{"id":40377,"date":"2023-08-17T14:33:47","date_gmt":"2023-08-17T18:33:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=40377"},"modified":"2024-06-25T16:02:54","modified_gmt":"2024-06-25T20:02:54","slug":"book-publishers-v-internet-archive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2023\/08\/17\/book-publishers-v-internet-archive\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Publishers v. Internet Archive"},"content":{"rendered":"

David Streitfeld<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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He unveiled the National Emergency Library, a vast trove of digital books mostly unavailable elsewhere, and made access to it a breeze. […] On Friday, the publishers said through their trade association that they had negotiated a deal with the archive that would remove all their copyright books from the site.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

The archive had a muted response, saying that it expected there would be changes to its lending program but that their full scope was unknown. There is also an undisclosed financial payment if the archive loses on appeal.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

Six thousand writers signed a petition supporting the lawsuit, and a thousand names are on a petition denouncing it. The Romance Writers of America and the Western Writers of America joined a brief in favor of the publishers, while Authors Alliance, a group of 2,300 academics whose mission is to serve the public good by widely sharing their creations, submitted a brief for the archive.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Via Glenn Fleishman<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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I am an absolute fan of the Internet Archive and all the work they’ve done to preserve cultural and technical history. But as this article makes clear, they are fighting a legal battle they cannot win, because the law is clear. They need to be fighting a structural battle, all about the law, because they will not win these cases. A judge would have to come up with novel interpretations that would surely be overturned at appellate or Supreme Court level.<\/p>\n

They are conflating multiple different battles about copyright, some of which affect current authors, making a living from their work, and some of which relate to orphansed works or works that should be out of copyright but due to vagaries, their status is unknown. If they focused, I believe there would be a much happier outcome. Their legal arguments are highly unconvincing to me. But their moral arguments have real standing. There’s also a lot of nonsense in copyright law about older works.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Dan Moren<\/a>:<\/p>\n

As an author, I think there’s yet a third<\/em> level to this discussion. At the end of the day, the writers are usually the ones who get squeezed.<\/p>

Most authors don’t make a living from their work, but I think the vast majority of them (if not all) support libraries and the free access to information. Most of us have used libraries a lot during our lives, some have even depended on them. I don’t think most writers view people borrowing their books from the libraries as lost sales—we view them as possible lifelong fans of our future work.<\/p>

The solution, perhaps, is to find other ways to recompense authors for their work being borrowed. Right now, ebooks are usually sold to libraries under licensing procedures that regulate how many times a title can be loaned out before a new license has to be purchased. It’s an uncomfortable compromise, but the power remains in the hands of the publisher (as it usually does).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

Previously:<\/p>\n