I’ve rented a book from internet archive and it gives an option to rent for an hour, and you need to “return” it when you’re done. My hour ran out and it’s given me the option to rent it again, for free. This concept confuses me. If it’s free, wouldn’t they just have it there for anyone to read?
I have a theory but wanted to see if there was a proper explanation!
In: 4
> If it’s free, wouldn’t they just have it there for anyone to read?
For a normal public library, licensing agreements with publishers that restrict the amount of copies that can be out at a given time, similar to paperbacks.
In the Internet Archive’s case, they seem to be arguing that because they have physical copies, they can loan out a digital scanned copy of the physical. This is done without needing to get a normal digital license (the idea being there are more protections for paper books). The rationale is something called “CDL”(Controlled digital lending), and they argue it falls under fair use. They’re currently being sued, so it will be tested in court. The 1 hour limit is what they use when they have only 1 copy of a book.
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