500,000 Books Have Been Deleted From the Internet Archive's Lending Library (techdirt.com) 74
The Internet Archive's Open Library, which operates similarly to traditional libraries by lending out digital copies of purchased or donated physical books, has been forced to remove 500,000 books due to a lawsuit by big publishers. Mike Masnick reports via Techdirt: As we've discussed at great length, the Internet Archive's Open Library system is indistinguishable from the economics of how a regular library works. The Archive either purchases physical books or has them donated (just like a physical library). It then lends them out on a one-to-one basis (leaving aside a brief moment where it took down that barrier when basically all libraries were shut down due to pandemic lockdowns), such that when someone "borrows" a digital copy of a book, no one else can borrow that same copy. And yet, for all of the benefits of such a system in enabling more people to be able to access information, without changing the basic economics of how libraries have always worked, the big publishers all sued the Internet Archive. The publishers won the first round of that lawsuit. And while the court (somewhat surprisingly!) did not order the immediate closure of the Open Library, it did require the Internet Archive to remove any books upon request from publishers (though only if the publishers made those books available as eBooks elsewhere).
As the case has moved into the appeals stage (where we have filed an amicus brief), the Archive has revealed that around 500,000 books have been removed from the open library. The Archive has put together an open letter to publishers, requesting that they restore access to this knowledge and information -- a request that will almost certainly fall on extremely deaf ears: "We purchase and acquire books -- yes, physical, paper books -- and make them available for one person at a time to check out and read online. This work is important for readers and authors alike, as many younger and low-income readers can only read if books are free to borrow, and many authors' books will only be discovered or preserved through the work of librarians. We use industry-standard technology to prevent our books from being downloaded and redistributed -- the same technology used by corporate publishers. But the publishers suing our library say we shouldn't be allowed to lend the books we own. They have forced us to remove more than half a million books from our library, and that's why we are appealing."
As the case has moved into the appeals stage (where we have filed an amicus brief), the Archive has revealed that around 500,000 books have been removed from the open library. The Archive has put together an open letter to publishers, requesting that they restore access to this knowledge and information -- a request that will almost certainly fall on extremely deaf ears: "We purchase and acquire books -- yes, physical, paper books -- and make them available for one person at a time to check out and read online. This work is important for readers and authors alike, as many younger and low-income readers can only read if books are free to borrow, and many authors' books will only be discovered or preserved through the work of librarians. We use industry-standard technology to prevent our books from being downloaded and redistributed -- the same technology used by corporate publishers. But the publishers suing our library say we shouldn't be allowed to lend the books we own. They have forced us to remove more than half a million books from our library, and that's why we are appealing."
Digital lending is much more efficient (Score:2)
and better for the environment too. The efficiency is why publishers hate it.
Re:Digital lending is much more efficient (Score:4, Insightful)
and better for the environment too. The efficiency is why publishers hate it.
And public libraries already offer authorized and licensed digital lending services. Internet Archive can be authorized and licensed too, they just don't want to pay
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> Internet Archive can be authorized and licensed too, they just don't want to pay
Exactly.
If libraries have any chance of surviving in this day and age, which has largely obsoleted them (well in the UK we have them closing left right and centre) they will have to be able to lend digital copies, ebooks. To do that today you must own a limited number of digital copies.
From what I hear many of the agreements publishers have with libraries are odd in how they work, some financial weirdness developed by a s
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I work in publishing, work daily with the library wholesalers (such as Overdrive, Hoopla, Baker Taylor and many others) and have a few hundred books of my own published (under a pen name) so am fairly well placed to explain how money for books works when it comes to lending and libraries....
For physical books, a library purchases a copy, and I'll get a small royalty for that one sale just like any other. But then every time that physical book is lent out by the library, I receive a PLS royalty directly to m
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Musical_Joe is getting public welfare from taxes. which seems interesting use of public monies but fine. the whole "licensing" of digital copies so then you welfare support continually the publisher and author (if i understand this correctly) seems kinda ridiculous.
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Musical_Joe is getting public welfare from taxes.
Everyone does. Try enforcing your property rights without having taxes used to pay for the police officers, politicians, judges, and all the other apparatus that make "property rights" possible and see how far you go. That's welfare from taxes directed towards physical property owners.
