National Emergency Library | Hacker News Reader

National Emergency Library

archive.org

172 pointsmauliknshah53 comments

The blog post has a bit more information about what's going on: http://blog.archive.org/2020/03/24/announcing-a-national-eme...

These are scans that the Internet Archive already had that they had been making available through libraries on a check-out basis, which apparently is fine under fair use. Their claim now is, because of the national emergency, it's fair use to make these scans directly available to everyone.

As an author with half a dozen or so titles in this archive, I'm happy to see this. It's not like I was making any money from books published a decade or more ago.

While I'm sure it's a wonderful resource, those cover scans as the thumbnails are generally useless (wall full of blank colored tiles?), and many of the titles are so uninformative and badly organized you almost have to know what you want to search productively -- it's not like you're going to randomly stumble across something interesting in a sea of 1M titles.

Seems like it needs some volunteer contribution to do some curation / tagging / rating to get people to be able to use it successfully...

Their search engine is quite good. The IA is always asking for volunteers. Maybe you've got some time off?

On the one hand, I love the IA and really hate to see them burn Bridges/risk getting shut down.

On the other hand, this crisis is going to require bold action and moving faster than the speed of money and negotiation. I was hoping to see 'screw it, everything is free' from hospitals or someone knocking off ventilator designs but hey, this is a start.

Does anyone know how they're legally able to do this, when publishers make my local library buy a license for every concurrent copy of an ebook that someone checks out?

Here is a comment on Reddit [1], from the copyright person cited in this article [2] about the legality of it. From what I can gather, libraries scanned books that didn't have digital copies already made, and offered them to patrons to "check out". They used software to make sure that they only checked out a total combined digital/print number equal to the number of print copies they had bought, with software to make sure they couldn't be copied. That seems fair, to me (and is, apparently, legal). The National Emergency Library basically opens that up to anyone now, however, with no limits on how many times a book can be checked out at once.

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/fpsqm0/the_internet_...

[2]https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-national-eme...

It is not 'apparently legal'. Ars' writers did an investigation, including talking to some independent attorneys, and the summary is that what they're doing is on shaky ground and likely to be ruled illegal. They are simply banking on authors not suing.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/03/internet-archive...

The authors are welcome to sue when the civil courts reopen in California, which may be a few months in the future, and already something of a fait accompli. It’s kind of like The Purge out here, albeit with felonies still illegal but most laws unenforceable and people sheltering inside in fear.

They're making a fair use claim through the duration of the national emergency. The blog post and the linked statement of support alludes to it a bit more clearly: http://blog.archive.org/2020/03/24/announcing-a-national-eme...

The Author's Guild is not impressed. https://www.authorsguild.org/industry-advocacy/internet-arch...

Another business that may not survive the pandemic. Poor way to spend their limited resources.

All digital lending has been legally dubious since the ReDigi case decided that sending someone a digital file counted as making a new copy. So far, the whole idea of lending exists in a gray area where publishers have simply decided not to sue. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/03/internet-archive...

> All digital lending has been legally dubious since the ReDigi case decided that sending someone a digital file counted as making a new copy. So far, the whole idea of lending exists in a gray area where publishers have simply decided not to sue. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/03/internet-archive....

Anyone else interested in this ReDigi case (I was) can check out the following pages:

https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/digital/copyrig...

https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca2/16...

https://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/02/business/media/redigi-los...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitol_Records,_LLC_v._ReDi....

More recent news:

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20181217/17092841253/appea...

https://patentlyo.com/patent/2018/12/copyright-doctrine-copy...

PDF: https://patentlyo.com/media/2018/12/16-2321_opn1.pdf

The 2000 mp3.com lawsuit is also interesting, though it didn't involve sharing.

https://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/06/technology/mp3com-loses-c...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/UMG_Recordings,_Inc._v._MP3.....

The lawsuit(s?) against Google's book scanning program are also interesting; I believe there was a discussion regarding this on HN somewhat recently, though I may be wrong

They have a partial DMCA exemption (from the US Library of Congress) and are legally recognized as a library by the state of California. Since (until now) they functioned like a library - you had to "check out" books and then return them - they've probably skated by without much trouble. They have taken down content in response to DMCA claims before.

This current measure is beyond that, my guess is they're just willing to take the risk that somebody will sue them.

Most of the comments I've seen from authors have been pretty negative.

My limited understanding is that previously they had a 1:1 backing of physical book to what could be "checked out" digitally. Now with the NEL they've removed this backing and are duplicating copies without a physical book to match.

