
Internet Archive responds: Why we released the National Emergency Library - sp332
http://blog.archive.org/2020/03/30/internet-archive-responds-why-we-released-the-national-emergency-library/
======
leephillips
This response by the Internet Archive focuses on easily refutable claims, such
as that they acquired their books illegally, while sidestepping the one
substantive issue: that they had no legal right to replace the controlled
digital lending process that they had been following with uncontrolled
lending. _This_ is what so many authors and publishers are objecting to; and
they are right to point out that this resembles simple piracy.

~~~
jka
I was curious about your mention of authors and publishers complaining, since
I hadn't seen any objections yet.

This led me to complaints by The Authors Guild[1] (as detailed in an article
by The Guardian[2]) and three other authors mentioned in an NPR article[3].
Since then I've also discovered a statement by the Association of American
Publishers[4] linked from the HN submission.

Some of the focus is on the revenue that authors make from their publications
and some of it is on the legality of making the content more accessible.

It is worth reading the original HN submission link, as it contains some
useful clarifications around the way the National Emergency Library operates;
including, for example, that access to content is on a 2-week loan basis and
requires the content to be checked-out from the library

The Internet Archive have also updated their National Emergency Library FAQ[5]
in response to the debate.

It'd be good to discover whether the National Emergency Library ends up
increasing awareness and access to publications temporarily, and whether they
will collect and distribute any funds after-the-fact based on readership.

[1] - [https://www.authorsguild.org/industry-advocacy/internet-
arch...](https://www.authorsguild.org/industry-advocacy/internet-archives-
uncontrolled-digital-lending/)

[2] - [https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/mar/30/internet-
archi...](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/mar/30/internet-archive-
accused-of-using-covid-19-as-an-excuse-for-piracy)

[3] -
[https://text.npr.org/s.php?sId=823797545](https://text.npr.org/s.php?sId=823797545)

[4] - [https://publishers.org/news/comment-from-aap-president-
and-c...](https://publishers.org/news/comment-from-aap-president-and-ceo-
maria-pallante-on-the-internet-archives-national-emergency-library/)

[5] -
[https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QjErbouWG7pUlzcxPcRk4YEt...](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QjErbouWG7pUlzcxPcRk4YEtbYs8ItlVTgLa1DfGh68/edit)

~~~
CaptArmchair
The actual core of the problem is described here and predates the discussion
on the Emergency Library: [https://nwu.org/book-
division/cdl/faq/](https://nwu.org/book-division/cdl/faq/)

Summary from Wikipedia:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controlled_digital_lending](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controlled_digital_lending)

> Opponents of CDL argue that CDL is not like lending, which does not require
> copying, and dispute the claim that only one copy at a time is available for
> reading. Opponents say that CDL involves first making an unauthorized
> digital copy of a printed edition of a work, and then making an additional
> unauthorized digital copy for each "borrower". Opponents also argue that
> unencrypted digital copies are distributed for viewing in a Web browser, and
> that these copies can be retained, viewed, or printed from the browser cache
> even after the e-book is marked as "returned" and is available for "lending"
> to other readers.

This is based on the vague notion of "creative work" in copyright.

Before the digital age, there was only a close 1:1 relationship between the
ephemeral/conceptual creative work and physical copies of that work. Authors -
and more specifically publishers - held exclusive control over the latter
since the act of copying and distribution was prohibitively expensive.

The game changer in digital technology is that it democratized creating and
distributing copies. Not just that, digital technology has blurred the
definition of a "physical carrier" as a creative work can be represented as
set of constituent bitstreams on a disk but also as pixels or audio on a
screen/speakers. The creative work itself is re-generated/re-constructed
through digital devices each time it is consumed.

Copyright still applies, the ephemeral conceptual work as was original
intended by the author is still protected. But it's become very difficult to
apply that protection to equally ephemeral representations in the digital
realm.

The hard problem then is that copyright doesn't make a distinction between
"physical copy", "digital copy" and the ephemeral "creative work" as an
abstract idea or concept which was originally conceived by the author.