The distinction people make between physical and intellectual property rights is mostly a fantasy, one I shared back when I was a Libertarian. The reality is both rights are legal fantasies. Without a government to enforce one
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The example was UK specific, the UK is another country, well a collection of countries but we can assume one country in many cases.
Public money is everything here, the p-u-b-l-i-c libraries are funded by the council tax the public pays. There are no private libraries other than those in schools which obviously are for schoolkids. In fact many of the schools are funded obviously by public money as well.
Perhaps over there, in your different country, your libraries are somehow private enterprises much like y
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It's not up to you to decide how someone else's intellectual property gets licensed or conditions of sale. Don't like it, don't buy it.
In addition, IA had this scam going with "partner libraries". My library has "partner libraries" too, where if I want to borrow a book that is not in their collection they can borrow it from a "partner library" and it gets shipped to my library for pickup. IA decided that if a "partner library" owns copies of a book then that increased the number they could digitally lend
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> So sharing books with friends and family is illegal?
I don’t know where you go that from?
Anyway.
So called "free libraries" are little conversions of old phone boxes where the community can bring and swap books freely, at least in the UK. You also find them in the occasional garden centre, or even stuck in someone’s garden facing the pavement for the passing public to take a book and drop a book. Although apart from fines, all libraries are free, just they have to buy the books they lend out
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Say bye bye to libraries then, finally.
You can just buy your books full price instead.
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Thanks, thats very enlightening. I've long thought the main issue with libraries and ebooks surround how the various models work.
I posonally think that it shoul be like with a physical book. The library buys 2 or so ebook copies, and leds them out just like with the physical copies.
Because ebooks are elctronic however it opens up a whole swathe of moneymaking possibilities. Just like with having a Smart Meter at home, it allows the energy company to charge you in new ways. Perhaps better and good way, p
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And libraries are doing just that. They purchase licenses to lend out e-books, with one-at-a-time distribution rights.
However, the prices that publishers charge for such licenses is way, way higher than for print material, an
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> And libraries are doing just that. They purchase licenses to lend out e-books, with one-at-a-time distribution rights.
Er, yeah...
Thats kinda why I wrote that, to say thats what they do...
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Libraries buy books and lend them out and don't have to pay.
Why should digital libraries be different?
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Libraries buy books and lend them out and don't have to pay.
Why should digital libraries be different?
Because the publishers have different license terms for digital media
Re: Digital lending is much more efficient (Score:2)
That would seem to be against copyright law
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That would seem to be against copyright law
You might be thinking of "fair use". Have a look at https://www.authorsalliance.or... [authorsalliance.org]
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Ha! That's funny.
The link you provide is focused on telling authors and publishers how to prevent libraries from lending out their books. (i.e. how to evade libraries right to lend out books.
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Ha! That's funny.
The link you provide is focused on telling authors and publishers how to prevent libraries from lending out their books. (i.e. how to evade libraries right to lend out books.
The point is that the copyright owner can decide the terms for licensing their works, You should read the decision in this case to understand why it came down as it did.
Re: Digital lending is much more efficient (Score:1)
Those licenses are ridiculously overpriced, burdened with additional restrictions, and limited to very short time frames, which is why the more officially licensed libraries are themselves removing thosands of books daily -- bec
US Copyright and Fair Use, Section 108 (Score:3, Interesting)
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Well, yeah, something that was written sometime before 1980 and last amended in 1992 is highly unlikely to differentiate between physical and digital libraries...
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The SCOTUS rulings on the 2nd amendment don't seem to differentiate between 18th-century tehnology and that of the 20th century.
I guess the age of a law or ruling doesn't affect it's application. Or at least it doesn't affect its application *as much as it should*.
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Yes they do....
In fact, at a Federal level here in the US, any firearm made before Jan 1, 1899 isn't considered a firearm as far as regulations go - no FFL needed for transfers, convicted felons can have 'em (fed law, state laws vary), etc.
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The SCOTUS rulings on the 2nd amendment don't seem to differentiate between 18th-century tehnology and that of the 20th century.
I guess the age of a law or ruling doesn't affect it's application. Or at least it doesn't affect its application *as much as it should*.
