[caractacus]

They don't want to 'squash lending'. They are delighted with public libraries who license books and lend out a discrete number of copies at any one time for a limited period of time. They don't like the Internet Archive version which is 'we shall upload any book we find and allow anyone to download it and keep it, forever'.

The publishers would like the IA to stop doing that. If the IA wants to keep offering things which are out of copyright or which the copyright owners aren't going to challenge, great. Go for it. This isn't an assault on the concept of a library which is what the IA is trying to pretend. It's a challenge on the IA's pretense that they are a library and not a stock of pirated books, amongst other items.

[geephroh]

Good lord...not even sure where to start with this:

1) The ebooks available through IA's Open Library are offered under a controlled lending scheme similar to a commercial service like OneDrive and Amazon. Users are limited to 10 books at a time, and can borrow the items for up to 14 days. After that period, the ebooks -- which use Adobe's DRM tech -- are disabled.

2) The number of "copies" available for lending are restricted to the actual number of physical copies that IA has in storage, permanently out of circulation.

3) Hachette, HarperCollins, Macmillan and the rest of the publishing industry is fairly hell-bent on "squashing lending" that doesn't happen through their exclusive and extremely lucrative ebook channels. The steep increases in pricing along with tightening restrictions on access have public library institutions such as the ALA concerned about the very existence of book lending in the future.

4) In their PR blitz, the publishers talk a lot about the "National Emergency Library," which did allow for unlimited lending during a 12-week period at the beginning of the pandemic; but the suit is not confined to this short-lived program.

[ocdtrekkie]

The National Emergency Library program essentially tarnishes any reputation the IA had for respecting copyright, is the problem. Similarly to a criminal admitting to lying on the stand, the Internet Archive made it clear it can and will suspend respecting copyright when it feels whatever situation warrants doing so. They absolutely wrecked their credibility, and may take the entire concept of CDL down with it.

[magicalist]

> They absolutely wrecked their credibility, and may take the entire concept of CDL down with it.

Ah yes, the "it's your own fault we want to end libraries" approach. If they had their way, the only "fair use" left will be through time-restricted DRM after paying a licensing fee.

[blowski]

> They are delighted with public libraries

I dispute that. I did some work with a large book publisher in the UK. They hated libraries and had all sorts of tactics to work against them.

[kmeisthax]

Internet Archive used Adobe DRM to specifically enforce the exact same rental period that a physical book would have. So while you might be right legally, you aren't correct morally.

The "assault on the concept of a library" thing isn't from this specific lawsuit, but just general publisher behavior. The publishers want libraries to become a shittier Netflix for books - i.e. the last rung on a very tall windowing[0] ladder, with them being paid per rental and books being able to be pulled from circulation at a whim. This is Literally Nineteen Eighty-Four.

A good parallel for this would be the Epic v. Apple lawsuit. Legally speaking, there was no way in hell a private company was going to get standing for an expansive, Stallmanesque antitrust lawsuit against the very bedrock of platform capitalism. And morally, Epic is a worse company than Apple. However, practically speaking, their ability to get discovery woke every legislative body up to a lot of industry dirty laundry. The EU Digital Markets Act would not have passed without Epic v. Apple airing all that out.

If IA is able to get discovery, they could do something similar for book publishing. Just put all that dirty laundry out in front of the public and let them make sense of it.

[0] The practice of releasing creative works in stages. Think like how movies go from theaters, to home video, to rental or streaming, to airplanes, in roughly that order.

[thebooktocome]

> They don't like the Internet Archive version which is 'we shall upload any book we find and allow anyone to download it and keep it, forever'.

This was only true for a twelve-week period at the height of the pandemic, it hasn’t been true since then.

[throwanem]

The "keep" part was never true. Those "Adobe Digital Editions" expire.

[thebooktocome]

True, good catch.