On Monday last week, oral arguments were presented in cross-motions for summary judgment in Hachette et al. v. Internet Archive, and by end-of-business Friday, the court delivered its opinion thoroughly rejecting IA’s fair use defense. Although many of us watching this case felt a little whiplash Friday evening, the speed with which the court responded can perhaps be explained by ...

Dear Authors (“the undersigned”): It’s not your fault. You mean well. But you are simply wrong to have signed that letter—the one written and orchestrated by Fight for the Future (FFTF), which misrepresents the case Hachette et al., v Internet Archive as an attack on libraries. If I were not a copyright nerd, and I were told that this lawsuit ...

Among the amici who filed briefs in Hachette v. Internet Archive is former law professor and library director Michelle Wu, who, as the brief states, “…is recognized by many as the originator of the legal theory underlying controlled digital lending (“CDL”) ….” With her brief, Wu seeks to defend CDL as a doctrine and asks the court to limit its ...

I think we’ve figured out by now that you can fundraise by lying to people about a threat, right? You can tell them an election was stolen. Or that the internet is under attack. Or that movie stars are harvesting babies to make adrenochrome. Or you can tell them stuff like this . . . Damn. That’s some chutzpah. If ...

My last post about the case Hachette et al., v. Internet Archive was angry. Moved by the compelling testimony author Sandra Cisneros wrote to the court, I was and remain pissed off at those who justify what amounts to enterprise-scale book piracy by dressing it up in the rhetoric of progressive lingo and academic theory. Many amicus briefs, authored by ...

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