[nitrogen]

Have any self-published authors complained about their book's presence on IA? Has anyone shown (or seems likely to show) material harm? AFAIK IA has legal, physical copies which they scan for digital lending. If that is not the case, and they will serve any random ebook, I would like to know because it would definitely shift my opinion.

[Reelin]

They will indeed serve any random ebook. However, it comes encumbered by DRM (thus controlled digital lending) and they "own" an instance for each copy they lend at any given time (hence the waitlists they refer to).

Note that many other libraries across the nation engage in exactly the same practice. Of course the legal problem is that digital goods are "licensed" instead of "owned" ...

[nitrogen]

So if I uploaded a pirated copy of an ebook for which they do not own a physical copy, they would let people read it? That's what I mean by "any random ebook".