The 2nd Amendment protects "arms" and not just muskets. The 1st Amendment protects "speech", which includes news forms of speech.
If the gun banners want to argue that the 2nd only protects firearms in existence when it was ratified, then I will argue that speech only protects speaking, writing, and printing, and you can kiss typewriters and all electronic communications goodbye. If "people" in the 2nd is a collective people, then so is people everywhere else.
Re:US Copyright and Fair Use, Section 108 (Score:5, Informative)
Per the link you included, section 108's exceptions "cannot be systematic", and since IA was copying every single book, it was definitely systematic. However, IA did not attempt to use section 108 to justify their actions, so it was specifically called out as not being considered in the ruling.
The case was way more complex than "IA was copying book to lend out without publisher permission". There was all sorts of other stuff going on. For example, IA was not enforcing the one-to-one owned-to-loaned ratio at first. Once they did begin enforcing the ratio, they convinced other libraries to contribute books that they owned by promising it would allow libraries dodge licensing fees. The judge also examined the fair use arguments in detail and found that they did not apply.
You can read the full ruling yourself: https://storage.courtlistener.... [courtlistener.com]
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Per the link you included, section 108's exceptions "cannot be systematic", and since IA was copying every single book, it was definitely systematic. However, IA did not attempt to use section 108 to justify their actions, so it was specifically called out as not being considered in the ruling.
The case was way more complex than "IA was copying book to lend out without publisher permission". There was all sorts of other stuff going on. For example, IA was not enforcing the one-to-one owned-to-loaned ratio at first. Once they did begin enforcing the ratio, they convinced other libraries to contribute books that they owned by promising it would allow libraries dodge licensing fees. The judge also examined the fair use arguments in detail and found that they did not apply.
You can read the full ruling yourself: https://storage.courtlistener.... [courtlistener.com]
Thanks, that was very interesting reading. The "partner library" scam is crazy
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US copyright law only applies in the US funnily enough.
The I.A would have to use geoblocking to be in complaince with the rest of the world that dont. As far as I.M aware they dont use geoblocking, allowing us in the UK for example to get hold of texts and movies that are not in the public domain yet.
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if true then just host out a country that did not sign the law?
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And none of those copying exceptions apply to what the Archive was doing.
There is a special place in hell for these assholes. There is an argument to be made that format shifting a physical book to digital and lending that copy on a one-to-one ratio passes legal muster (the precedent I would use is the Betamax case where the supreme court allowed time shifting OTA broadcasts. Time shifting is not possible without format shifting (OTA -> video cassette, in that instance) so it's a reasonable argument th
Re: US Copyright and Fair Use, Section 108 (Score:1)
Re:Never agreed with archive.org (Score:5, Insightful)
Well you walk around without permission, and publish your opinions without permission. I give you permission to think about why doing things without permission is the default.
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> Well you walk around without permission
Not on private property you dont.
> publish your opinions without permission
There are plenty of restrictions on what can and cant be published.
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They archive stuff and allow access to the archive.
They are the exact equivalent to a digital library.
It is sad that you think otherwise, and wish to live in a world where you don't have access to things.
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They archive stuff and allow access to the archive.
They are the exact equivalent to a digital library.
It is sad that you think otherwise, and wish to live in a world where you don't have access to things.
Except they are offering digital access to works that the rights holders only permit digital access to under license. IA is free to buy licenses if they want to provide this service.
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I suggest you re-examine the word "copyright".
Very generous of them (Score:3)
"It then lends them out on a one-to-one basis (leaving aside a brief moment where it took down that barrier when basically all libraries were shut down due to pandemic lockdowns),"
It was very generous of them to give away stuff they do not own. Every library that was "shut down due to pandemic lockdowns" was still operating digitally. Hoopla Digital didn't suddenly go offline. They all operated under the usual rules and licensing restrictions
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That "brief period" is what invited this lawsuit, and did so with a set of facts so heavily in favor of the publishers that they could not have done better had they specifically set out to do so. "Copyright laws no longer apply because of the current emergency" is something that could conceivably be done via an executive order (whether or not it would pass constitutional muster is another question), but it certainly isn't something some asshole running a digital library with an inflated sense of power can
Proposed Change to Title 17 U.S.C. (Score:2)
A copyright is government-granted a commercial monopoly.
