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'Science Fiction Writers of America' Accuse Internet Archive of Piracy (sfwa.org)
An anonymous reader writes:
The "Open Library" project of the nonprofit Internet Archive has been scanning books and offering "loans" of DRM-protected versions for e-readers (which expire after the loan period expires). This week the Legal Affairs Committe of the Science Fiction Writers of America issued a new "Infringement Alert" on the practice, complaining that "an unreadable copy of the book is saved on users' devices...and can be made readable by stripping DRM protection."
The objection, argues SFWA President Cat Rambo, is that "writers' work is being scanned in and put up for access without notifying them... it is up to the individual writer whether or not their work should be made available in this way." But the infringement alert takes the criticism even further. "We suspect that this is the world's largest ongoing project of unremunerated digital distribution of entire in-copyright books."
The Digital Reader blog points out one great irony. "The program initially launched in 2007. It has been running for ten years, and the SFWA only just now noticed." They add that SFWA's tardiness "leaves critical legal issues unresolved."
"Remember, Google won the Google Books case, and had its scanning activities legalized as fair use ex post facto... [I]n fact the Internet Archive has a stronger case than Google did; the latter had a commercial interest in its scans, while the Internet Archive is a non-profit out to serve the public good."
The objection, argues SFWA President Cat Rambo, is that "writers' work is being scanned in and put up for access without notifying them... it is up to the individual writer whether or not their work should be made available in this way." But the infringement alert takes the criticism even further. "We suspect that this is the world's largest ongoing project of unremunerated digital distribution of entire in-copyright books."
The Digital Reader blog points out one great irony. "The program initially launched in 2007. It has been running for ten years, and the SFWA only just now noticed." They add that SFWA's tardiness "leaves critical legal issues unresolved."
"Remember, Google won the Google Books case, and had its scanning activities legalized as fair use ex post facto... [I]n fact the Internet Archive has a stronger case than Google did; the latter had a commercial interest in its scans, while the Internet Archive is a non-profit out to serve the public good."
Every time I go into my local library and borrow a book for free, I'm depriving the author of a royalty payment. What this does is make these books more accessible, but many other real world libraries are moving to this model of borrowing as well.
My own local library does something similar. There is and should be nothing wrong with offering books for loan regardless of format at long as the copy is legitimately purchased. Publishers have hated Libraries since they started and they want to use "electronic" as an attempt to license the book instead of buying it.
The courts will shoot this down, there is a long legal history for Library's loaning books being perfectly legal all the way back into english common law, to rules in the writers favor this the supreme court would need to undo 200 years of precedent. They generally don't do that for anything but the most extreme of situations.
Libraries exist, they loan books, whether they are digital or paper and it's all perfectly legal.
I don't know about how many people here agree with me but, going after an organization whose only purpose is to preserve knowledge for future generations for free really rubs me the wrong way, regardless of the legalities; especially 10 years after the fact.
"Be particularly skeptical when presented with evidence confirming what you already believe." -