So what's the deal with openlibrary.org

Barty · 07-22-2015, 02:12 PM

A friend of mine turned me onto openlibrary.org. I went and searched for an ebook my library did not have. They had it. Whoopie. Checked it out. They used Adobe DRM. It all looked fine.

Except when I opened the book it was clear that it was a poor scan job. And there was no copyright pages. Uh oh.

So I googled "is openlibrary legit?" (Okay maybe that was something I should've done /before/ giving them my name and email.) Well they are a legit organization and they have paper books on loan like other libraries, but what they are doing with ebooks is let's say questionable. (I did not check out anything else so I don't know if all their other ebooks are the same.) Seems like a lawsuit waiting to happen. They probably have escaped the wrath of the publishers so far because they are non profit.

I suppose this is old news for folks here but I did not know.

wawasteele · 07-22-2015, 02:41 PM

I was concerned at first too. However, the state that I live in, California, is a member, so I quit worrying about it.

Their ebooks are scans. The way I understand it, they (or one of their library members, like California) have the paper copy of the book. When it's scanned, the paper book is then put aside and not allowed to be used.

I didn't know they loaned paper books. Where did you see that? They do list paper books and where they are available, but I thought they only loaned eformat.

rkomar · 07-22-2015, 02:41 PM

Could it be that they only allow one of the paper book or its digital copy to be checked out at any time? Maybe that's fair for a library. I don't know either.

Edit: @wawasteele answered my question while I was frobbing my text.

gweeks · 07-22-2015, 03:26 PM

Pennsylvania is a member also. I've been using them for hard to get things that I had difficulty getting through ILL. It's hosted through the internet archive. Most of the books I've seen are in daisy format. Only some of them can be checked out through ADE.

Greg

SteveEisenberg · 07-22-2015, 07:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Barty

Seems like a lawsuit waiting to happen. They probably have escaped the wrath of the publishers so far because they are non profit.

Sounds about right. If you look at the terms of use of the Internet Archive, of which OpenLibrary is part, you can see they are aware of some risk:

https://archive.org/about/terms.php

Quote:

Some of the content available through the Archive may be governed by local, national, and/or international laws and regulations, and your use of such content is solely at your own risk. . . . you certify that your use of any part of the Archive's Collections will be limited to noninfringing or fair use under copyright law.

They are endorsed by a boatload of public and non-profit libraries, primarily in the US, Canada, and Australia:

https://openlibrary.org/libraries

The biggest libraries (Library of Congress, Harvard, New York Public, British Museum) are not on the list. Maybe their lawyers warned them away. Or maybe my last sentence is paranoid nonsense.

I recently read an OpenLibrary ePUB scan of this out-of-print title:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/080...RNPFKKJTTEBPV8

There were lots of scan errors. And the first few words of each chapter seemed to be missing. And you can't navigate from the table of contents to the rest of the book. And you can't easily follow footnotes. And the author's two newer books are not on OpenLibrary. It didn't bother me much, but probably would deter more serious readers, pushing them to the author's new title which perhaps has overlapping content:

http://www.amazon.com/Let-Me-Heal-Op..._bxgy_14_img_y

What happens if OpenLibrary gets a take-down notice? My wild guess is that it sometimes happens, and they take it down, and keep it down. As for lawsuits, the publicity would give OpenLibrary many more borrowers. Plus, the publisher could spend a lot of money and then lose its case. Since I think the people who work for publishers tend to be quite smart, I'm unsurprised they don't sue.

As to whether what OpenLibrary does is truly illegal, there's no case law. So, it's one of those moot questions.

FizzyWater · 07-22-2015, 09:29 PM

If you really want to read a book that's scanned in OpenLibrary - and you can't seem to find it anywhere else - you can download the PDF rather than the epub (for those that are available in epub). The books I've borrowed there (maybe 10 in total) always had both, and the PDF was the actual image scans. After trying to fumble through a particularly horrible epub scan, I tried the PDF and was able to read from that instead.

doubleshuffle · 07-23-2015, 01:32 AM

It sounds as if they give you the standard Internet Archive epubs. Those are made from raw OCR data, without any cleaning up or proofreading, so you will indeed be better off using the pdfs, as FizzyWater says. Any uploader to the MR library could tell you how much work you have to put into a set of raw OCR data before it turns into a presentable ebook.