This leaves an huge void for interpretations. And so, both the Internet
Archive as well as the Authors Guild can make sound legal arguments.

You'll find the "copyright is broken" cry on both sides of the aisle. But I
don't think that rings entirely true either. There are enough provisions for
publishers and authors to authorize or take down published copies online. The
Internet Archive in particular even openly allows for that through their
digital front office. The bigger question remains how the digital era shapes
publishing and lending business models.

------
dvduval
There are lots of children still going to school, and there's no simple way
for them to obtain books that previously would have been available for free.
It is sort of a reading emergency!

Now where I live the library system is awesome, and I found the selection was
way better than Barnes & Noble.

Libraries purchase a lot of books every year and it's no small amount of
money. That being said it's also wasteful for many people to buy a book only
to read it once. So we need to put more thought into how we can do this so we
aren't so wasteful.

~~~
pergadad
Having a home library has many more functions than just storing books you've
once read. It's a signaling device; it's a way to show your character:; it's a
way to have a possibility to share materials with others; it's a way to show
your children your values; it's a reminder of things you've learned; it's
soothing for many to have books around; they can be a useful reference or
inspiration; ...

Books are not just a throwaway product like a daily newspaper - they have many
roles to play.

I am moving away from kindle for exactly these reasons above; I'm sad I don't
have these benefits with the many books I read digitally.

~~~
SAI_Peregrinus
My home library is mostly of two sorts: reference books I might need (field
guides, math/engineering texts, knot books, etc) and books I haven't read yet.
After all, who wants a library full of books they've already read? If I
particularly like a book and expect I'd re-read it, I'll keep it, but the rest
I donate.

~~~
cafard
> who wants a library full of books they've already read?

Someone who thinks he might read them again.

------
dang
Recent and related:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22716923](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22716923)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22731637](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22731637)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22715009](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22715009)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22681132](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22681132)

------
supernova87a
I think the virus situation is exposing the difference in what rules or
behavior people / companies think society will put up with, and what people
will really put up with / want when push comes to shove. (And, by the way, in
so many things, not just this story.)

~~~
twomoretime
The world has been a cooking timebomb and COVID is a fuse. We're about to see
layers of bullshit blown away, and believe me, our society is caked in it - in
advertising, in politics, in entertainment, in industry. Nothing feels genuine
anymore. Race to the bottom dollar with MBA style, soul sucking optimization
throughout.

A cleansing fire, perhaps; a deserved reminder that our reality is one of a
stone's throw from death. A necessary lesson for an angry but complacent
society that has grown fat and weak with comfort and convenience.

I struggle to otherwise explain the near total global failure to deal with a
pandemic which was evident as early as January.

~~~
FillardMillmore
Are societies in Africa and the Middle East that are dealing with this virus
'fat and weak with comfort and convenience'? Do poor and oppressed people in
China hit with this virus deserve this reminder that our reality and existence
is fragile?

Who says there's been a 'near total global failure to deal' with this
pandemic? We're dealing with it right now, and countries around the world are
taking drastic steps and decisive action. Perhaps we weren't as prepared as we
should've been and I think that case can readily be made, but to think that
because you can't explain our lack of preparation, it must mean that this
virus and the resulting fallout were 'deserved' or 'necessary' seems pretty
cold-hearted in light of all the people affected by this who already were
struggling from paycheck to paycheck, just trying to get by and possibly
improve their standing in life.

------
mcherm
Dear Internet Archive:

Not only do I support the measure you have taken and feel that it falls within
the bounds of pro-social fair use, but I applaud the measures you have taken
that are so important in this extreme time.

Furthermore, if any court finds that your action was not appropriate, I will
urge my lawmakers to craft a specific exception to copyright law to support
the internet archive lending at all times, not just during a national
emergency.

~~~
nostromo
Declaring this "pro-social" doesn't suddenly make it legal. It's clearly not
any more legal then lending out a single copy of a DVD to one million people
via BitTorrent.

