this post was submitted on 01 Sep 2023
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The legal ruling against the Internet Archive has come down in favour of the rights of authors.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago

This decision leaves a concerning gap: it does not apply to physical books that are not currently available digitally. As Olivia Lanchester, CEO of the Australian Society of Authors, observed to me in an email:

there is a commercial market for digital book licensing, as evidenced by the Untapped Project in Australia. By allowing Internet Archive to retain digitised versions of print books so long as no ebook edition is available, a valid future market for authors is undermined.

Cry me a river, build a bridge, get over it.

For example, authors of out-of-print works may choose to later publish their work in an ebook format and monetise that edition. The deficiency in the court’s ruling is that the Internet Archive can beat them to it – and supply their work for free.

I guess you better get your rear in gear.