3 ms·
I had not realized that the Internet Archive had 'expanded' into archiving & re-publishing books While that endeavor certainly has value, the risks - exactly t
by toss1 6y ago
I had not realized that the Internet Archive had 'expanded' into archiving & re-publishing books
While that endeavor certainly has value, the risks - exactly these risks - are so large & obvious that it really should have been done as a separate corporate organization. That is what the corporate structure is for - to separate liability.
Now, the entire, and very valuable, core mission is threatened by this one project.
- Ensorceled 6y agoThis was my first thought when this whole thing erupted ... why wasn't this a separate not-for-profit corporation. The publishers may still try to pierce the corporate veil but that's a whole 'nother matter.
- sp332 6y agoThey already had 20,000,000 books (yes that's a real number) available. The ones with Controlled Digital Lending allowed a single DRM-encrusted copy to be loaned out for each physical copy that they owned. This isn't explicitly allowed by any law but publishers hadn't challenged its claim of fair use and a lot of libraries use this technique. What was new with the NEL was just removing the one-copy-at-a-time limit. But the lawsuit is challenging the whole concept, including what other libraries are doing.