I get that it seems generous to give away these works. But they simply weren't
theirs to give away to begin with. If you want to lend out 1,000 copies of
book, first you have to buy 1,000 copies of said book.

I'm disappointed with Internet Archive. They're opening themselves up to a
huge lawsuit, and I'd hate to see their mission derailed because of it.

~~~
geofft
> _I 'm disappointed with Internet Archive. They're opening themselves up to a
> huge lawsuit, and I'd hate to see their mission derailed because of it._

Not only that - if this goes to court, there's a really good chance that the
concept of Controlled Digital Lending (i.e., libraries lending out scans
backed one-to-one by physical books, which many libraries including Internet
Archive have been doing for a long time before this) ends up in court too, and
a judge says, what the Internet Archive did is illegal because the whole idea
of Controlled Digital Lending was never legal in the first place.

I think it's foolish to trust that the courts (especially the courts today)
are going to be sympathetic to fair use and to narrowing copyright.

~~~
Apocryphon
There's a theory that IA leadership is intentionally trying to force a
landmark court case:

[https://twitter.com/rahaeli/status/1244257620548038656](https://twitter.com/rahaeli/status/1244257620548038656)

~~~
40four
That’s a pretty good angry Twitter rant. Here’s the (easier to read) link
using threadreaderapp.com, my new found best friend!

[https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1244257620548038656.html?...](https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1244257620548038656.html?refreshed=1585629738)

The premise that they would be trying to purposefully shove it into the court
system to achieve a ruling one way or the other is interesting. That’s how you
play hard in the paint!

~~~
mackrevinack
wow. that website is a great invention

~~~
40four
Fantastic product! Just found out about it, some nice folks pointed it out to
me recently after complaining about how much I hate trying to read long
Twitter threads :)

------
jfengel
So under ordinary circumstances, when they do their Controlled Digital
Lending, for each copy they lend out there's an actual dead-tree book sitting
on a shelf somewhere?

~~~
btilly
Exactly.

~~~
ddevault
That is _obscene_. Screw copyright.

~~~
pessimizer
I wouldn't call it obscene; having a physical copy is a good backup. Maybe we
could say we're allowing digital lending libraries to violate copyrights
enough to distribute copies over the internet as long as they contribute to
physical conservation as well.

~~~
jfengel
In this case, it's not about backups. It's about extending the notion of a
"library" to Internet. The publisher still gets all of the usual money that
they'd get from selling a book, and the library gets to lend it out subject to
the same constraints they'd have on lending out a physical book. They "lend"
one digital copy per physical copy.

That's still not entirely in keeping with the limited domain that libraries
used to have, where lending out a book came with a physical cost of getting it
to the patron. But it's close enough for reasonable opinions to differ.

So it's about preserving the structure by which book people (not just authors,
but editors, publicists, publishers, layout, cover artists, etc) get paid.

------
thelean12
Why reimplement waitlists later if this is legal?

Is the answer that it probably isn't legal and they're just hoping for the
best here?

~~~
ComputerGuru
They know (and wouldn't deny) it's against normal copyright law and an
infringement of the IP of the authors/publishers; they are hoping that courts
would side with them as a "war-time emergency measure taken in the national
interest."

I am deeply appreciative of the Internet Archive which is why I probably
wouldn't have taken that bet. It would be _horrible_ if their solvency and
future relied on the outcome of the inevitable lawsuits to follow, and I don't
think the risk (of losing IA) is worth the benefit (and this is why things
this important should be government-backed so that they can ignore some laws
with impunity in time of need, or at least without risking their very
existence).

Personally, I'd have switched to shorter waitlists first (e.g. 24 hours or
even 4 hours). But I'm not a domain expert; what do I know?

~~~
Igelau
> It would be horrible if their solvency and future relied on the outcome of
> the inevitable lawsuits to follow

I wonder if the wheels are already coming off. Otherwise it seems a bit
excessive for IA to suddenly bet the whole house on this.

