successfully utilized a unique CDL-like system for the past 8 years.[1] Multiple libraries have now harnessed the same CDL system and partnered with Internet Archive to loan their digital copies of books. These partners include large library systems such as the Boston Public Library, to smaller specialized libraries such as the Allen County Public Library, which houses the largest genealogical collection of any public library in the country.[2] And, most recently, Georgetown Law Library launched its own CDL service.[3]
At its core, CDL is about replicating with digital lending the legal and economically significant aspects of physical lending. To do so, we libraries must truly exercise control in the process. The Statement identifies six specific requirements to do so. It states that for CDL, libraries should:
(1) ensure that original works are acquired lawfully;
(2) apply CDL only to works that are owned and not licensed;
(3) limit the total number of copies in any format in circulation at any time to the number of physical copies the library lawfully owns (maintain an “owned to loaned” ratio);
(4) lend each digital version only to a single user at a time just as a physical copy would be loaned;
(5) limit the time period for each lend to one that is analogous to physical lending; and
(6) use digital rights management to prevent wholesale copying and redistribution.
Our principal legal argument for controlled digital lending is that fair use—an “equitable rule of reason”[4]—permits libraries to do online what they have always done with physical collections under the first sale doctrine: lend books. The first sale doctrine, codified in Section 109 of the Copyright Act, provides that anyone who legally acquires a copyrighted work from the copyright holder receives the right to sell, display, or otherwise dispose of that particular copy, notwithstanding the interests of the copyright owner. This is how libraries loan books. Additionally, fair use ultimately asks, “whether the copyright law’s goal
- ↑ See Open Library, https://openlibrary.org (last visited Sept. 13, 2018). See also Geoffrey A. Fowler, Libraries Have a Novel Idea, Wall St. J. (June 29, 2010), https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748703279704575335193054884632.
- ↑ Internet Archive, Digital Lending Library, Internet Archive Blogs (June 28, 2010), https://blog.archive.org/2010/06/28/digital-lending-library [https://perma.cc/R4A2-QUW6].
- ↑ American Association of Law Libraries, Transforming Our Libraries from Analog to Digital: A Vision For 2020, American Association of Law Libraries Webinar, https://www.aallnet.org/recording/transforming-libraries-analog-digital-vision-2020/ [https://perma.cc/Q9AB-AEW4].
- ↑ H.R. Rep. No 94-1476, 94th Cong., 2d Sess 65 (1976).
