The Internet Archive refused to follow industry standards for ebook licensing, because they aren’t a library.
It’s worse than that. They did use “Controlled Digital Lending” to limit the number of people who can access a book at one time to something resembling the number of physical books that they had. And then they turned that restriction off because of the pandemic. There is no pandemic exception to copyright laws, even if that would make sense from a public health perspective to prevent people from having unnecessary contact at libraries. They screwed themselves and I can only hope that the Wayback Machine archives get a home somewhere else if they do go under.
It’s worse than that. They did use “Controlled Digital Lending” to limit the number of people who can access a book at one time to something resembling the number of physical books that they had. And then they turned that restriction off because of the pandemic. There is no pandemic exception to copyright laws, even if that would make sense from a public health perspective to prevent people from having unnecessary contact at libraries. They screwed themselves and I can only hope that the Wayback Machine archives get a home somewhere else if they do go under.