Therefore if you are not exercising commercial rights, there is no justification for a copyright.
With the ease of distribution now, there is no longer any economic excuse for warehousing IP.
If your copyrighted works become unavailable commercially, your copyrights expire.
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A copyright is NOT a commercial monopoly, it's just a monopoly. Big difference.
You have the right to exploit your invention or creation or song or video exclusively. Commercial is included but not required.
You can give away or distribute your song - exclusively - it doesn't grant anyone else the right to do so, whether you charge for it or not.
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There is no such thing as "IP" stop using that overloaded term.
Where's the EFF on this? (Score:2)
I have donated money to the EFF over the years .. recently not sure what they're doing with my money. Why aren't they on top of this? It's ridiculous.
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The case was super cut and dry against IA, that's not the kind of thing the EFF would get involved with.
I'm jjust glad they stayed up until ... (Score:5, Interesting)
... after I had finished the last course and completed a degree. (Yay, me!)
The references in the Archive were what enabled me to write the two papers required to complete the course. In the midst of the Covid-19 lockdown there was no way I could have gotten access to them (or equivalents) in time to complete the course before the college's requirement to "show progress" toward the degree would have timed me out of the entire program one class short of graduation, rather than graduating with a diploma - just as it had already killed the original plan to get the credits through the CLEP/DANTES program, by halting all credit-by-exam exams for civilians for years. (Yay, Internet Archive Lending Library!)
Finally came down with Covid-19 just a couple days after the transfer credits arrived at the college, too. B-b
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> In the midst of the Covid-19 lockdown there was no way I could have gotten access to them (or equivalents) in time to complete the course
Not from a library?
Or by purchasing them? I mean if you have enough cahs to pay for a degree then I'm sure you can buy a book or two, then resell them on ebay like others did in University.
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Not from a library?
What part of "lockdown" didn't they have where YOU were? Even those that WERE open had limits, (e.g. college libraries only allowing their own students and faculty.) I tried my college's online library, along with the few others I had access to, and kept coming up blank trying to find the far end of footnotes - to books the Archive had in multiple copies. So, no, not from a library.
Or by purchasing them? I mean if you have enough cahs to pay for a degree then I'm sure you can buy a bo
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Ahem
What part of the internet presence and online services of any library fell off the web during lockdown?
You just have to open a web browser and navigate to the library portal. Sign in and BINGO, you want ebooks, there you go.
As for lockdown, well it only lasted a few months mate. What was it, half a year? The little kids were leaning from home, thier teachers were allowed to MARK EXAMS THEMSELVES and give grades based on HOW THEY THOUGHT THEIR KIDS WOULD HAVE PERFORMED. That by some was considered, "q
The Spirit of Libraries (Score:1)
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One reason: The less books are available, the less people get into the habit of reading. Reading habits in households are one of the strongest predictors of academic success & most school curricula assume some degree of household reading, e.g. many schools nowadays rarely do much whole-book reading (Why? It's expensive!), hence the criticisms of the lack of
Thats a stretch... (Score:3)
> which operates similarly to traditional libraries by lending out digital copies of purchased or donated physical books
That’s a bit of a stretch as "lending" libraries have limited copies to lend.
The internet archive however was producing as many digital copies as they liked with no agreements in place with copyright holders or publishers.
Ignoring the fact they scanned books that were not scanned before, they broke all sorts of laws by going rogue and minting as many copies as they liked to lend. To take part in that "market" you must, as a surviving library today, pay a license fee or sorts for a limited number of digital copies that can be lent out. Just like with good old fashioned paper books, you can only lend out what you have to actually lend out.
The I.A however were doing the equivalent of hiring loads of people to run an underground printing press factory where they acted "like" a library that seemed to never run out of paper books to lend out on the shelves.
In effect they actually acted like an open and visible copyright infringement and piracy organisation, making up their own rules, or thinking the rules didn’t apply to them as they could try and convince everyone that it was part of "archiving", an activity that has permitted them to scan and store books even when they were published with a notice inside explicitly forbidding that.