I'd really hate for the internet archive to run afoul of the law here and have it impact the other legal archiving that they do.

A lot of their books are 1 person checkout only

and they do have exemptions from DMCA somewhat

They are not. They are violating copyright law, and stealing from writers and publishers. Twitter is full of complaints by writers who discovered their illegally scanned books here, pointing out that this will make it harder for them to eat and pay rent during the isolation period.

In my whole life, I've never heard of a significant author who complained about one of their books being in a library, or about library patrons as 'thieves'.

IA has deals with countless libraries, and since the libraries are closed, and the online schools are open, I very much doubt that IA will keep up with the temporary loss of the libraries or the needs of schools.

"Public support for this emergency measure has come from over 100 individuals, libraries and universities across the world"

The distinction is that each library needs to buy a copy - if not several copies - of the book. Patrons of libraries cause money to end up in the pockets of authors/publishers. If a library wants to make a book available to multiple patrons, it needs to buy multiple copies.

IA is suspending the check-out logic they'd previously been using on these scans, which breaks that connection. Now a thousand people stuck at home can read the same scans free online.

(My opinion here, without thinking very hard, is that what IA is doing is reasonable for out-of-print books or books not available in ebook form, especially textbooks and such, but probably less reasonable for recent books easy available as ebooks. It may still be fair use in both cases, though.)

> I've never heard of a significant author who complained about one of their books being in a library, or about library patrons as 'thieves'.

Libraries have had their day: Horrible Histories author: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/feb/13/libraries-horr...

Horrible Histories is a significant set of books, now also tv programmes, in the UK.

This is not a complaint about libraries or library patrons. I love and use libraries. Authors love to see their books in libraries, including their ebooks. The details matter. Scanning a book and putting it on the internet without the right to do so is not what a library does.

I think there might be some misunderstanding. There was a good comment on Reddit [1] about how all this was legal. From what I gathered, libraries scanned books that didn't have digital copies already made, and offered them to patrons to "check out". They used software to make sure that they only checked out a total combined digital/print number equal to the number of print copies they had bought, with software to make sure they couldn't be copied. That seems fair, to me (and is, apparently, legal). The National Emergency Library basically opens that up to anyone now, however, with no limits on how many times a book can be checked out at once.

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/fpsqm0/the_internet_...

I don't think there is a misunderstanding. In fact, your informative comment explains the crucial difference between what a legitimate, copyright-respecting library does and what the "Emergency Library" is doing. This is, in fact, why authors, who never complained about real libraries, are complaining about this.

Didn't Google do that too a few years ago, and get away with it?

No, they didn't get away with it, which is why they only display short excerpts from books in search results.

> pointing out that this will make it harder for them to eat and pay rent during the isolation period.

Which makes very little sense. Royalties on books already pay out very little, and at very inconvenient timespans. It is probably not going to make any impact for most authors.

I'll try a less snarky rebuttal because I think there is a point here.

Why does IA get to make that decision? I get why this has populist support, but that's not an excuse to commit piracy. I get that IA is popular, but I'd also be annoyed if a less popular company did this.

If this was a government level decision to nationalize bookstores, to waive library checkout limits, then I'd understand a little more. But some random company taking copyrighted material they don't own and distributing it without the consent or payment is something very different.

I'd further point out that publishers, copyright holders, etc also need money to operate. I get that they can be less of a sympathetic group than author, but they have rights and they have bills to pay.

Theres lots of public domain books, books from libraries, free online content, etc. Theres no reason we need this sort of piracy to get through the pandemic.

This, is not piracy.

I do understand that it may be instinctual to leap to that position, but it isn't.

Usually, the books that appear on IA appear under the doctrine of "fair use".

However, that doctrine is adaptable to circumstances (which is actually written into the US law that governs fair use). All IA has done here, really, is suspend their waitlists, to make it more fair to the public to be able to read further, for education to continue, within a crisis.

They've also made it very clear that this is temporary. If it wasn't, you might have a case that it isn't fair use.

Part of why this falls under fair use is that their focus is on books that do not have a digital copy, apart from IA's scan, available online. This is specifically something that libraries are granted the ability to do. To scan and upload books that are not yet available.

The books that appear in this collection have been donated. However, if an authour wishes to remove their book, then there is a very simple and effective way available to them. (Linked to from the article) [0]

[0] https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QjErbouWG7pUlzcxPcRk4YEt...

> actually written into the US law

Reference?

