5 ms·

I am an author who supports libraries and Controlled Digital Lending, but I vehemently opposed the Internet Archive's uncontrolled digital lending stunt at the

by jawns 4y ago

I am an author who supports libraries and Controlled Digital Lending, but I vehemently opposed the Internet Archive's uncontrolled digital lending stunt at the start of the pandemic. The principle is simple. If the IA or any online library owns a physical copy of a book, then CDL says it can be lent out either physically or digitally, but only as much at a time as there are physical copies owned. You basically treat digital copies as if they are physical copies, which can't be lent to more than one person simultaneously. Publishers don't like CDL, preferring more lucrative ebook licensing, but it's an intuitive application of the spirit of copyright law. IA decided to abandon CDL and loan out many more copies of books than it owned. In other words, they blatantly ignored copyright, in both the letter and spirit of the law, and effectively pirated the material. And I think the publishers were very much in the right to pursue litigation about that. I hear defenders of this stunt say that IA does so much important work, and that litigation threatens the good work, so they conclude the litigation is the problem. But if IA really does such important work, and the stunt jeopardized that work, then the fault lies with those at IA who were willing to imperil that work. So yes, as an author I support libraries. Unless the libraries start acting like pirates.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
bombcar 4y ago
Lending out digital copies of your physical books - fine. Working with other libraries to lend out digital copies for ALL their physical books - fine. Crossing the line into supposedly "justifiable piracy because Covid" - not fine. At least that's how I see it.
Tao3300 4y ago
It was an unpopular opinion at the time and probably still is, but I couldn't help but feel like IA was trying to push something by placing itself in danger during a crisis. "Now that you need us more than ever, we're going to step in front of a train. Someone better stop it." Something like that. They had to know they were courting trouble, so we have to ask why they did it anyway.
bawolff 4y ago
Idk, i think copyright law has totally broken down with the digital world and none of it makes sense. Doctrine of first sale does rely on natural friction of physical items to work as a compromise. To take the CDL thing further, i think the natural extension would be for all the people who own a copy of the book to get together and create a transparent lending market with a reserve of enough copies that all members of this lending co-op can still get a copy whenever they want (think how a fractional reserve bank works). I doubt copyright holders would like that very much. But then again, my personal politics is copyright abolition...
zozbot234 4y ago
> IA decided to abandon CDL and loan out many more copies of books than it owned. They had the full support of other physical libraries, which could not loan out their collections at the time because of COVID. The overall amount of copies was never exceeded as you seem to be implying here. For all intents and purposes, the basic principles of CDL remained in effect.
- pasquinelli 4y ago
  that's a wrinkle i didn't hear about at the time. it's amazing the crucial little details that get drowned out in "the discourse."
  - philipov 4y ago
    That's why controlling the discourse is so important. You don't have to lie by telling falsehoods, you only need to be able to omit details that are inconvenient to you.
- jawns 4y ago
  I am open to being convinced of this, but could you please provide a source? As far as I know, the Emergency Library was a unilateral decision by IA, not a partnership with a consortium of shuttered libraries. The announcement did mentioned receiving support from other libraries, but it didn't indicate that those libraries owned sufficient copies to cover all CDL usage. Indeed, if that were the case, I would expect the language to have been very different -- something like "expanded access" versus "suspending all waitlists," the latter of which only makes sense if lending is unlimited and thus not CDL.
  - tacitusarc 4y ago
    The best I can quickly find is this: http://blog.archive.org/2020/04/27/forging-a-cooperative-path-forward-university-presses-national-emergency-library/ http://blog.archive.org/2020/04/27/forging-a-cooperative-pat... https://docs.google.com/document/u/1/d/e/2PACX-1vTRPssQgr90yah0sp--Vyj-1CPVqmsKnI6fmpbuTDbdesZQgSlje8CzneDSLli78p8HSJDzyMj9NvkE/pub https://docs.google.com/document/u/1/d/e/2PACX-1vTRPssQgr90y... Which pretty clearly indicates the move was unilateral by IA, but they got by-in after the fact.
lxgr 4y ago
> The principle is simple. If the IA or any online library owns a physical copy of a book, then CDL says it can be lent out either physically or digitally, but only as much at a time as there are physical copies owned. As far as I know, even "wear" of physical copies is simulated in this model: After 30-ish lendings, the digital copy "breaks", requiring the library to "buy" (really: license) a "fresh" one. (And for physical copies, reinforcing a book's binding seems to be prohibited as well, all to keep the number of acceptable lendings per copy predictably low!) I get that it's effectively the only compromise many publishers and libraries have been able to achieve, but after taking a step back, it should hopefully become apparent that it's completely ridiculous. Not even digital video streaming works that way – I find it scary to believe that publishers are being more complicated than the movie/TV industry! Count how many people are lending a given book and pay the authors accordingly, crunch some numbers about physical library lending and extrapolate from there, etc. There has to be a better way to still pay authors, but to isolate library patrons from this absurdity. Here's hoping that this tacky skeuomorphism will age about as well as brushed metal.
- josephcsible 4y ago
  > (And for physical copies, reinforcing a book's binding seems to be prohibited as well, all to keep the number of acceptable lendings per copy predictably low!) This is awful! Where's the exact wording of this prohibition available at?
  - lxgr 4y ago
    I can‘t seem find the source for that, unfortunately, but I remember stumbling upon that when reading up on the ”simulated wear“ model for ebook loans.
Mathnerd314 4y ago
Per https://www.techdirt.com/2020/06/04/major-publishers-sue-internet-archives-digital-library-program-midst-pandemic/ https://www.techdirt.com/2020/06/04/major-publishers-sue-int..., the IA lawsuit is for CDL as a whole, not just the emergency lending.

