The reason the IA ruffled feathers on this is that they departed wildly from what people thought the mission of the library was They did not put a mechanism in place to host only old books or out-of-print books, they started putting up all the books they got
-
Show this thread
-
Because they ARE zealots, or at least Brewster Kahle is a zealot The ethos wasn't the "abandonware" ethos anymore - "We're breaking the law but not hurting anybody" It was openly trying to make new law - "This is how e-lending should generally work"
1 reply 0 retweets 15 likesShow this thread -
The agenda pretty clearly wasn't "Let's make old books that are hard to access available" anymore It was "Let's get rid of the ebook licensing system for books currently in print, because we think it's abusive"
1 reply 1 retweet 17 likesShow this thread -
It's looking at existing authors and publishers going "You've already made enough money from print sales, your prices for ebooks in libraries are too high and they're hurting people, we're just not gonna pay them and tell other people not to either"
1 reply 0 retweets 12 likesShow this thread -
You can hold that position if you want to Personally, I have come around to thinking it's a dickish principle to live by, and *especially* dickish to *actually say it to people's face* Especially when you're not playing Robin Hood with academic research but creative work
1 reply 0 retweets 11 likesShow this thread -
Replying to @arthur_affect
I have a lot of sympathy for that position but I wish they'd stop lying about it being their position. If you're a free-information zealot just say that, don't pretend you're a "library" that is allowing "emergency lending".
1 reply 0 retweets 1 like -
Replying to @Diacritic
Well, that's a necessary part of the play though The strategy is specifically to *not* say "We, the Internet Archive, are breaking the law" It's to say "We've researched this concept of Controlled Digital Lending that we think is how online library collections should work"
2 replies 0 retweets 1 like -
Replying to @arthur_affect
I get that, it just means that what they're doing is fundamentally dishonest in ways that I don't think jibe with an information-freedom paradigm. They're trying to score a political win (and they're failing because they're bad at politics) instead of making the argument.
1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes -
Replying to @Diacritic
I dunno I do in fact see their side of the issue, even though I disagree with it (and kind of kneejerk disagree with it, with a convert's zeal and all that)
2 replies 0 retweets 0 likes -
Replying to @arthur_affect @Diacritic
If you're one of the people who's being going "ebook licensing is bleeding libraries dry!" for years then their framing makes perfect sense Just like the other side has been going "Ebooks are driving our price point to zero" just as long
1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
The issue I think is this is a long ongoing fight that a lot of the people angry now are new to so the risk terms of the debate are getting lost in the noise
Loading seems to be taking a while.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.