There are four considerations for fair use, the 1st, and 4th, both rely on the current context, and allow for different interpretations based on the current climate.

> 1. the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;

The purpose, in this case, is nonprofit educational purposes during a crisis. Such a purpose is generally looked upon more favourably, as it is presented as a humanitarian gesture in a time of crisis.

> 4. the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

During a crisis, a temporary, and very clearly temporary and short-term, effort is unlikely to have an effect on the potential value of a copyrighted work.

As IA have aimed this collection at education it's probably also worth including:

> such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means ... teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright.

[0] All quotes come from Section 107, of the US Copyright Code.

Thanks for deciding for authors whether they have a right to be paid for their labor.

Might want to tone down the snark just a tad. I am an authour, with around about twenty books on the market at the moment.

However, a legal process that barely touches on the edges of (the relatively thin) margins is in fact unlikely to have a direct and immediate impact on anyone. That has no emotion attached to the statement.

Imagine getting mad at archive for nearly doing the exact same thing that Google books does more or less. It's Google library but more liberal in it's approach, which was initially what Google wanted it's ebook part to be, an accessible elibrary, until authors who did not pay attention to the evolution of music distribution successfully pulled a partial injunction against them. Laughing in hexadecimal, until neural nets become the new authors in 25 years.

How will someone who always works remotely be financially impacted by isolation orders?

If you steal my book from the "Emergency Library" instead of buying an electronic copy, I get financially impacted.

> pointing out that this will make it harder for them to eat and pay rent during the isolation period.

This implies that "during the isolation period" modifies "harder to eat and pay rent" in a meaningful fashion. Restaurant workers are having a harder time paying rent.

Authors save for a privileged minority have traditionally struggled to pay rent as well but presumably no more than normally.

Now I understand your point, which is a reasonable one. The situation is that the economy in general is tanking, people are not going to bookstores, etc., so authors, who, as you point out, are not wealthy, have even less income now. In other words, it's a particularly cruel time for the "Emergency Library" to be taking money out of their pockets.

So if most authors don't make a whole lot anyway if copyright went away or was drastically limited but you received basic income and medical would you be better off or worse?

You assume that everyone reading a copy of the book, would also be willing (or able) to purchase it. That’s not the case.

That’s too absolute: nobody is arguing that there’d be a 100% purchase rate but it seems highly unlikely that there will be no sales impact from having free copies available from a reputable source with very high search-engine ranking.

Such is the risk of absolutes...

>> "nobody is arguing that there’d be a 100% purchase rate"

The typical case against things like this does multiply downloads by sale price under the assumption each one is a lost sale. I've seen authors (obscure and prominent) scream about how many hundreds of thousands of dollars they're missing out on because they found their book on some torrent site.

If you go to the site and click the 'Views' sort-by, you'll see the most popular titles. For some reason, #1 at the moment, by a factor of 3, is Sylvia Brown's 2008 End of Days. Go figure. Brown was 'a medium with psychic abilities.'

Yep, that's where we're at. Viewed 20 times more than 'You Can Negotiate Anything'.

The specific quote from the book:

"In around 2020 a severe pneumonia-like illness will spread throughout the globe, attacking the lungs and the bronchial tubes and resisting all known treatments. Almost more baffling than the illness itself will be the fact that it will suddenly vanish as quickly as it arrived, attack again ten years later, and then disappear completely."

I think it's complete bullshit, but also no surprise why it is so popular.

Make enough predictions and one is bound to land. It's not even the first coronavirus outbreak "around 2020."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronavirus#Outbreaks_of_coron...

I think there was an article the other day about people who supposedly predicted COVID-19 in books, etc. Pretty sure they included her and also pointed out all the other things she got way wrong. But that probably explains a lot of the clicks.

Even without this, the archive.org has lots of interesting books to read, games to play[1], etc; but with all the quarantining and such, I suspect people will just use it far more often.

[1] https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos_games

"log in and this book can be borrowed for 14 days"

They can be re-borrowed instantly though.

Not much help in an emergency, though.

The emergency it's meant to cover is the fact that all the actual libraries are closed, not to replace owning books.

Signing up doesn't seem to work.

Filled out the captcha, and the "Sign Up" button is just spinning forever. It's been a few minutes.

Sorry to keep plugging this, but I think it’s much more important to take good books and lay them out well for reading on all screen sizes, make them accessible, give people good fonts etc. Trying to do that on https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22710232

Reply on news.ycombinator.com