The emergency library wasn't what publishers sued over. They used it perhaps as a rhetorical cover but what they were actually suing to prevent is IA offering digital versions of scanned hardcopy books.
With IA's loss, publishers get to control the way libraries lend digital media because you can't take a hardcopy and legally "scan" it into a digital copy, so the only way to get a digital copy for lending is as a DRMed product from a publisher that does things like, for instance, expire after a certain number of loans.
Publishers considered scanned digital copies controlled by libraries to be a threat to their monetization efforts surrounding digital lending and they would eventually have sued IA regardless of the emergency library.
Moreover, the DRMed digital lending schemes that the publishers are "offering" libraries are very expensive compared to what a hardcover copy of the same work would have been, and publishers are increasingly vacuuming up libraries' entire budgets with excessive digital lending fees.
It's been observed that libraries would be illegal if they didn't already exist, and I think we're starting to walk down the road where they are illegal in the digital world.
> It's been observed that libraries would be illegal if they didn't already exist, and I think we're starting to walk down the road where they are illegal in the digital world.
I believe this is the crux of the attack by publishers. They don't want libraries to be able to buy books and lend them out. They want libraries to pay a huge monthly fee for every book lent.
All this could be avoided with some sensible legislation. Publishers should be prohibited from taking advantage of libraries, and some minimal compensation scheme should be offered for digital lending. Of course, that's not what companies want. It is the wild west of modern capitalism.
With IA's loss, publishers get to control the way libraries lend digital media because you can't take a hardcopy and legally "scan" it into a digital copy, so the only way to get a digital copy for lending is as a DRMed product from a publisher that does things like, for instance, expire after a certain number of loans.
Publishers considered scanned digital copies controlled by libraries to be a threat to their monetization efforts surrounding digital lending and they would eventually have sued IA regardless of the emergency library.
Moreover, the DRMed digital lending schemes that the publishers are "offering" libraries are very expensive compared to what a hardcover copy of the same work would have been, and publishers are increasingly vacuuming up libraries' entire budgets with excessive digital lending fees.
It's been observed that libraries would be illegal if they didn't already exist, and I think we're starting to walk down the road where they are illegal in the digital world.