The Internet Archive vs. the American Association of Publishers

This is a case to watch. The AAP says that the IA controlled digital lending (CDL) program is a violation of copyright. IA disagrees. This one will go all the way to SCOTUS—unless one side blinks or runs out of money. Given the stakes, I doubt either will blink and the librarians are definitely able to find funding.

You can read the summary on the Publishers Weekly website.

Personally, even though I work in publishing, I’m w/the IA on CDL. And I’ll lay you money that those who work in publishing for the companies filing suit use CDL. I use it all the time to check references when I can’t find what I need in Google books or on the open internet (or don’t own it). And as much as I hate academia.edu’s commercial exploitation, it’s a wealth of information that I use all the time, as well.

Ideally, publishers would publish books at a reasonable cost so real people could afford them; they would publish e-books for libraries at a reasonable cost; and publishers would establish a 12–18 month window on posting offprints on the open web (Lockwood has an 18-month window).

No. I take that back. Ideally, information would be free and society would recognize the value of knowledge and begin to transform that knowledge into wisdom! OK, that’s probably too idealistic. But if we spent as much on non-defense-related stuff … I won’t go there.

just the idle musings of an underling in the publishing world.