• Forum Auctions
    Colour Plate Books from the Library of Norman Bobins
    Part 2
    27th March 2024
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Alken (Henry). Sporting Notions, first edition, T.McLean, 1832-33. £800 to £1,200.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Bardi (Lorenzo). Nuova Raccolta delle piu interessanti Vedute della Citta di Firenze…, Florence, Lorenzo Bardi, [c.1840]. £1,500 to £2,000.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Crawfurd (John). Journal of an Embassy from the Governor-General of India to the Court of Ava..., first edition, 1829. £1,000 to £1,500.
    Forum Auctions
    Colour Plate Books from the Library of Norman Bobins
    Part 2
    27th March 2024
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Dawe (George, engraver). The Life of a Nobleman, first edition, Geo. Henderson, [c.1825]. £1,000 to £1,500.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: [Doyle (John)], "H.B.". Political Sketches &c., 10 vol. including The Descriptive Key to H.B., Thomas McLean, [1829-51]. £4,000 to £6,000.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Eben (Adolphus Christian Frederick, Baron von) and Nicolaus Heideloff. Modèles de l'Uniforme Militaire Adopté dans l'Armée Royale de Suède, Rudolph Ackerman, 1808. £1,500 to £2,000.
    Forum Auctions
    Colour Plate Books from the Library of Norman Bobins
    Part 2
    27th March 2024
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Geissler (J.G.G.) and Friedrich Hempel. Mahlerische Darstellungen der Sitten, Gebrauche und Lustbarkeiten bey den Russischen, Tartarischen…, 4 parts in 1, Leipzig and Paris, [1804]. £1,000 to £1,500.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Hunt (Charles). Portraits of Winning Horses...of the Derby, Oaks, & St. Leger, from the Year 1842 to 1849…, Rock Brothers & Payne, 1849. £1,500 to £2,000.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Kunike (Adolf Friedrich). Zwey hundert und sechzig Donau-Ansichten nach dem Laufe des Donaustromes…, Vienna, Leopold Grund, 1826. £3,000 to £5,000.
    Forum Auctions
    Colour Plate Books from the Library of Norman Bobins
    Part 2
    27th March 2024
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Lasinio (Carlo). [Matrimony], Florence, 1790. £1,500 to £2,000.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Reinhardt (Joseph). A Collection of Swiss Costumes, in Miniature, second English edition, James Goodwin, [1828]. £800 to £1,200.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Wengen (Gottfried Durst von). Die Öffentliche Maskerade Bamberg am Fastnachts-Montage 1833…, Bamberg, [1833]. £2,000 to £3,000.
  • Sotheby’s
    Modern First Editions
    Available for Immediate Purchase
    Sotheby’s, Available Now: Winston Churchill. The Second World War. Set of First-Edition Volumes. 6,000 USD
    Sotheby’s, Available Now: A.A. Milne, Ernest H. Shepard. A Collection of The Pooh Books. Set of First-Editions. 18,600 USD
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    Sotheby’s, Available Now: Ian Fleming. Live and Let Die. First Edition. 9,500 USD
    Sotheby’s, Available Now: J.K. Rowling. Harry Potter Series. Finely Bound First Printing Set of Complete Series. 5,650 USD
    Sotheby’s, Available Now: Ernest Hemingway. A Farewell to Arms. First Edition, First Printing. 4,200 USD
  • Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A RUTH BADER GINSBURG BEADED JUDICIAL COLLAR. $80,000 - $120,000
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: ONLY KNOWN COPY OF THE ONLY BOOK BY THE REMARKABLE EVE ADAMS. $8,000 - $12,000
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A COMPLETE RUN OF VISIONAIRE MAGAZINE THROUGH 2010. $6,000 - $9,000
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: LAW REVIEW OFFPRINT SIGNED AND INSCRIBED BY RUTH BADER GINSBURG. $3,000 - $5,000
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: META REBNER'S WORKING SCRIPT OF THE LOVED ONE. $1,500 - $2,000
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A KATHY GROVE PORTRAIT OF CYNDI LAUPER FOR THE FEBRUARY 1989 DETAILS COVER. $800 - $1,200
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A PLASTIC COAT BY MILLIE DAVID FEATURED IN SOHO NEWS STYLE SECTION, FROM THE COLLECTION OF ANNIE FLANDERS. $500 - $700
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A RUTH BADER GINSBURG JEWELRY BOX. $600 - $900
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A SET OF JONI MITCHELL LYRICS FOR "IF I HAD A HEART." $2,000 - $3,000
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    19th Century Shop. Darwin and Wallace, first printing of the first paper on natural selection
    19th Century Shop. Shakespeare’s Poems, first collected edition
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    19th Century Shop. Major Elizabeth Barrett Browning manuscript notebook
    19th Century Shop. Spock's Baby Book, original MS
    19th Century Shop. Cellarius, Harmonia Macrocosmica, the great celestial atlas