As to the question of copyright compliance: There are tons of stuff on the Internet Archive that shouldn't be there, but if copyrighted works are only on loan via Open Library and not for download through the Internet Archive, that should be ok, I guess?

cromag · 07-23-2015, 04:29 AM

The only time I tried to use Openlibrary there was a significant wait for the title I wanted. I assume that means they really are trying to limit downloaded copies based on the originals the have on hand.

I wound up not waiting for them. I was able to get a hard-copy of the book from my local library through an interlibrary loan without any significant wait.

HarryT · 07-26-2015, 09:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

The biggest libraries (Library of Congress, Harvard, New York Public, British Museum) are not on the list.

The British Museum is not a library; as its name suggests, it's a museum. I suspect you mean the British Library?

tdonline · 07-26-2015, 02:48 PM

Since they use scans, does that mean I am unable to modify the font size and styles?

What if I downloaded the PDFs and used Calibre to turn them into ePubs?

Openlibrary has some books that I can't even find as a hard copy from my library.

doubleshuffle · 07-26-2015, 02:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tdonline

What if I downloaded the PDFs and used Calibre to turn them into ePubs?

You might as well use the epubs provided by Open Library / Internet Archive. I don't think Calibre will be able to convert the pdfs to epubs, since they are strictly image files, no true text pdfs. But even if Calibre should manage such a conversion, you would have an epub not essentially better than what the Internet Archive provides.

If the epub provided is very very bad, you can try downloading the jp2 images of the scan (they are higher resolution than the pdf) and run them through ABBYY or some other OCR program.

But whatever you do, you will end up with an epub that needs manual cleaning up and proofreading. There's no shortcut for that.

ETA: And after you have produced a nice, clean epub of your book, you might as well upload it to the MR Library (if it is in the public domain).

Rizla · 07-26-2015, 06:01 PM

Openlibrary only lend a single copy of a scanned copy one at a time. You can always get a full pdf scan drmed through ADE. It's a great resource. It was set up by Aaron Swartz. Thanks Aaron. RIP.

Barty · 07-26-2015, 10:14 PM

After a bit of reading, yes I think they are quite above board. I was wrong thinking what they are doing with ebooks was ethically murky. (Legally, I don't know; the publishers may challenge them yet.)

I emailed and asked them if I could help correct an ebook, but they said they currently have no mechanism for doing that.

07-22-2015, 02:12 PM	#1
Barty doofus Posts: 2,549 Karma: 13089041 Join Date: Sep 2010 Device: Kobo Libra 2, Kindle Voyage	So what's the deal with openlibrary.org A friend of mine turned me onto openlibrary.org. I went and searched for an ebook my library did not have. They had it. Whoopie. Checked it out. They used Adobe DRM. It all looked fine. Except when I opened the book it was clear that it was a poor scan job. And there was no copyright pages. Uh oh. So I googled "is openlibrary legit?" (Okay maybe that was something I should've done /before/ giving them my name and email.) Well they are a legit organization and they have paper books on loan like other libraries, but what they are doing with ebooks is let's say questionable. (I did not check out anything else so I don't know if all their other ebooks are the same.) Seems like a lawsuit waiting to happen. They probably have escaped the wrath of the publishers so far because they are non profit. I suppose this is old news for folks here but I did not know.

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07-22-2015, 02:41 PM	#2
wawasteele Addict Posts: 357 Karma: 656362 Join Date: Oct 2010 Location: California Device: 1st PW, Sansa Clip Zip, Samsungs: GT 7.0 Plus, Note4, GT 4 10.1"	I was concerned at first too. However, the state that I live in, California, is a member, so I quit worrying about it. Their ebooks are scans. The way I understand it, they (or one of their library members, like California) have the paper copy of the book. When it's scanned, the paper book is then put aside and not allowed to be used. I didn't know they loaned paper books. Where did you see that? They do list paper books and where they are available, but I thought they only loaned eformat.

