protectable materials. Genealogical works, for example, or un-illustrated cookbooks may tend to include many materials unprotected by copyright. Similarly, works that incorporate significant quantities of U.S. government authored works (which are unprotectable in the United States)[1] may also be targeted under the same rationale.
V.Conclusion
Controlled digital lending offers an incredible opportunity for opening up access to library collections. The Statement illustrates a growing list of libraries and librarians who support CDL as a concept. We acknowledge that law is not entirely settled. There are no cases directly on point, and some contrary authority in the context of commercial activities. Yet, there are strong arguments supported by caselaw for why CDL, appropriately tailored to reflect physical market conditions, should be permissible under existing law under the doctrine of fair use. We conclude that a library is acting within fair use if it digitizes and lends to users the full text of a copyrighted book, provided it does so within carefully implemented limits and safeguards (i.e. all the controls identified in the Statement), and provided that the library’s primary purpose for making and using the digitized book is limited to uses that are within the distribution and related rights that all libraries have under the first sale doctrine, as applicable to the original book in the collection.
- ↑ 17 U.S.C. § 105 (2018).