Rare Book Monthly

Articles - May - 2020 Issue

Is it a Good Deed During Troubled Times, or Book Piracy? The Internet Archive vs. the Authors Guild

Was this a good deed to help students in particular when they are locked out of their schools in the time of the coronavirus, or a blatant stealing of authors' copyrighted works with no payment in return? It depends on your point of view. According to the Internet Archive, this is a public service. The Authors Guild sees it in a very different light.

 

The Internet Archive is a nonprofit website that provides free information. Its most notable service, and it is a fantastic one at that, is the Wayback Machine. It lets you look at websites as they appeared on earlier dates. You cannot hide your past from the Wayback Machine. However, they also offer a sort of online library. You can borrow electronic books from the Internet Archive's library, but they aren't the typical ebooks you would take out from your local library, or buy from Amazon. They are more like the electronic books you can read on Google Books. They are scans of pages from a printed book, rather than a true electronic book. You see a picture of the page from the printed book, rather than pages created digitally.

 

As such, the Internet Archive is not purchasing their ebooks from the publisher, and paying fees or royalties to them, at least some of which, presumable, makes its way to the author. They lend the books as they would a printed copy, rather than through a license like an electronic copy. A library simply buys a printed book, or is given a copy by some kind donor, and then loans that copy to others. What the Internet Archive normally does is take a scan of books they have purchased or been given, and loan the scan out as if it was the physical copy. As such, they normally only lend out one scan per book, and cannot lend their electronic copy to another until the last borrower has returned it. Only if they have multiple copies of a book will they lend out more than one copy, that number being equal to the number of physical copies they possess.

 

What is the Internet Archive's justification for lending these digitized printed books without paying a fee? It is the legal doctrine that allows libraries to lend physical copies, or allows you to lend a book you purchased to a friend, or sell it to someone else when you are done with it. It is called “fair use,” and it is a long-established legal principle. It says once you have purchased a book, you are free to do what you want with it without paying anything more to the copyright holder. This excludes, of course, making copies and selling/giving away those to others. Copying is a copyright violation. Since they are (normally) only lending digital copies equal to the number of hard copies they own, and have a right to loan, the Internet Archive argues that they are, in effect, lending their printed copy and therefore are covered by the “fair use” doctrine.

 

Not surprisingly, the Authors Guild does not accept this interpretation of the fair use doctrine. They believe that applies only to the printed books, and photocopying a book is still copying, and lending the photocopy instead is theft of an author's work. We will leave it to legal scholars, and perhaps eventually the courts, to decide this one. You may be wondering how Google gets away with this for their Google Books. Google limits their complete scans to older books that are out of copyright protection. For newer ones, they have reached an agreement with publishers and authors and only display a portion of their in-copyright books.

 

While the authors group was already highly displeased with what the Internet Archive had done, the stuff really hit the fan a few weeks ago when the the Archive did something especially generous for their readers during the time of the coronavirus epidemic. They call it the “National Emergency Library.” They eliminated the requirement that they not lend out more digital copies than they possessed of physical copies. The argument that this is “fair use” as they are lending no more electronic copies than they physically possess just went out the window. It is hard to see this as being more than copying someone's copyrighted work and handing it out to others. That sounds essentially the same as a pirated edition.

