• blindsight@beehaw.org
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    4 months ago

    I don’t follow. The Internet Archive only allows 1 copy of each physical book to be loaned at a time. If someone has the book you want already, then you need to wait until their loan expires. It’s not like shadow libraries that allow unrestricted DRM-free downloading.

    And publishers’ profits are rising and don’t seem to be at all correlated to library access, so of course nobody is suggesting they should close.

    What am I not understanding?

    • Grimpen@lemmy.ca
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      4 months ago

      During the pandemic, Internet Archive very publicly announced they were relaxing their one physical copy per digitally loaned copy.

      I think of they had maintained their 1:1 CDL method, the publishers would still be uncomfortable to be the one to sue first, especially since there was a decent argument and IA would have been pretty sympathetic.

      Their pandemic policy was effectively not substantially different from a shadow library., and just set up a slam dunk case for the publishers.