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The answer may be to change copyright law to allow book owners to freely shift mediums (I forget the term for it, but converting a paper book to PDF by scanning

The answer may be to change copyright law to allow book owners to freely shift mediums (I forget the term for it, but converting a paper book to PDF by scanning, or vice versa by printing), and to restrict the ability to lease everything - you buy it, you own it (a debate older than this issue, and there's term for that too). Then I could donate my book to the library, they could scan it (or buy a scanned copy), and as long as they restricted checkouts based on the number of copies, they'd be fine. The Internet Archive seems to do something similar, though it seems to be an issue in the courts. I wonder if libraries could donate their books to IA and direct patrons there for electronic versions.

margalabargala 3y ago
> The Internet Archive seems to do something similar, though it seems to be an issue in the courts. There was a brief period of time at the beginning of COVID when the Internet Archive decided to do away with the "one digital copy per purchase" restriction, essentially arguing that since libraries across the country were closed, this was justified. [0] The courts disagreed. [0] https://blog.archive.org/2020/03/24/announcing-a-national-emergency-library-to-provide-digitized-books-to-students-and-the-public/ https://blog.archive.org/2020/03/24/announcing-a-national-em...