"IA lifted its one-to-one owned-to-loaned ratio, allowing its digital books to be checked out by up to 10,000 users at a time, without regard to the corresponding number of physical books in storage or in partner libraries’ possession―a practice IA acknowledges was a 'deviat[ion] from controlled digital lending.'"
No argument from me that copyright and fair use is broken (and exclusively in ways that inure to the benefit of enormous publishing houses), but the "National Emergency Library" thing was never going to fly, even if they had found a judge willing to stretch existing copyright law at the edges.
They were getting away with something because it seemed kind of reasonable. They were effectively letting one person effectively remotely view a physical book they owned.
But NEL threw all that out the window. And COVID was a pretty translucent fig leaf. It's not like there is any shortage of public domain works "for the children" out there even if copyright terms should be shorter.
No argument from me that copyright and fair use is broken (and exclusively in ways that inure to the benefit of enormous publishing houses), but the "National Emergency Library" thing was never going to fly, even if they had found a judge willing to stretch existing copyright law at the edges.