FaceDeer

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.

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.

Those kiosks aren't in the drive-throughs.

The IA did not have books that were currently in print and they also told publishers that if they found any that were in print that were uploaded, they would be removed.

Again from Wikipedia:

The 127 publishers' books in the suit are also available as ebooks from the publishers.

And from the section on the settlement reached:

On August 11, 2023, the parties reached a negotiated judgment. The agreement prescribes a permanent injunction against the Internet Archive preventing it from distributing the plaintiffs' books, except those for which no e-book is currently available,[3] as well as an undisclosed payment to the plaintiffs.

If you're going to accuse me of lying I would appreciate if you took a little more care to ensure your own statements were truthful.

Too bad that U.S. copyright law doesn't recognize CCLs or you'd have a point.

That's a flat "what." From me. Creative Commons licenses depend on copyright to function. In what way does US copyright law "not recognize" Creative Commons licenses?

Exactly, PR. The IA was fine as long as they weren't flagrantly bragging about how they were letting everyone download as many copies of everything as they wanted. If they'd stuck to their original pattern (shared with libraries) of only letting one digital copy out at a time then the publishers would have grumbled and not done anything about it because it would have been bad PR to attack IA under those conditions.

Also, libraries cross that line all the time. https://www.nypl.org/research

Are you referring me to the Digital Research Books beta?

All the materials in Digital Research Books Beta are completely free to read and most of them you can download and keep, with no library card required. The books are either in the public domain, with no restrictions on your use of them, or under Creative Commons licences that may have some conditions, but only on redistribution or adaptation.

Where on the NYPL can I download unlimited copies of books that are currently in print from these major publishers under non-free licenses?

So why aren't they? If libraries are doing exactly what IA is doing, why not sue them too? The judge issued a summary judgement in their favor so it's pretty open-and-shut, isn't it?

It's because the libraries know where the line is and they're careful not to cross it. IA jumped merrily across the line and shouted about it from the rooftops.

So why aren't they suing libraries for doing those "exact same things?" Why target the IA specifically, and not other libraries?

Could it be that the IA did not in fact do the "exact same thing" as libraries?

why you think that's something worth defending I don't know.

I am not "defending" the publishers. They are the villains here. I think current copyright laws are insanely overreaching and have long ago lost the plot of what they were originally intended for.

This is like a horror movie where there's a slasher hiding in the house and the dumb protagonists say "let's split up to find him more quickly", and I'm shouting at the idiot who's going down into the dark basement alone. The slasher is the publishing companies and the idiot going down the stairs is the IA. It's entirely justified to shout at them for being an idiot and recommend that they just run away, without being accused of "defending" the slasher.