 

The Internet Archive provides some justifications for their behavior. The claims are based on this being the right, ethical thing to do, that it is a temporary measure only for the duration of the crisis, that the impact on authors is de minimus. These sorts of arguments may make the motivations of the Archive more sympathetic, but they don't address the legality of what is being done. They point out that many libraries, as recommended by the Board of the American Library Association, have been closed due to the virus. The Internet Archive is simply stepping in to provide the books library patrons would be borrowing locally in normal times without further compensation to the publishers and authors. They point out that this is particularly important to students, schooling from home, but not having access to the books they need from school or public libraries. The Internet Archive says that most of their books are not recent bestsellers, but rather, are books designed to promote education that were printed between the 1920s (when copyright protection begins) through the early 2000s. They claim 90% of the books are at least ten years old.

 

Other arguments include their statistics showing that the majority of books borrowed are viewed for less than 30 minutes. They believe this means that most viewers are looking at these books as if they were pulled off a library shelf, checking to see if it has pertinent information, and discovering it either does not, or what they seek is something small. The Archive also points out that this is a temporary, emergency action. They will go back to only loaning the number of copies of a book for which they have a physical copy at the end of June, or later only if the epidemic continues beyond that date. Finally, they point out that authors can opt to have their books removed from the Internet Archive's lending library.

 

These may be worthy points, but don't address the legality of what they are doing, or perhaps even fully its morality, considering that what they are generously giving away belongs to someone else. You cannot give away someone else's property no matter how worthy the cause or recipient. That is still theft. This is true even if it is older property, or not of particularly high value. Besides which, the Authors Guild notes that many writers are also in low income brackets and cannot afford to have others giving their work away. As to the option to opt out, that is nice, but I don't have to tell you in advance not to steal from me in order to legally prevent you from stealing from me. You must ask my permission to take my property first, not the other way around.

 

One can argue whether a crisis such as we currently face morally justifies temporarily lifting the monetary rights of authors and publishers. We can legitimately debate whether the “fair use” doctrine enables us legally to make a photocopy of a book and lend that out instead of the physical copy so long as we own a printed copy. What seems harder to argue is that it is legal (even if we believe it is moral) to do what the Internet Archive is doing, lending out more photocopies than they possess of hard copies. As to what if anything the authors will do, that is another question. They could take the matter to court, but courts do not work with haste. By the time they decide, it is likely the coronavirus will have disappeared, or we all will have died from it.


Posted On: 2020-05-02 11:30
User Name: PeterReynolds

I assumed that there would be a (tiny) payment to the author, just as there would if a person borrowed a book from a public library in the United Kingdom, Canada, etc, etc. I'm surprised that the USA does not operate such a system. Maybe Archive.org could create an ad-supported or very small subscription system?


Posted On: 2020-05-02 11:32
User Name: PeterReynolds

Also.... in at least some cases Archive.org. is scanning ancient free or near-free copies of in-copyright books, rather than buying books at full price as public libraries do. Hmmm...


