> It would be horrible if their solvency and future relied on the outcome of the inevitable lawsuits to follow
I wonder if the wheels are already coming off. Otherwise it seems a bit excessive for IA to suddenly bet the whole house on this.
I wonder if the wheels are already coming off. Otherwise it seems a bit excessive for IA to suddenly bet the whole house on this.
What is the proper and proportionate response to a pandemic? I think that no-one knows, and, if I were in their shoes, then I'd rather history see me as the one who went too far in pursuit of the public good than the one who didn't do what I could have for fear that it was too much.
One potential proportionate response, in my opinion, would have been to lean harder on the existing model of Controlled Digital Lending (where each lent e-book is backed by a physical book), and instead of saying they're going to move to uncontrolled lending, put out a call for people to buy more backing copies for the duration of the pandemic, specifically identifying the books that were in more demand. Then they could have gotten those books into the hands of more people while also paying authors more.
You may as well ask, what damage has sharing food freely during a national emergency done? What damage has sharing housing? Money? All are at least as important as books, and all are worth sharing during certain forms of emergency, but I hope we'd agree it would be quite wrong for me to walk into my local grocery store and walk out with everything without paying, saying "For the public good!", and then give things out. Perhaps we should nationalize the grocery stores and the apartment buildings and the banks - but such a decision should (at most) be made by the government, not by some individual non-profit.
Again, there are less drastic measures that don't cause this. Expanding Controlled Digital Lending would actually mean the authors lose nothing, and gain them readers. (Or, you know, do this except only for orphan works or not-available-in-ebook works or something. That would also meet the stated goals.)
Or simply have the Internet Archive contact authors, say "We scanned your books into e-books, want to make them freely available? You'll lose nothing and gain readers," and then make it their decision.
What people think after you're dead shouldn't outweigh the public good in this.
They have a responsibility not to recklessly take on existential risk; it's in the best interest of their cause that they continue to exist. This is doubly true in a time of crisis where people need stable institutions to rely on.