> even if that benefit hurts the general public Only to the extent that the general public doesn't, for some period of time, get to do whatever they want with

> even if that benefit hurts the general public Only to the extent that the general public doesn't, for some period of time, get to do whatever they want with a creative work that someone else invested time, effort (and in some cases talent) to make. The general public is no worse off during the copyright term than if the copyright holder had never created the work. > What other worker is afforded similar protection? Anyone who owns a patent or a trademark, or really any intellectual property at all. > In the case of the Internet Archive, they've taken a book you've already made money on, and are lending it to one person at a time. What you are describing is called Controlled Digital Lending https://controlleddigitallending.org https://controlleddigitallending.org. Under this system of lending, libraries treat digital copies as if they are physical copies -- meaning they can only be lent out to one person at a time. If you purchase or acquire 5 physical books and then digitize them, then under CDL you can lend out 5 digital copies at a time. But that is NOT what the Internet Archive is doing under its emergency library program. Instead, it is acquiring a single copy of a book and then lending it out simultaneously to an unlimited number of users. It would be as if a public library purchased one copy of a physical book and then made unlimited photocopies of the book and lent those photocopies out simultaneously.