~~~
JadeNB
> Otherwise it seems a bit excessive for IA to suddenly bet the whole house on
> this.

What is the proper and proportionate response to a pandemic? I think that no-
one knows, and, if I were in their shoes, then I'd rather history see me as
the one who went too far in pursuit of the public good than the one who didn't
do what I could have for fear that it was too much.

~~~
geofft
A lot of terrible things have been done by people who went too far in pursuit
of what they thought was the public good.

One potential proportionate response, in my opinion, would have been to lean
harder on the _existing_ model of Controlled Digital Lending (where each lent
e-book is backed by a physical book), and instead of saying they're going to
move to uncontrolled lending, put out a call for people to buy more backing
copies for the duration of the pandemic, specifically identifying the books
that were in more demand. Then they could have gotten those books into the
hands of more people while also paying authors more.

~~~
silverreads
This comment hardly adds anything productive here and makes a heck of an
accusation. What damage has sharing _books_ freely during a national emergency
ever done to anyone? The authors lose nothing and gain readers.

~~~
geofft
It seems quite clear to me - the authors lose their livelihood. Authors can
(and generally do) write at home, and they can (and generally do) sell
e-books. Their livelihoods are not inherently at risk because of a quarantine.
This action puts their livelihoods at risk. You can certainly argue that they
_shouldn 't_ have such a livelihood for whatever reason, but the fact remains
that they _do_.

You may as well ask, what damage has sharing food freely during a national
emergency done? What damage has sharing housing? Money? All are at least as
important as books, and all are worth sharing during certain forms of
emergency, but I hope we'd agree it would be quite wrong for me to walk into
my local grocery store and walk out with everything without paying, saying
"For the public good!", and then give things out. Perhaps we _should_
nationalize the grocery stores and the apartment buildings and the banks - but
such a decision should (at most) be made by the government, not by some
individual non-profit.

Again, there are less drastic measures that don't cause this. Expanding
Controlled Digital Lending would _actually_ mean the authors lose nothing, and
gain them readers. (Or, you know, do this except only for orphan works or not-
available-in-ebook works or something. That would also meet the stated goals.)

Or simply have the Internet Archive contact authors, say "We scanned your
books into e-books, want to make them freely available? You'll lose nothing
and gain readers," and then make it their decision.

~~~
silverreads
Why must you twist everything to make victims where you are the theoretical
aggressor while comparing your desired outcome against what could conceivably
happen should your proposed solutions be ignored? Is this a trick of some
sort? A legalese technique? I am legitimately confused.

~~~
geofft
I dunno, I genuinely care about the well-being of people who make a living by
writing books. Maybe that's weird and confusing?

------
Traster
You know you're doing well when your uptime beats _physical libraries_. IA are
taking a risk by doing this, but it's very clearly pursuing their charitable
mandate.

~~~
ineedasername
Wouldn't the uptime of any website beat that of physical libraries which
(mostly) shutdown for about 1/3 of the day?

------
musicale
It is discouraging that so much effort is spent attempting to impose the
limitations of printed books onto PDFs.

------
tgsovlerkhgsel
Still not answering my most burning question: How does this work with
copyright etc.?

Do they just ignore it, assuming that doing the right thing in an emergency
situation will be made legal later?

I'd be really interested in their legal argument/analysis and decision-making
(whether it's "the emergency changes what represent fair use", "there are laws
that allow extraordinary measures in case of emergencies and we claim it's
that", or "screw this paper-pushing bullshit and do what's right").

And regardless of this, I fully support this decision of course.

------
axguscbklp
Given that this is a time of emergency, I think that definitely a good
argument can be made for relaxing copyright laws. That said, many commenters
on this subject are extending the discussion into a general discussion on the
value of copyright, and there I cannot fully agree with the notion that
copyright is a bad thing.

