[karlp]

Considering they were only lending to one person at a time, it does seem like the lawsuit is uncalled for.

[martin__]

Last I heard from this story, the lawsuit was because of unlimited lending:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23391662

[criddell]

I wonder what the truth is. In this article Kahle makes it sound like they are lending one digital copy for every physical copy that is locked up in a library somewhere and not circulating.

[jandrese]

From what I understand that was the original policy but when COVID hit they announced that they were removing those restrictions. Commenters went “you’re gonna get sued” and then archive.org was all surprised Pikachu face when their mailbox filled up with lawsuits.

[duxup]

They say that now, but man I only remember them announcing that the limits were off whole hog.

Not sure what the legal standing is loaning ebooks based on "well someone else isn't using their book".

[mcguire]

If so, then the lawsuit would likely be dismissed for lack of standing.

(Yes, yes, they may have loaned more copies of a particular work than they had, but those loans have expired now.)

[bryanrasmussen]

I certainly appreciate what they did and I donate to the Internet Archive but what does lending to one person at a time mean here? It's on the internet, anyone could lend, as far as I know.

If 1000 users come on a shopping portal and buy things they are all buying one at a time, but 1000 transactions are still done.

[pwinnski]

Not the person to whom you're replying, but I believe they meant that Archive.org only loans out as many copies of a book as they have access to physically.

Mr. Kahle is now claiming that they kept that up during the emergency period, but expanding the pool of physical books to include those being held my libraries around the country. That doesn't seem to quite line up with what I remember, which was the term "unlimited," but we'll see how that shakes out in court.