In an open letter to publishers, more than 30,000 readers, researchers, and authors begged for access to the books to be restored in the open library, claiming the takedowns dealt “a serious blow to lower-income families, people with disabilities, rural communities, and LGBTQ+ people, among many others,” who may not have access to a local library or feel “safe accessing the information they need in public.”
During a press briefing following arguments in court Friday, IA founder Brewster Kahle said that “those voices weren’t being heard.” Judges appeared primarily focused on understanding how IA’s digital lending potentially hurts publishers’ profits in the ebook licensing market, rather than on how publishers’ costly ebook licensing potentially harms readers.
Digital anything is not covered by the first sale doctrine. Every individual loan is a copy
So this is basically why ebooks are problematic at libraries then? That issue alone really seems like it needs a legal update.
Yep. Libraries can’t just buy an ebook like they can buy a book. They have to negotiate a contract with the copyright holder to be able to lend them out.
The IAs point is that they should not have to do that, partly because of first sale doctrine. They bought each ebook, and only lend out that copy, the exact same as libraries do now.
1 bought copy, 1 lend. That’s a fair and simple system that mimics hundreds of years of physical book lending.
Their other point is that the societal good of allowing anyone in the world to educate themselves for free far, far outweigh the value of monetary gain for publishers. Since copyright is intended to help society, their interpretation is the better application of it.
Then write new laws. Digitizing the book is already relying on fair use. Judges aren’t lawmakers, and this case doesn’t have the tiniest hint of the tiniest shred of a leg to stand on.
There is no first sale doctrine for digital. There is no such thing as ownership of a “digital copy” to begin with. The framework doesn’t exist. You have a license.
You can check an eBook out, but there are examples of issues, something like the library can only do it five times or whatever. It isn’t treated like an actual book. I don’t know the details but there are problems with eBook rentals.