I pirate stuff too (although I try to limit my piracy) but one difference
between me and many other pirates is that I know that I am sometimes hurting
people when I pirate. I don't try to console myself with ideological
contrivances designed to help me avoid feeling responsibility for causing harm
to others.

~~~
techsupporter
> I pirate stuff too (although I try to limit my piracy)...

I’m not sure what you mean here; how do you try? Pirating content instead of
paying for it is rather binary: you either paid the requested charge for it
and obtained it in line with the mechanism the author or creator used to sell
it...or you didn’t. If you have no option to pay because the creator didn’t
make one available to you, that’s still piracy, isn’t it? If you respect
copyright, and presumably a creator’s ability to make money off of their
creations (within time limits, which I firmly believe are way too long in most
of the world), I think there’s not much grey in this area.

As a wise philosopher once said, there isn’t really a “try” here, in my view.
You either paid or you didn’t. So, why not not pirating? Am I off-base?

~~~
chipotle_coyote
I think I get what the OP meant, or at least I have my interpretation of it.

I used to be fairly blasé about pirating software, justifying it with the
belief that the prices were just too high. I came to believe that was really a
pretty weak justification. I went through a somewhat similar change of belief
later when it came to video; it's easy to talk yourself into the belief that
copying TV shows and movies for free is somehow a strike against big
corporations, but unless you're up for entirely reinventing the way our
economy works, at the end of the day somebody really does have to pay for
those shows and movies to be created, and pirating them is essentially
declaring "I want to enjoy this work, I just want somebody else to pay for me
doing so."

But:

There _are_ cases where you might want to give your money to a creator or
publisher and you literally _can 't._ Up until a few years ago, no amount of
money would have been able to get you the whole series of _WKRP in Cincinnati_
on DVD, especially with the original music, for instance. The soundtrack for
_The Last Unicorn_ was never released on CD anywhere but Germany, as far as I
can tell, and it's become a rare, expensive collector's item. There are
hundreds of TV shows like this, thousands of movies, thousands of records,
thousands of novels, thousands of programs -- and I'm probably vastly
underestimating each of those categories. Their analog releases, if they were
ever made, are long out of print and they were never officially released
digitally.

And, I'll admit, in those cases I'm perfectly okay with piracy. The rights
holder either can't or won't release it, and you can't get it legally. One can
argue in such a case you'd have a moral obligation to buy an official release
if and when it's made, perhaps, but that may never happen.

If what

------
tibbydudeza
And how much different is books from movies being streamed on Netflix ???.

It is time for the publishing industry and novelists to get with the times and
adopt a new model.

~~~
Zonulet
They tried this, it was called Kindle Unlimited and it turned out to be
terrible for most authors.

------
hilbert42
Here we go again, more hair-trigger bitching and whining from The Authors
Guild and its ilk.

No matter how noble or justified the cause for copying may be, the poor little
darlings just can't help themselves. They've been screaming and whinging over
being supposedly hard done by with respect to copyright royalties even before
that arch villain, bully and saint to copyright owners, Victor Hugo, bulldozed
unfair changes to copyright through the 1886 Berne Copyright Convention.

…And 'bulldozed' is the right word; for in the early days of the 1880s
consumers and end-users of copyright material essentially had no
representation at the Berne Convention (as obviously one would expect), thus
the power imbalance between authors/copyright holders and consumers/users of
copyright material was so one-sided in favor of the former group that if the
Berne Convention had been convened today with the same terms of reference as
those in 1886 then its deliberations and decisions would likely be deemed to
have arrived from corrupt processes.

For starters, Berne essentially never touched on matters such as the fact that
authors get their ideas, life experience and knowledge mostly from the public
domain and that many were even educated or gained their knowledge at public
expense, and thus they should have some reciprocal if not moral obligation to
the return at least some of their output back into the public domain. Instead,
the Berne Convention so favored authors that they had nothing to do to justify
or prove their right over the copyright of a work other than the existence of
the work itself. That means that the onus always falls on consumers/users of
copyrighted works to determine their status (Berne essentially encourages
authors to 'double-dip' or take from both sides, it absolves them of having
any obligation to anyone but tothemselves).

In effect, Hugo and his cronies used shrewdness and cunning to get every damn
thing they wished for out of the Berne Convention—they had carte blanche, as
there was no effective opposition to their proposals. _' Unfairness'_ was the
order of the day.

Trouble is, this mob was so successful at Berne that ever since they've
assumed that they've a god-given right to take umbrage and raise utter hell
whenever anyone takes the slightest liberties with copyright—even if those
actions are lawful.

You'll note there's always one theme that perennially underpins their
complaints and that's how little the mean income that authors receive from
royalties actually is. Well my response to that is if writing etc. brings in
so little income then why do they have it as their occupation? Of course, we
all know that being an author (with some exceptions) is often more a case of
self-aggrandizement and wanting to be immortalized in print forever than it is
to inform the world of new ideas through new works.

As Cory Doctorow has pointed out, one of the major problems in trying to
achieve equitable copyright reform for everyone is—with the exception of
authors and rights holders—that so few people are actually interested in the
subject. Despite the fact that copyright is an important issue, the lack of
widespread expertise in the subject together with the fact that little serious
public debate on the matter is taking place are both significant impediments
to copyright reform.

In the meantime, the whiners will continue to bitch and whinge. I reckon it's
best just to ignore them.