I'm pretty happy they got caught with their trousers down, it was a brain dead idea to try and pretend they could even get away with this. I don’t doubt that their antics here will hurt copyright reform movements across the world. Here in the UK I've been hoping for copyright reform for a very long time, and we very nearly got it just a few years ago. The UK's 1980's copyright laws were going to be upgraded, to be aware of a thing called "the internet" and "short form media" like GIF's and "format shifting" etc. The Government was ready to roll, finally moving the copyright law into the 21st century, with changes to the term of copyright too, but it was all scuppered by lobbying from a bunch of rich authors who couldn’t stand the idea their grandkids won’t live off royalties. Philip Pullman for example, the author of His Dark Materials, was one of the main leaders of this FUD campaign that claimed that the British public needed "protecting" from shorter copyright terms which would result in a "flood" of inferior e-book copies.
The UK Government relented but they said they remain ready to re-visit the issue in just a few years time, which the authors publicly stated was "concerning".
So thanks I.A, I'm sure that next time the UK looks at moving copyright out of the age of the 8 bit computer, loading a few KB of data off cassette tapes, Pullman et-al will happily use your example as a weapon.
Cheers.
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No, this is quite wrong. They buy a copy, digitize it, and only lend out that one copy for a limited time period. If its available for borrowing that is two weeks. If it is available for reading only, its two hours.
During the pandemic they did, for a short while, lend multiple copies of books of which they had only bought one copy, but that was only for a short period in response to the unusual circumstances of the time. It was very foolish, it acted as a provocation, but it is not the way they normally
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No, this is quite wrong. They buy a copy, digitize it, and only lend out that one copy for a limited time period.
This is not wrong. That is what the archive had done prior, but not what invited this lawsuit. The assholes running the Archive did, indeed, start providing copies to anyone who wanted one, regardless of how many physical copies they had, "because Covid." Prior to that point, the publishers had not sued (and were not going to--the risks were far greater than the possible reward).
We need the Archive to win
The Archive was never going to win this. When the Archive decided unilaterally that copyright laws no longer applied they invi
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> No, this is quite wrong.
No, that is extremily wrong.
The I.A were taking printed books, scanning them and leanding out infinite copies without any restrictions or agreements or payments in place.
Thats why they were in court, thats why they were found guilty.
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Edit: I submitted before finishing it appears
> We need the Archive to win
No we don’t. We need this organisation to PLAY IT BY THE RULES!
They can talk about and champion the changes to the rules all they like, but they won’t be listened to unless they are trustworthy now would they?
Otherwise they will open up their efforts to all sorts of "have a go" suits that will try to use this example as a precedent as to why some like this organisation shouldn’t be allowed or trusted to do this sor
Anna's Archive has replace the Internet Archive. (Score:3)
https://annas-archive.org/ [annas-archive.org]
Long since replaced the Internet Archive for old books. And you can download the entire library or distribute just a piece of it.
The big problem is with really old technical books, which do not exist any longer and can't be located in any library or even bookshops. The objective of the big publishers isn't to prevent losses, because any archival of old texts that no longer exist, for topics that are purely historical now, is by it's very nature transformative - they have no use any longer commercially and transformative archival likely extinguishes copyright.
For hobbiests, historians and the like, old technical tomes are incredibly useful resources and it's not like you can buy them from publishers. Copies do not effect the real book market as the real books remain collectors items, and there is zero chance of publishers reprinting them.
So Anna's Library has replaced the Archive as the home for old technical resources.
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Thanks for the tip.
Copyright (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't take copyright advice or lectures from places that mirror the entire MAME ROM set on a regular basis.
Archiving does not mean "copy everything, without permission, against the creator's own desires, and then put it online for everyone, everywhere to download completely in perpetuity"
For a start, that disregards much of international law, and the laws of other countries (many of whom produced those items).
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Archiving does not mean "copy everything, without permission, against the creator's own desires, and then put it online for everyone, everywhere to download completely in perpetuity"
Funny thing, that's exactly how experiencing a work, works. Guess the universe is telling you to pound sand.
Copyright is out of control. (Score:2)
What is the public benefit asserted when some law firm's software automatically bombards a random person's social media posts with takedown notices because they mention seeing or hearing something that's copyrighted? Enough of this bullshit. Past a certain reasonable time p
1984.. (Score:1)