I don’t disagree with the ruling. IA is not lending their copy that they purchased. They are lending a copy of their copy. While that copy is lent out, they are still free to, I.e. read the copy in their possession.
That's how you digitally send a copy of a book.
You're saying something similar to "you wouldn't download a car".
It's applying without considering it.
The digital book isn't being kept at the old location because there is no digital book in the physical book.
It's the only way to transfer a single copy of a book without destroying the physical copy.
Judges should consider stuff like this and it's a disappointing ruling.
But go on...
The technicality that they keep a copy of the book while it’s being lent isn’t really at issue here at all. It’s not because there are two copies, it’s because there are three or more copies, given to two or more parties at the same time. It has become “distribution” in the eyes of copyright law, beyond the lending analogy.
I don't know why companies keep trying this. MP3.com, Aereo, etc. The precedent is clear.
In the case of a physical object needing to temporarily go digital, it needs to be sent digitally and the records kept, and of course the physical copy has to be kept.
In the case of the GPL there's no physical copy and thus there's no need to consider how to move from one form to the other.
To require that a physical object never be used digitally is bad for society.
Isn't "fair use" restricted to (a) short portions of a work, (b) used for specific purposes, such as education or criticism?
There are practical differences between the two, which mean that the law probably should treat them differently. I expect a lot of HN have difficulty dealing with that because they think "but they both contain the same information".
It reminds me of people trying to encode books into prime numbers or the digits or pi or whatnot to "get around" copyright. Fundamentally missing the point.