They 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 loane

They 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.