A Love Letter to the People Who Build the Internet Archive
The publication of the Internet Archive's self-congratulatory love letter this morning is no coincidence. Note the following paragraph:Libraries are built by people, for people.  Thank you so much to all of the people who have contributed to building the Internet Archive, whether they were employees or our huge group friends and family.  We would not be here without you, and we hope you will continue to help bring universal access to all knowledge in the future.Why did the Internet Archive publish this today?Yesterday, the Author's Guild, the National Writers Union, the National Association of Science Writers, the Association of American Publishers, the Federation of European Publishers, and many more international writing and publishing organizations published an open appeal to readers and librarians concerning "Controlled Digital Lending" (CDL). A link to the appeal and accompanying FAQ can be found here (https://nwu.org/nwu-denounces-cdl/). Here's the text of the appeal:As working writers, translators, photographers, and graphic artists; as unions, organizations, and federations representing the creators of works included in published books; as book publishers; and as reproduction rights and public lending rights organizations; we oppose so-called “Controlled Digital Lending” (CDL) as a flagrant violation of copyright and authors’ rights.The copyright infringement inherent in CDL is not a victimless crime. As the victims of CDL, we want librarians, archivists, and readers to understand how they are harming the authors of the books they love by participating in CDL projects, even if they have the best of intentions.The attached FAQ was written to explain to authors, publishers, readers, librarians, and archivists what CDL is, how it differs from traditional and legitimate new forms of library lending, how it violates the economic and moral rights of authors, and how it makes it even harder for authors to try to make a living from writing or to afford to devote time to writing.When writers can’t make a living, they can’t afford to keep writing, and readers lose too.Well-meaning librarians, archivists, and readers, who don’t intend to deprive authors of their livelihoods, are being misled by false claims from proponents of CDL.
Under CDL, printed books are being scanned and distributed online to readers worldwide by the Internet Archive and U.S. and Canadian libraries.CDL is not comparable to lending of physical books by libraries. CDL is not “fair use” as defined in U.S. copyright law, and an exception to or limitation of copyright to allow CDL without permission or remuneration would not be permitted by the Berne Convention on Copyright. CDL interferes with many of the normal ways, including new ways largely unnoticed by librarians, that authors are earning money from written and graphic works included in so- called “out of print” books. There is no basis for a good-faith belief that CDL is legal under either U.S. or international law.We appeal for a dialogue among writers, authors, publishers, and librarians on how to enable and create the digital libraries we all want, in ways that fully respect authors’ rights.As an author and a publisher, I would go one step further and demand that scanning under CDL be immediately halted until issues related to copyright, compensation, and takedown are worked out and implemented. (Disclosure: I also serve on the board of the Independent Book Publishers Association which is a cosigner of the appeal and issued a position statement that calls for scanning and distribution of in-copyright works be stopped immediately, see https://www.ibpa-online.org/news/438161/IBPA-Position-Statem...)Right now, you can go to the IA's website https://openlibrary.org/ and see what's available - many thousands of titles written by authors who are still alive and who won't receive a cent in royalties or licensing fees when someone "borrows" their books or embeds them on a website. According to the Open Library's vision page (https://openlibrary.org/about/vision), "The ultimate goal of the Open Library is to make all the published works of humankind available to everyone in the world."Like many people on HN, I regularly use IA to track the history of websites or download out-of-copyright and public domain works. Sharing this information is important and should be continued. I also believe in the concept of "Fair Use" for sharing and discussing excerpts of more current works. But when it comes to outright republishing of in-copyright printed works, the rights of creators and publishers need to be recognized. CDL, as currently implemented, fails to do give such recognition, let alone compensate creators and publishers.