Rare Book Monthly

  • Potter & Potter Auctions
    How History Unfolds on Paper:
    Choice Selections from the Eric C. Caren Collection
    Part IX
    April 18, 2024
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: [RUTH, George Herman “Babe” (1895-1948)]. Signed photograph. Circa 1930s. 191 x 248 mm. $1,500 to $2,500.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: HARRISON, Benjamin. Document signed (“Benj Harrison”) as governor of Virginia, certifying the service of Daniel Cumbo, a Black Revolutionary soldier. $6,000 to $9,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: ONE OF THE FIRST PRINTED ANNOUNCEMENTS OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. $4,000 to $6,000.
    Potter & Potter Auctions
    How History Unfolds on Paper:
    Choice Selections from the Eric C. Caren Collection
    Part IX
    April 18, 2024
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: FIRST PRINTING OF LINCOLN’S IMMORTAL GETTYSBURG ADDRESS. $4,000 to $6,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: HIGHLY IMPORTANT MORMON ARCHIVE. ALLEY, George. Archive of 23 Autograph Letters Signed by Mormon Convert George Alley to His Brother Joseph Alley. $10,000 to $20,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: [AVIATION]. [ARMSTRONG, Neil A.] Aviation Hall of Fame Gold Medal MS64 NGC, Awarded to Neil Armstrong in 1979. $2,000 to $3,000.
    Potter & Potter Auctions
    How History Unfolds on Paper:
    Choice Selections from the Eric C. Caren Collection
    Part IX
    April 18, 2024
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: NEWLY DISCOVERED FIRST PRINTING OF "WITH MALICE TOWARDS NONE... " FROM THE ONLY NEWSPAPER ACTUALLY ALLOWED TO PARTICIPATE IN LINCOLN’S SECOND INAUGURAL PROCESSION. $4,000 to $8,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: THE MOST IMPORTANT GEORGE WASHINGTON DOCUMENT IN PRIVATE HANDS; GEORGE WASHINGTON’S COMMISSION AS COMMANDER IN CHIEF, 1775, ONE OF ONLY TWO ORIGINALS. $150,000 to $250,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: A VERY RARE ACCOUNT OF BLACKBEARD’S DEATH AND ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT PIRATE ITEMS EXTANT. $3,000 to $5,000.
    Potter & Potter Auctions
    How History Unfolds on Paper:
    Choice Selections from the Eric C. Caren Collection
    Part IX
    April 18, 2024
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: EDISON, Thomas. Patent for Edison’s Improvements on the Electric-Light, No. 219,628. [Washington, D.C.: U.S. Patent Office], 16 September 1879. $2,000 to $3,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: [VIETNAM WAR]. The original pen used by Secretary of State William P. Rogers to sign the Vietnam Peace Agreement, Paris, 27 January 1973. $10,000 to $15,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: SONS OF LIBERTY FOUNDER COLONEL BARRÉ ANNOTATED TITLE-PAGE, “WHICH OUGHT TO ROUSE UP BRITISH ATTENTION”. $4,000 to $6,000.
  • Forum Auctions
    Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    28th March 2024
    Forum Mar. 28: [Langland (William)]. The vision of Pierce Plowman, nowe the seconde time imprinted..., Roberte Crowley, 1550. £8,000 to £10,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: [Shakespeare (William)]. [Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies], second folio edition, [by Tho.Cotes, for Robert Allot], [1632]. £30,000 to £40,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Bible, Czech Biblia Bohemica, first complete Bible printed in the Czech vernacular, Prague, August 1488. £30,000 to £40,000.
    Forum Auctions
    Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    28th March 2024
    Forum Mar. 28: Shabthai Tzvi.- Collection of four printed and illustrated broadsides detailing the appearance, rise and fall of the false messiah, Shabthai Tzvi, Augsburg, 1666-67. £40,000 to £60,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Leaf from the Beauvais Missal, in Latin, illuminated manuscript on parchment, [Northern France (perhaps Beauvais or Amiens)], [fourteenth century (c.1310)]. £4,000 to £6,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Aubrey (John). [Remaines of Gentilisme and Judaisme], manuscript in English, Latin and Greek, [c. 1693]. £30,000 to £50,000.
    Forum Auctions
    Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    28th March 2024
    Forum Mar. 28: Byron (George Gordon Noel, Lord). Poems on Various Occasions, first edition, Harriet Maltby's copy, Newark, Printed by S. & J. Ridge, 1807. £30,000 to £40,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Tolkien (J.R.R.) The Hobbit, first edition, second impression with dust-jacket, 1937 [but 1938]. £7,000 to £10,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Blake (William).- Thornton (Robert John). The Pastorals of Virgil, 2 vol., engraved plates by William Blake, 1821. £8,000 to £12,000.
    Forum Auctions
    Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    28th March 2024
    Forum Mar. 28: America.- Mount (William J.) & Thomas Page. The English Pilot…, [bound with] The Fourth Book, describing The West Indies Navigation from Hudson's-Bay to the River Amazones, 1721. £20,000 to £30,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Oldfield (Henry Ambrose), Rajman Singh Chitrakar & others. An album of 160 photographs and 13 original artworks, (1833-1919), [c. 1850s-1880s]. £20,000 to £30,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Audubon (John James) [and William MacGillivray]. Ornithological Biography…, 5 vol., first edition, presentation copy inscribed by Audubon, Edinburgh, 1831-49 [i.e. 1831-39]. £10,000 to £15,000.

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