will steal stuff
Copying something is not stealing. A breach of the copyright law could result in a theoretical lost book sale, that is not theft or stealing. Theft: "the wrongful taking and carrying away of the personal goods or property of another", or "the dishonest taking of property belonging to another person with the intention of depriving the owner permanently of its possession." That is not what is going on here.
and give it away for free.
The Internet Archive is not giving anything away, the reader does not permanently own a copy of the scan
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The "service" was "we will steal stuff
Copying something is not stealing.
Yeah, that old "it's information so you can't own it," argument.
Information wants to be free, but writers want to be paid.
plonk.
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Copying something is not stealing
Yeah, that old "it's information so you can't own it," argument.
No, that is the dictionary definition of stealing/theft - look it up if you don't accept my examples. Copyright does not protect information or ideas, otherwise someone could copyright the use of numbers or historical facts. Copyright protects a specific expression of an idea or collection of ideas: a novel or a program's source code.
Putting aside the now defunct National Emergency Lending scheme (NEL), what the publishers are objecting to is the archive making its own digital copy of their books and lend
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No, they did pay for the books. They have the physical books. They're letting people borrow a digital scan of the physical books using a process that ensures that only one copy is available at a time and the physical book is sequestered while the digital copy is being borrowed.
They aren't doing a 1:1 lending of books they are in physical possession of. By their logic, I could legally obtain a movie physical copy, rip it, keep the digital copy for personal use and/or loan out the digital copy, and simultaneously give the physical copy to someone else who could do the same thing. This is plainly illegal. And of course they had previously lent out unlimited copies simultaneously because they wanted to be generous with someone else's property
Libraries buy books (Score:5, Insightful)
And the people that borrow books from libraries are not likely to buy those books. It is a net gain for the book publishers, particularly because:
1) Most books lose money
2) It gives the book sellers a steady, reliable stream of cash, allowing the publishers to plan better, even if they lose money on the book.
3) The few that make money tend to make so much money - and quicker than the libraries purchase the popular books - so the libraries do not impact their profit significantly
4) Libraries create readers, particularly young readers.
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Sure - but book publishers want libraries to license their own expensive digital copies for lending. They're trying to push the legal ambiguity angle to force libraries onto more favorable terms for themselves.
Netflix (Score:4, Insightful)
If the libraries win, this could be a huge win for Netflix. If you really want a deep library of movies and TV shows, you need their DVD service. Now imagine if instead of mailing you DVDs, they streamed them, but you had to check out a virtual DVD to do it.
In essence, this would result in mandatory licensing of all movies and TV shows that have been released on DVD or Blu Ray.
Of course, to stand up in court, they would probably need to create a streaming system that mimics the DVD, as opposed to extracting just the movie. And they may hit a DMCA issue with the encryption. It would certainly keep their lawyers well paid for a good long time.
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While it's true that libraries have special status under the copyright law, it all depends on how the court rules. If their ruling says that loaning a format-shifted copy of something you have is fair use, and if their decision doesn't touch the library's special status, then it would apply to Netflix.
Personally I would love to see the ruling go that way.
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I think that for this theory to work, Netflix would also have to be a library. You pay for Netflix as a service, so I think the legal hurdle to them even trying this would make their lawyers' heads explode. Netflix would clearly profit from this format shift which makes it completely unlike a library doing it.
There are such things as private libraries [wikipedia.org] which would be very much what Netflix would likely consider itself if this ruling goes in The Internet Archive's favor and this were applicable to video as well.
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I hadn't heard about that, but having read up on it now, they didn't just rip the DVDs and then stream them, they used the physical DVDs in DVD drives with your computer at home acting as the remote control and display device.
I'm not a lawyer, but it feels to me like the court should have ruled that that was a fair use. Further, putting .iso images of the DVDs on a file server and using those instead would be equally fair use as long as they were restricted to one customer at a time. (I might consider als
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Library eBooks (Score:5, Interesting)
Publishers are happy with the current systems libraries use to loan out ebooks. The library buys a license for a given book, and they get to loan it out a certain number of times or for a certain amount of time, whichever comes first. There are several different companies managing these systems, and the terms are a bit different for each one, but essentially the library ends up paying a per-use fee instead of a one-time fee, so it creates a steady revenue stream for the publishers, and it means that if you want an ebook, the library will only have relatively new or popular titles.
This system switches back to the model where the library pays once, and then loans out forever.
I can see why the publishers are up in arms over this, but ultimately they're probably wrong. The issue here is that library budgets aren't going to change either way, so the publishers will receive the same amount from libraries each year regardless of the system in use. The difference is the amount and diversity of materials available to patrons. Ultimately this is not about money from libraries but money from people, as the publishers want to minimize the content available from libraries so that more people have to pay them to get what they want.
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eBooks probably work better for a library when dealing with best sellers. These often follow a sharp rise and gradual fall in popularity, with fiction often going through steeper falls. All those hard copies ordered to meet initial demand become overstock within a year or two that need to get shifted one way or another.
