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Comment by musicale | Hacker News Reader

What IA is doing is removing the physical copy from circulation, making a digital copy, and lending out the digital copy.

I don't see the argument that this is "distribution" any more than regular (obnoxious) ebook lending is.

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One of the reasons the IA has lost (at least so far) here is that the judge noted they do not really do that, and have no mechanisms in place for doing that.

I thought the IA was in a bad place before, but they got very shown up in court.

Regular (obnoxious) ebook lending is done under license of the publisher, presumably with the approval of the rightsholders. It may or may not be distribution, but it's approved, so it's ok.

What’s stopping IA from using the physical book while it is simultaneously lending out a copy?

Nothing. Which is why losing was inevitable.

Isn't this answerable by destroying the physical copy? (not saying that IA took this action, just saying that it removes the complaint of dual use)

No, because if they destroyed the original then they would have no way of saying they have the original and that’s what’s being lent.

Then truly they would be lending only a copy, which was never legal to begin with.

In the industry the title page is often considered to be proof of ownership. E.g. when a book doesn't sell, and book stores want it off the shelves, they may be asked to destroy the books except return the title pages to the publisher, as proof.

Yep, waaaay back when I worked part time in a book store. I've stripped paperbacks.

It would be trivial to document the ownership/destruction of the original. Video the process?

Laws a bit more open to interpretation and chaining rarely works, it’s humanist, and it’s at its face unreasonable that one physical copy => right to lend out digital cooy.

If the IA is creating their own digital copies of physical books, it could be argued that that the IA is creating and distributing derivative works. I'm not certain, but my impression is that derivative works have little in the way of legal protection.

The court order discusses this, and says while the first sale doctrine means IA could resell or lend their physical books, that right does not extend to unauthorized reproductions (such as making an ebook by scanning in a print book).

They very much do in cases of backups and even VCR/DVR recordings of live TV.

The courts have gone back and forth on this issue, and I would expect this ruling to be appealed by either side if they had lost.

Changing formats without changing content is not a derivative work; it’s just a copyright violation. A derivative work must “add new original copyrightable authorship to that work.” https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ14.pdf

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