~~~
comex
> Trouble is, this mob was so successful at Berne that ever since they've
> assumed that they've a god-given right to take umbrage and raise utter hell
> whenever anyone takes the slightest liberties with copyright—even if those
> actions are lawful.

It's true, they do do that even when the actions are lawful. However, in this
particular case, the Internet Archive's actions are almost certainly not
lawful, although the whole "public service during coronavirus crisis" angle
means that they probably won't be sued for it.

Even with controlled (one-at-a-time) digital lending, although the blog post
does cite multiple arguments that it counts as fair use, it has never been
tested in court and I'm not particularly optimistic. But what they're
currently doing is not one-at-a-time and thus not controlled digital lending.
The blog post takes care to distinguish the two things – saying CDL is their
legal basis "during normal times", emphasizing the "careful controls" used
with CDL to ensure books are lent to "one reader at a time" – yet
conspicuously omits any explanation of why their current practice would be
legal.

~~~
tomrod
Lots of physical books not available otherwise due to lockdown. I figure that
is sufficient justification.

~~~
geofft
What's preventing a library whose physical premises are closed from saying,
"Okay, there are 10 copies of this book that literally nobody can get to,
we'll lend out 10 e-books," using the old Controlled Digital Lending model?

That is, what about the lockdown requires moving away from the established
(even if not court-tested) one-to-one basis and making a _new_ fair use
argument about uncontrolled digital lending?

~~~
silverreads
> What's preventing a library

It's a huge waste of taxpayer money?

~~~
silverreads
You know exactly how much an SRE makes. That's not what a library should be
spending money on. Simply making a copy is thousands of man hours simpler than
making a consumer facing online asset tracking system. You wildly misrepresent
my obvious intent.

~~~
geofft
Oh, that wasn't obvious to me at all - I thought you knew that plenty of
libraries _already have_ a consumer-facing online asset tracking system
already, powered by the Internet Archive, which is why these books got scanned
in the first place.

------
chx
Oh cut the bullshit

> This means that multiple readers can access a digital book simultaneously

So this is just piracy. That's not how book lending works.

------
phendrenad2
Anyone know which authors have opted out? It would be interesting to hear
their reasons why in their own words.

~~~
Zonulet
I am an author with three books on there, and I've just emailed them to opt
out. One reason authors are fine with libraries lending out their books for
free, electronically or otherwise, is that borrowing a library copy is always
a little bit less convenient than buying your own – with waits for
availability and so on – which gives readers an incentive to pay if they can
afford it. Once the library experience is almost indistinguishable from the
paid experience, there is no reason for anyone to pay except as a kind of
donation to the author. Yes, some generous people will choose to do this, but
others won't, and we lose sales.

