The publishers' lawsuit against the Internet Archive (Hachette v. Internet Archive) has resulted in the removal of more than 500,000 books from our lending library, including over 1,300 banned and challenged titles. We are actively appealing this decision to restore access for all our patrons. We want to hear from you! How has losing access to these books affected your reading or research? What does it mean to you that these 500,000+ books are no longer available? Please share your story below. Your feedback may be featured in our blog posts and other communications to highlight the impact of this significant loss on our library community.
  • FaceDeer
    -3•5 months ago

    You were lying by admission because you admitted you knew that it was a window of opportunity to sue them for something unrelated to that.

    I honestly have no idea what you mean here.

    It wasn’t a “window of opportunity”, it was a provocation that couldn’t be ignored. The publishers have had the opportunity to sue for a long time, as you’ve said. They just didn’t want to for PR reasons, again as you’ve said.

    The lawsuit isn’t for “unrelated” reasons. It’s for copyright violation due to their practice of distributing ebooks without permission.

    You’re clearly very passionate about this matter, but you’re only paying attention to things that support one view of it and are instantly dismissing anything that might challenge that as being “supporting the enemy” or outright lies. I like the Internet Archive, I want them to survive and flourish. That’s not going to happen if the keep tilting at windmills and picking unwinnable fights. I don’t cheer them when they’re charging headlong into a meatgrinder.

    • Flying SquidEnglish
      6•5 months ago

      No, I’m paying full attention to your claim that the Internet Archive provoked publishers into suing them for something unrelated to that supposed provocation.

      • FaceDeer
        -4•5 months ago

        The Internet Archive was distributing unlimited copies of ebooks whose rights were held by major publishers.

        The major publishers sued them for distributing copies of ebooks whose rights were held by them.

        Yeah, totally unrelated.

        • Flying SquidEnglish
          6•5 months ago

          Me:

          But the lawsuit was about CDL as a whole, not what happened in 2020.

          You:

          Yes, the lawsuit is about CDL as a whole.

          So is it about what happened in 2020 or is it about something public libraries do too?

          For example: https://blc.org/controlled-digital-lending

          • @gaylord_fartmasterEnglish
            1•5 months ago

            You are both speculating about what triggered the lawsuit because the only people that know for sure what triggered the lawsuit are the publishers and they aren’t talking.

            If all public libraries are using CDL and the publishers have only sued IA, who flagrantly violated CDL, and they sued them only 2 months after they started violating the CDL, then that certainly seems like a very possible factor in the lawsuit, right?