[jcranmer]

It is how a library works if the books are printed on paper. Or parchment or papyrus, I guess.

But if the books are digital, suddenly it becomes magically illegal to do anything without consent of the publisher because it now violates copyright to give your copy to somebody else. And the publisher is arguing that it's morally reprehensible for someone to attempt to build a digital equivalent to lending for physical books.

[twblalock]

A library is able to lend out physical books because it bought the books. The publisher got paid when the book was purchased. Plus only one person can borrow a given physical library book at a time.

[jcranmer]

As noted by several other people here, the IA's model of e-lending only allows one person to borrow the ebook at a time, and that is the model that the lawsuit is trying to shut down. (There was a period of 12 weeks where the lending was unlimited, but that period ended 2½ years ago, and this lawsuit isn't over that period but the program as a whole.) IA also bought the books from the publishers. So the only real difference is that IA digitized the book itself and lent out the digital copy.

[CuriouslyC]

The fact that a library can lend out a physical book, but not a scanned copy of a book, with all else being equal (having paid for the books, one person borrowing a copy per paid for book) is a blatant power grab by publishers, who have never liked libraries but couldn't really do anything about them before.

[Mindwipe]

It isn't how a library works in basically every country in the world for books printed on paper except the US. Almost every other state pays authors a royalty when their books are loaned out by a library.