In a closely watched case, the Second Circuit upheld a decision that Internet Archive's book lending practices violated the authors' copyrights and was not protected by the fair use doctrine. But was this decision really just based on the Internet Archive becoming one of the world's largest digital libraries? It was reported that Internet Archive was lending up to 70,000 books per day—certainly a huge number. But Internet Archive eventually placed restrictions on the borrowing. Each person could only borrow up to 10 books at a time for up to 2 weeks. So, by the end, wasn't Internet Archive just functioning as one of the world's biggest libraries? It seemed the court believed there was something inherently different about electronic borrowing (and its instantaneous nature) and the threat it posed to the e-books market.
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Internet Archive's Book Lending May Be Coming to an End
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The Second Circuit's decision shutting down a fair use argument by Internet Archive over its system of scanning physical books and converting them into e-books to lend for free is a resounding victory for book publishers that argued their market was in danger of being supplanted. The three-judge panel unequivocally said in its published opinion Wednesday that what Internet Archive did was not transformative at all, and that the nonprofit's digital books served "the same exact purpose as the originals: making authors' works available to read."
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