AFAIK, the "borrowed" books on this platform weren't downloadable on the library site, merely viewable. Per TFA:
> "We use industry-standard technology to prevent our books from being downloaded and redistributed—the same technology used by corporate publishers," Chris Freeland, IA's director of library services, wrote in the blog. "But the publishers suing our library say we shouldn’t be allowed to lend the books we own. They have forced us to remove more than half a million books from our library, and that’s why we are appealing."
Is the "lend the books we own" part somehow inaccurate? I'm assuming IA has some sort of claim to the books they're lending and scanned, similar to any physical library. This seems very different from "a gigantic book piracy site".
Furthermore, I'd argue removing access to those books on IA will likely lead to one of the following:
A. people will fall back to actual piracy through other means to get the same content "even less legally" through well known alternatives
B. people simply not being able to access the content, e.g. if it's out of print , not available locally, or only available used for some exorbitant cost that wouldn't go to the publisher
C. people will spend whatever the publisher charges by buying from them directly
My understanding is that A and B are way more likely than C, since the vast majority of books on IA's website include out of print and hard to get books.