I am a mid-list author. I am not so successful that I will do fine whatever
happens, nor am I so unsuccessful that writing is just a weekend hobby for me.
Like many authors, writing is my career, but it's on a knife edge, and every
sale counts. I've sat for an hour at a signing table just to sell four books,
and I would again.

I spent five years working on my last book. People complain about 'legacy
publishers', but I couldn't have done that without the support of a legacy
publisher. Everything that further chips away at my sales reduces the chances
that my publisher will be able to support me in the future, and so it reduces
the chances that I will be able to put that same time and effort into another
book. By 'liberating' the literature of today, these people are strangling the
literature of the future.

~~~
musicale
> One reason authors are fine with libraries lending out their books for free,
> electronically or otherwise, is that borrowing a library copy is always a
> little bit less convenient than buying your own

The most important reason authors should be fine with libraries lending out
"their" (the authors') books for free is that libraries lend out their (the
library's) books for free.

------
eatonphil
I'm unfamiliar with their library contents and this thread didn't go into a
lot of detail. Their sci-fi section (sorted by most "viewed") includes many
classics by authors such as Asimov, Phillip K. Dick, Bradbury, Vonnegut, etc.
Looks like a good offering.

~~~
robin_reala
Interestingly for Philip K. Dick, a lot of his stuff is in the official public
domain already, due to a missed copyright renewal:
[https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/philip-k-dick/short-
fictio...](https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/philip-k-dick/short-fiction)

------
cycomanic
There is an easy solution to this problem. All libraries that are closed world
wide report which books they have available at the moment to the Internet
archive who then lends it out digitally. Then every lend is backed by a
physical copy.

I bet the usual suspects would still complain. It is very hard to feel for
publishers if one looks at all the shenanigans they do around eBook lending.
Libraries tend to pay significantly more than other bulk buyers for the same
books and there is a limited number of "lends" on the books for example.

[https://goodereader.com/blog/e-book-news/here-is-a-
breakdown...](https://goodereader.com/blog/e-book-news/here-is-a-breakdown-of-
how-much-libraries-pay-for-ebooks-from-publishers)

------
sidcool
What are some good books to read from the internet archive?

------
AdmiralAsshat
> What about those who say we’re stealing from authors & publishers?

Has any normal human being who is _not_ a publisher or an author actually made
this claim?

~~~
geofft
I'm not a publisher or an author (I'm an SRE, I've never made income from the
sale of anything I have copyright from, and I've many times been on the side
of fair use as a hobbyist musician) and I'm willing to make that claim. It's
as straightforward, IMO, as the claim that not tipping is stealing. Yes,
technically, it's merely not giving them money that they expect, it's not
taking money they already have. But the practical effect is that it subverts a
revenue stream that, for better or worse (definitely worse, in the case of
tipping), they rely on, and it was reasonable (legal and socially acceptable)
for them to rely on that revenue stream.

I'd like to live in a world where authors didn't rely on copyright law for
their living. I'd also like to live in a world where waitstaff didn't rely on
tips to make minimum wage, let alone a living wage. I don't.

~~~
yesenadam
> I'd also like to live in a world where waitstaff didn't rely on tips to make
> minimum wage, let alone a living wage. I don't.

You do, mostly. I believe it's just the USA where obligatory "tipping" is a
thing. I learnt a bit about the history of tipping from _Adam Ruins
Everything_ S01E05 Adam Ruins Restaurants, highly recommended.

Excerpt about tipping, <4mins:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_vivC7c_1k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_vivC7c_1k)

(Yes, his style is a lil in-your-face, but the content is excellent, and often
shows onscreen the title and author of papers referenced - how many shows do
that?!)

~~~
Noos
But if you don't have tipping, you don't get to freely download the services
of the wait staff or eat free food. You have to pay the restaurant.

for this, to have copyright weakened, you'd really need to make sure authors
get compensated fairly for the small time their work is under that law. The
problem is people want the creative stuff for free essentially