07-22-2015, 02:41 PM	#3
rkomar Wizard Posts: 3,054 Karma: 18821071 Join Date: Oct 2010 Location: Sudbury, ON, Canada Device: PRS-505, PB 902, PRS-T1, PB 623, PB 840, PB 633	Could it be that they only allow one of the paper book or its digital copy to be checked out at any time? Maybe that's fair for a library. I don't know either. Edit: @wawasteele answered my question while I was frobbing my text.

07-22-2015, 03:26 PM	#4
gweeks Fanatic Posts: 509 Karma: 3455210 Join Date: Apr 2007 Device: Rocket, Nook ST, Kobo WiFi, Kindle PW	Pennsylvania is a member also. I've been using them for hard to get things that I had difficulty getting through ILL. It's hosted through the internet archive. Most of the books I've seen are in daisy format. Only some of them can be checked out through ADE. Greg

07-22-2015, 09:29 PM	#6
FizzyWater You kids get off my lawn! Posts: 4,220 Karma: 73492664 Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: Columbus, Ohio Device: Oasis 2 and Libra H2O and half a dozen older models I can't let go of	If you really want to read a book that's scanned in OpenLibrary - and you can't seem to find it anywhere else - you can download the PDF rather than the epub (for those that are available in epub). The books I've borrowed there (maybe 10 in total) always had both, and the PDF was the actual image scans. After trying to fumble through a particularly horrible epub scan, I tried the PDF and was able to read from that instead.

07-23-2015, 01:32 AM	#7
doubleshuffle Unicycle Daredevil Posts: 13,944 Karma: 185432100 Join Date: Jan 2011 Location: Planet of the Pudding Brains Device: Aura HD (R.I.P. After six years the USB socket died.) tolino shine 3	It sounds as if they give you the standard Internet Archive epubs. Those are made from raw OCR data, without any cleaning up or proofreading, so you will indeed be better off using the pdfs, as FizzyWater says. Any uploader to the MR library could tell you how much work you have to put into a set of raw OCR data before it turns into a presentable ebook. As to the question of copyright compliance: There are tons of stuff on the Internet Archive that shouldn't be there, but if copyrighted works are only on loan via Open Library and not for download through the Internet Archive, that should be ok, I guess?

07-23-2015, 04:29 AM	#8
cromag Surfin the alpha waves ~~ Posts: 26,283 Karma: 459765791 Join Date: Dec 2010 Location: New Jersey Device: Jetbook Lite & Mini, Nook STR, Kobo, Hanvon N516, Kindle 2, Androids	The only time I tried to use Openlibrary there was a significant wait for the title I wanted. I assume that means they really are trying to limit downloaded copies based on the originals the have on hand. I wound up not waiting for them. I was able to get a hard-copy of the book from my local library through an interlibrary loan without any significant wait.

07-26-2015, 02:48 PM	#10
tdonline Addict Posts: 309 Karma: 2644486 Join Date: Dec 2011 Device: PW3, Nook Simple Touch	Since they use scans, does that mean I am unable to modify the font size and styles? What if I downloaded the PDFs and used Calibre to turn them into ePubs? Openlibrary has some books that I can't even find as a hard copy from my library.

07-26-2015, 06:01 PM	#12
Rizla Member Retired Posts: 3,183 Karma: 11721895 Join Date: Nov 2010 Device: Nook STR (rooted) & Sony T2	Openlibrary only lend a single copy of a scanned copy one at a time. You can always get a full pdf scan drmed through ADE. It's a great resource. It was set up by Aaron Swartz. Thanks Aaron. RIP.

07-26-2015, 10:14 PM	#13
Barty doofus Posts: 2,549 Karma: 13089041 Join Date: Sep 2010 Device: Kobo Libra 2, Kindle Voyage	After a bit of reading, yes I think they are quite above board. I was wrong thinking what they are doing with ebooks was ethically murky. (Legally, I don't know; the publishers may challenge them yet.) I emailed and asked them if I could help correct an ebook, but they said they currently have no mechanism for doing that.

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