Internet Archive vs Publishers - The battle of the books
Greg Taieb · · 2 min read
Can a bookstore scan the works it owns to lend them to its members?
Legal vagueness in the United States allows this indirectly. Libraries like the Boston Public Library therefore offer books they own for borrowing. The limit: no more than one loan per book owned.
Only, at the start of the Covid crisis and its confinements, the Internet Archive offered a digital book loan service, breaking the limit of 1 book = 1 loan. The only limit was in time: two weeks of loan max. This did not please the publishers, four of whom attacked the organization. Except that they are not only attacking this organization and above all want to question the method of borrowing a owned book = a borrowable digital version.
This therefore risks calling into question many library lending services, thereby reducing access to culture for many people.
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💻 The links mentioned in the episode
The Internet Archive site:
Hachette VS Internet Archive (The Verge):