Scan/loan helps a more permanent collection as keeping books sequestered increases their lifespan and can make the book more available. I was told I had to go downtown and visit the referenc
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This system switches back to the model where the library pays once, and then loans out forever.
Not quite. This is switching to the model where one library buys one copy of a book and then loans out an infinite number of copies to anybody with an internet connection, forever.
I can see why the publishers are up in arms over this,
Damn right. And the authors. Who want to be paid for their work
And the Internet Archive says that this amount should be zero.
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I think they're only offering as many copies as they own (or at least they should be). Yes, over infinite time, that's loaning infinite copies, but you get the same with a physical book.
And this ignores the issue that many of the books in question here are old books that are no longer in publication and should soon be in the public domain. (And many here would argue that they should already be in the public domain as the copyright extensions after they works were created shouldn't have been able to apply,
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I think they're only offering as many copies as they own (or at least they should be).
"should" is correct. They said that they keep "one or two unique copies" and then give away the rest.
"As for the truckloads of books warehoused by IA, IA archivist Jason Scott admitted in a recent tweet that for the millions of physical copies acquired by IA, “[o]nly one or two unique copies are kept” and “stored at the physical archive.” “[D]uplicates (which have increased over time) are donated to various charities and non-profits."
Source: https://publishers.org/wp-con [publishers.org]
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I think the requirement to hold one physical copy of a book for every single copy checked out is entirely ridiculous in this day and age of the Internet.
Say the IA received donations of 1000 copies of each book ever printed for the purposes of lending. Further, no money ever made it to the publishers or authors for this purpose. The IA now needs to (a) uselessly warehouse those books in racks upon racks of boxes for all eternity or (b) remove them from circulation (burn, shred, compost, whatever) to ensur
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So how much money are authors making on books that their publisher refuses to reissue? If I want to buy a copy of 'Merchanters Luck' or 'Hestia' my only option is the used book market. The publisher refuses to make it available as an ebook. How much is CJ Cherryh making from that? Nothing. I asked her whether she could then remove the copyright or donate the book to Gutenberg.org or something and she said that she couldn't, as the publisher wouldn't allow it. She was checking with her lawyer whether
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So how much money are authors making on books that their publisher refuses to reissue?
So, your argument is that since there are some books you can't buy because they are out of print, you think IA ought to be able to give away all books, whether they are in print or not?
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Wow, that's the most pitiful straw man that I've seen in weeks. Did you try to use lawn clippings, or what?
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No, I think that copyright should revert to the author when the publisher abandons a work for longer than a couple of years. At that point it would be up to the author whether they want to self-publish, take it to another publisher, make an ebook out of it, or release it for free. Nothing at all like what you're claiming.
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You're going off on a different thread.
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You must be new here . . . :-)
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Temporarily. They stopped doing that quite a while ago.
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People are lucky they're able to borrow ebooks from libraries at all, honestly. If publishers had their way, they wouldn't be able to. Myself, when I buy ebooks for personal use, if they're not already DRM-free, the first thing I do is strip the DRM and turn them in to stra
This would destroy publishers in the end (Score:2)
Do they really think that people will pay more than they do for a library card? I don't think people would. If you raise the price for library access enough, then people would abandon it all together and also access to the people that normally wouldn't read. They would lose revenue long term.
Where do I send my books? (Score:2)
Where can I send those books, so that they will add to the count of digitized versions of them that may be loaned out?
The publisher-centric idea that the property I purchased can still be controlled by them in perpetuity sounds way too much like the "software licensing" crap we have let ourselves get used to.
#FullRightsOfOwnership!
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Library is in the wrong here on two fronts. First, they are scanning and republishing (that's what it is) someone else's IP. Epic fail. You "own" the physical book, not the contents. You can't scan it and share it, just like you can't still with DVDs.
Second was overloaning. More copies out than they had licensed. Clearly wrong.
Change copyright back to what was intended (Score:2)
I'd be willing to see things from the perspective of the publishers IF we were to go back to copyright as originally intended - 14 years and you have to explicitly apply for it. I think most of these publishers would find the vast majority of the works they are complaining about have now entered the public domain.
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Most of the works that they control should be considered 'abandoned' as they refuse to reissue it since it wouldn't be profitable to do so. They won't even allow the authors to print them at their own cost, or allow the author to digitize it so that they could sell it as an ebook. They insist on maintaining complete control, even of a property that they will never make another penny on if they do 'business as usual'.
My own opinion is that if the work is abandoned by the publisher then copyright should rev
Whatever happens with this case... (Score:3)
Download and save as much IA content as you can handle, in case they get nuked from orbit. They are a unique resource. Not just books, they have lots of other content.
A Stupid Librarian almost ruined it (Score:2)
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In almost all cases **only** the publisher holds the rights. The authors sign away their rights in order to get published. Amazon/Kindle is changing that to some extent by allowing authors to self-publish and not insisting on controlling them, and if Amazon weren't such an enormous revenue stream for them you'd see publishers suing them every day of the week.
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