by jawns 4y ago

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

bombcar 4y ago

Lending out digital copies of your physical books - fine. Working with other libraries to lend out digital copies for ALL their physical books - fine. Crossing the line into supposedly "justifiable piracy because Covid" - not fine. At least that's how I see it.

Tao3300 4y ago

It was an unpopular opinion at the time and probably still is, but I couldn't help but feel like IA was trying to push something by placing itself in danger during a crisis. "Now that you need us more than ever, we're going to step in front of a train. Someone better stop it." Something like that. They had to know they were courting trouble, so we have to ask why they did it anyway.

bawolff 4y ago

Idk, i think copyright law has totally broken down with the digital world and none of it makes sense. Doctrine of first sale does rely on natural friction of physical items to work as a compromise. To take the CDL thing further, i think the natural extension would be for all the people who own a copy of the book to get together and create a transparent lending market with a reserve of enough copies that all members of this lending co-op can still get a copy whenever they want (think how a fractional reserve bank works). I doubt copyright holders would like that very much. But then again, my personal politics is copyright abolition...

zozbot234 4y ago

> IA decided to abandon CDL and loan out many more copies of books than it owned. They had the full support of other physical libraries, which could not loan out their collections at the time because of COVID. The overall amount of copies was never exceeded as you seem to be implying here. For all intents and purposes, the basic principles of CDL remained in effect.

pasquinelli 4y ago
that's a wrinkle i didn't hear about at the time. it's amazing the crucial little details that get drowned out in "the discourse."
- philipov 4y ago
  That's why controlling the discourse is so important. You don't have to lie by telling falsehoods, you only need to be able to omit details that are inconvenient to you.
jawns 4y ago
I am open to being convinced of this, but could you please provide a source? As far as I know, the Emergency Library was a unilateral decision by IA, not a partnership with a consortium of shuttered libraries. The announcement did mentioned receiving support from other libraries, but it didn't indicate that those libraries owned sufficient copies to cover all CDL usage. Indeed, if that were the case, I would expect the language to have been very different -- something like "expanded access" versus "suspending all waitlists," the latter of which only makes sense if lending is unlimited and thus not CDL.
- tacitusarc 4y ago
  The best I can quickly find is this: http://blog.archive.org/2020/04/27/forging-a-cooperative-path-forward-university-presses-national-emergency-library/ http://blog.archive.org/2020/04/27/forging-a-cooperative-pat... https://docs.google.com/document/u/1/d/e/2PACX-1vTRPssQgr90yah0sp--Vyj-1CPVqmsKnI6fmpbuTDbdesZQgSlje8CzneDSLli78p8HSJDzyMj9NvkE/pub https://docs.google.com/document/u/1/d/e/2PACX-1vTRPssQgr90y... Which pretty clearly indicates the move was unilateral by IA, but they got by-in after the fact.

lxgr 4y ago

> The principle is simple. If the IA or any online library owns a physical copy of a book, then CDL says it can be lent out either physically or digitally, but only as much at a time as there are physical copies owned. As far as I know, even "wear" of physical copies is simulated in this model: After 30-ish lendings, the digital copy "breaks", requiring the library to "buy" (really: license) a "fresh" one. (And for physical copies, reinforcing a book's binding seems to be prohibited as well, all to keep the number of acceptable lendings per copy predictably low!) I get that it's effectively the only compromise many publishers and libraries have been able to achieve, but after taking a step back, it should hopefully become apparent that it's completely ridiculous. Not even digital video streaming works that way – I find it scary to believe that publishers are being more complicated than the movie/TV industry! Count how many people are lending a given book and pay the authors accordingly, crunch some numbers about physical library lending and extrapolate from there, etc. There has to be a better way to still pay authors, but to isolate library patrons from this absurdity. Here's hoping that this tacky skeuomorphism will age about as well as brushed metal.

josephcsible 4y ago
> (And for physical copies, reinforcing a book's binding seems to be prohibited as well, all to keep the number of acceptable lendings per copy predictably low!) This is awful! Where's the exact wording of this prohibition available at?
- lxgr 4y ago
  I can‘t seem find the source for that, unfortunately, but I remember stumbling upon that when reading up on the ”simulated wear“ model for ebook loans.

Mathnerd314 4y ago

Per https://www.techdirt.com/2020/06/04/major-publishers-sue-internet-archives-digital-library-program-midst-pandemic/ https://www.techdirt.com/2020/06/04/major-publishers-sue-int..., the IA lawsuit is for CDL as a whole, not just the emergency lending.