skygiants

Coincidentally, I did an internship at the Author's Guild in the 90s. This was obviously when the concept of mass copying, storage and distribution of media was barely more than a twinkle in a few computer geeks' eyes.

I've also been a consumer of fan scanlated manga, fansubed anime, and fansubed dramas since the 90s – and obviously fanfic and fanvids.

So, I kind of have an angel librarian on one shoulder and a media pirate on the other. I haven't really looked too closely at it, but I've always wondered if the IA really does limit itself to only scanning books it owns physical copies of and only lending that number of digitized copies. If it does, then I generally think what they're doing under normal circumstances is reasonable under copyright law. Generally, if you actually own a copy of the book, you are entitled to lend it to as many people as you want, as many times as you want, so long as you don't make money doing so. You aren't allowed to copy or transform it. I think the IA is really treading on the edge in terms of transformation, but, in the US, we have allowed that people can make backup copies of tapes and CDs, and scanning a book is not far from that.

As for the unlimited lending policy for the duration of the pandemic... at heart, I think it is a well-intentioned thing...and I'm secretly okay with it. But legally, I think it does breach copyright law and goes well beyond fair use and any other defense. There are a lot of laws and rules people would like to suspend "for the duration" but the suspension of many of these rules is not actually necessary for us to survive and some would end up making life far worse. I think suspending evictions makes sense, but the government deciding to suspend habeas corpus would be very concerning, given the risk that "the duration" might never end.

As far as the AG is concerned, I haven't been there in a long time, but I do know a lot of authors and when it comes down to it the traditional way of publishing books and trickling small percentages of the sales down the line to various entities, agents, and finally the author, is not really a viable. I know a couple of younger authors who have made the transition to all digital publishing and make a much better living than more traditional authors – even those who technically sell many more books in hard copy. I actually think the [communist] Chinese have ironically stumbled on the best way to capitalize on modern digital book sales – or maybe they should be just called sales of stories? Writing sales? While I think the idea of waiting for each chapter would drive me nuts, I do really like the community concept.

Well, except, it's going through the throes of figuring out how to behave in good faith with your fellow community members. It seems a lot worse than some of the uglier e-list fandoms wars. I wonder to what extent having so much external control of public life makes people so vicious online.