'Emergency' Online Library Draws Ire of Some Authors - The New York Times

As Panzer was tootling around in the Catosphere today, he decided to make a stop at The New York Times site. There he found a post about the Internet Archive's "National Library Emergency" declaration. Panzer told you about this so called 'Emergency' a couple of days ago.

According to the post by Alexandra Alter, the Internet Archive (IA) has 1.4 million digital books online. All those ebooks are available for anybody to "check out" for free. Some authors have found that without their permission their books were available on IA. These authors have been asking to have their books removed and most have been, although one author reported scanned copies were still available. It turns out IA has been scanning books and turning them into digital books without telling the authors or publishers what the company was doing. Authors and author groups see this as copyright infringement; however, IA says its not because they call themselves a library and scan donated and bought books.

We get our ebooks from the local library.

Panzer says, "This little kitty is wondering, since my local library system (King County Library System) here in western Wshington is advertising on television that you can check out ebooks and audio books from them online, what is the Internet Archive's emergency?"

Note: This is a long post. Bring two cups of tea and three muffins for today's reading selection.

To read the post tootle over to Internet Archive

To read Panzer's previous post about IA's Emergency declaration tootle over to Authors Guild outraged