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Comment by eatonphil | Hacker News Reader

> Anyone across the country between the ages of 13 and 21 to get a free eCard from BPL, which will give them access to 350,000 ebooks and 200,000 audiobooks, as well as access to databases.

Making hundreds of thousands of ebooks/audiobooks available around the country is an incredible use of library resources IMO. This feels like a serious development in library missions and I hope they don't stop at teens. Everyone around the country should have free access to these ebooks/audiobooks.

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Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that basically what Archive.org has been doing for years?

More resources and attention are always great, but I'm not sure this is exactly novel.

I thought Archive.org only stores public domain stuff. Libraries normally have both historic and modern books.

For example, I see "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" on BPL's ebook list. But I can't find that book on Archive.org.

Archive.org has OpenLibrary.org as a sibling organisation. It's a "proper" library so you can check things out.

I'm not sure exactly how it works, in legal terms, but it's great for obscure books.

It also has Diary of a Wimpy Kid available to borrow digitally:

https://openlibrary.org/works/OL8483260W/Diary_of_a_Wimpy_Ki...

Based. I didn't know about that. And Wikipedia says Aaron Swartz <3 of the co-creators: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Library

Neat! I am not familiar with openlibrary.org. In any case that doesn't change my opinion that every US library making their ebooks available to anyone in the US would be making an excellent use of their funding.

Wow, I did NOT know about OpenLibrary! Thx!

> I'm not sure exactly how it works, in legal terms, but it's great for obscure books.

Does it pay the rights holders (and authors) like other libraries? The Brooklyn library likely does. IIRC, archive.org clashed with authors during lockdown around it’s lending practices, I don’t know if that has been resolved. I’m against excessive IP exploitation, but I’m for authors getting paid.

Libraries don't necessarily pay rights holders or authors. They buy books like anybody else, which means they sometimes buy books on the second hand market. And there's nothing wrong with that.

Unlike physical books, the First sale doctrine doesn't apply to e-book licenses. Typically, the license expires after a couple of reads, and the rights holders has a say on how many times a copy may be lent out, and how many copies can be borrowed simultaneously using DRM - which means they can set the average price paid each time an e-book is borrowed.

I listened to a fascinating podcast on the history of Overdrive / Libby a few months back; might have been produced by NPR, but I sadly can't find it.

You're absolutely right, which is why the IA buys physical books, scans them, and makes them available online under so-called "Controlled Digital Lending". Renting out one digital copy at a time is covered by fair use, they argue, although it hasn't been tested in court.*

* That is expected as a part of the publishers lawsuit against the "National Emergency Library"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controlled_digital_lending

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Archive#National_Emer...

Thank you for the links - that is the disagreement with authors & publishers I was alluding to in my root comment at the start of the thread.

Lending multiple electronic copies of 1 physical book simultaneously was questionable behavior by the IA - emergency or not. I suspect a court would treat that a electronic reproduction of the work, and not fair use, IANAL. If you want to lend out 20 copies, buy 20 copies first (or procure 20 donations)

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