Public Knowledge Joins Amicus Brief Defending Controlled Digital Lending and Consumer Privacy

At the moment, Public Information joined Middle for Democracy and Expertise and the Library Freedom Challenge in submitting an amicus temporary supporting Web Archive within the case of Hachette v. Web Archive. The temporary, which was written by the Samuelson Regulation, Expertise, and Public Coverage Clinic on the College of California, Berkeley, argues that managed digital lending – or CDL – furthers the purpose of the copyright act by defending reader privateness.

Libraries have all the time labored in a quite simple means: They purchase books (or another person buys the books and donates to the library), after which they lend them out. That is precisely what the Web Archive does, with one addition: It makes library books extra accessible to library patrons by permitting readers to entry scanned copies on-line. Beneath this “managed digital lending” system, just one patron can entry a duplicate of a e-book at a time – similar to with lending bodily books. The Web Archive argued that any extra copies made throughout this course of ought to be “honest use” below copyright legislation. In 2020, the Affiliation of American Publishers sued the Web Archive searching for to halt the Web Archive’s CDL program. This March, a district court docket present in favor of plaintiff publishers. The Web Archive has appealed that judgment, defending this system as a good use.

The next will be attributed to Meredith Rose, Senior Coverage Counsel at Public Information:

“Surveillance chills analysis and entry to info; because of this libraries are deeply invested in defending the privateness of their patrons, and why quite a few state legal guidelines defend library data from intrusion. CDL permits the library to maintain e-book lending inside their very own ecosystem, topic to the identical privacy-protecting legal guidelines and practices they apply to bodily books. 

““Business e-book lending platforms, however, acquire reader knowledge – together with from youngsters – to share, promote, or in any other case monetize at its discretion. Forcing libraries to show to publisher-sanctioned aggregators exposes reader knowledge and erodes the privateness protections which might be on the coronary heart of library values.

“Copyright was explicitly designed for the general public profit. This profit can’t be achieved by stripping readers of any expectation of privateness in what they learn or analysis.”

You might view the amicus temporary for extra info.

Members of the media might contact Communications Director Shiva Stella with inquiries, interview requests, or to affix the Public Information press listing at shiva@publicknowledge.org or 405-249-9435.