> 8. IA defends its willful mass infringement by asserting an invented theory called “Controlled Digital Lending” (“CDL”)—the rules of which have been concocted from whole cloth and continue to get worse. For example, at first, under this theory IA claimed to limit the number of scanned copies of a title available for free download at any one time to the number of print books of that title in its collection—though no provision under copyright law offers a colorable defense to the systematic copying and distribution of digital book files simply because the actor collects corresponding physical copies.
> 10. IA’s self-serving assertion and promotion of “Controlled Digital Lending” as both an actual legal doctrine and a justification for its infringement affronts the most basic realities of the law and the markets it propels. As a matter of markets, IA’s one-to-one conflation of print and ebooks is fundamentally flawed. Digital books are inherently different from physical books. They can fly around the world in a second; they do not degrade over time as physical books do; and they require devices to read them. For these reasons, the Publishers have established independent and distinct distribution models for ebooks, including a market for lending ebooks through libraries, which are governed by different terms and expectations than print books. IA’s end-run around these differences and restrictions is aggressive and unlawful. In short, all of the reasons why IA has scanned print books to create digital files are the very same reasons why authors and publishers provide digital books under different terms than print books—as they are entitled to do under the Copyright Act.
> 8. IA defends its willful mass infringement by asserting an invented theory called “Controlled Digital Lending” (“CDL”)—the rules of which have been concocted from whole cloth and continue to get worse. For example, at first, under this theory IA claimed to limit the number of scanned copies of a title available for free download at any one time to the number of print books of that title in its collection—though no provision under copyright law offers a colorable defense to the systematic copying and distribution of digital book files simply because the actor collects corresponding physical copies.
> 10. IA’s self-serving assertion and promotion of “Controlled Digital Lending” as both an actual legal doctrine and a justification for its infringement affronts the most basic realities of the law and the markets it propels. As a matter of markets, IA’s one-to-one conflation of print and ebooks is fundamentally flawed. Digital books are inherently different from physical books. They can fly around the world in a second; they do not degrade over time as physical books do; and they require devices to read them. For these reasons, the Publishers have established independent and distinct distribution models for ebooks, including a market for lending ebooks through libraries, which are governed by different terms and expectations than print books. IA’s end-run around these differences and restrictions is aggressive and unlawful. In short, all of the reasons why IA has scanned print books to create digital files are the very same reasons why authors and publishers provide digital books under different terms than print books—as they are entitled to do under the Copyright Act.
https://publishers.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Filed-Comp...