I meant that digitally lending the books out that IA owns 1-to-1 in the same way a real library lends out physical books should legally be treated the same, regardless of any ebook-specific licensing.
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There was a ruling in Europe (UFC against Valve [1]) citing that, as neither e-book nor video-game deteriorate with use, the customer doesn't have a right to sell it on the second hand market as it would affect the copyright holder interest :
> To entrench its position, the CJEU first mentioned that dematerialized digital copies, unlike books on a material medium, do not deteriorate with use and are perfect substitutes for new copies.
> Furthermore, the CJEU added to its reasoning that exchanging such copies requires neither additional effort nor additional cost. A parallel second-hand market would likely affect the interest of the copyright holder – contrary to the objective of the directive and the intention of the EU legislator.
1 : https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=77bb2501-995c...
Owning the physical book lets libraries lend out the physical books. Libraries can't lend out digital copies of physical books. They lend out digital copies that they have purchased.
Owning object is different that copyright. Copyright owner is only one that can license making copies. Owning a book gives no rights to make copies, with the exception of making personal copies.
As I understand it, as soon as the IA makes the digital copy they want to lend (digitally or physically), they now have two copies of the book and have committed copyright infringement. As soon as they lend a copy, there are now three copies in existence (unless they delete their copy as part of the loan) which is another count of infringement.
If they had a system where every page of the original was burned as it was scanned, and when you "checked out" a book it literally deleted the original on the server as it was sending it and the person returning the book also transferred the bytes back it would be quite a show.
I'm about 95% sure a scheme like that would still find them shut down. Remember the Aereo decision? They went through similar contortions, including building an antenna farm with thousands of tiny individual antennas, and were immediately killed off by the courts because it was seen as a legal hack. Such a scheme might threaten cable TV income if it were allowed to stand. Protecting incumbents from competition is a vital role of the courts.
> a scheme like that would still find them shut down.
Indeed. Someone else in this thread mentioned [1] as doing exactly that.
> Protecting incumbents from competition is a vital role of the courts.
What's even more confusing is that the judges involved aren't paid off or anything, they really believe themselves. Not sure what that means: Money buys charisma; the status quo is 'the best we got'; or some other bias-carrying platitude.
[1] 17 U.S.C. § 108; see also, e.g., ReDigi, 910 F.3d at 658
See also Peter Sunde (of Pirate Bay notoriety) and his “Kopimashin”: https://www.engadget.com/2015-12-21-peter-sunde-kopimashin.h...