Quote:
Originally Posted by Andrew H.
I think this was pretty much settled 20 years ago by the Kinko's case.
|
The Kinko's case involved profits; distributing ebooks doesn't make anyone money. And the Kinko's case involved books currently in print; I don't know that all of these are. (A quick look at a few random titles shows them not in print. It's possible that none of these are currently in print and that's why Hathi is wanting to release them.)
If they're not currently being sold, it's a lot harder to argue that someone giving them away is stealing profits. The argument becomes "we might want to sell them again someday, and then these people might not be willing to buy--and in the meantime, nobody except rich collectors or people who live close to one of these libraries should be reading these books."