The site:
https://archive.org/details/nationalemergencylibrary
As best I can tell, these are scanned volumes not yet out of copyright, so an actual download would leave the Internet Archive subject to liability. So they’re pushing the envelope of IP law a bit, and saying “we’re no different from any public lending liability. You can read the material for a limited ‘lending’ period.”
Who are we going to buy electronic books, or physical books online, from? Amazon? I’m not interested in making Bezos even richer.
So I encourage folks who want to buy either kind of book online to search for independent booksellers. They won’t make much from the ebooks but it’s better than giving your money to one of the richest men on the planet. And if you can delay your gratification by waiting for delivery, they’d love to sell you a real physical book.
Publishers have filed a major copyright infringement suit against the Internet Archive:
Internetarchive also has tons of older movies that can be torrented and sometimes downloaded.
That website had this free lending library already. What’s new? More titles available? Or just that multiple people can now check out the same book concurrently? Their interface isn’t my favorite way to read a book, but I’d put up with it for a very special book!
1.4 million is a lot of titles! Any suggestions on how to hunt for “specially good” books in the archive?
Not “pushing the envelope” so much as “running roughshod over.” it is a full-on pirate/anarchist site.
BTW, here is their extensive manga collection, for anyone interested.
Yes, as much as I love and use the Internet Archive, they made a serious mistake with the Open Library.
They need to back off the multiple simultaneous loans right now. An apology would go a long way toward saving the site.
Look for lists of the best books in the subjects you are interested in and look them up at the site. Note they don’t have basically the last 5 years. So lists of Hugos or Edgars (science fiction or mysteries) or Pulitzer Prize nonfiction books…
For example suppose you are interested in previous pandemics; a good book is John Barry. The Great Influenza published in 2005. It is there.
A federal judge has ruled against the Internet Archive in Hachette v. Internet Archive, a lawsuit brought against it by four book publishers, deciding that the website does not have the right to scan books and lend them out like a library.
Judge John G. Koeltl decided that the Internet Archive had done nothing more than create “derivative works,” and so would have needed authorization from the books’ copyright holders — the publishers — before lending them out through its National Emergency Library program.
Here is the complete copy of the decision:
And a statement from Internet Archive of its future plans, including an appeal:
https://blog.archive.org/2023/03/25/the-fight-continues/
I find this very disappointing as I have found Internet Archive to be useful.