The argument is more along the lines of, negotiating with millions of individuals each over a single copy of a work would cause the transaction costs to exceed the payments, and that kind of efficiency loss is the sort of thing fair use exists to prevent. It's not socially beneficial for the law to require you to create $2 in deadweight loss in order to transfer $1, and the cost to the author of not selling a single additional copy is not the thing they were really objecting to.
I used to order books in English from the US before shipping costs became prohibitive and the cost of shipping the book went to about twice to thrice the cost of the book itself. Is it fair use for me to download books from Anna's Archive now considering that books in English are not available in my region through other means (including the vast majority of ebooks)?
Rhetorical question, we all know that me reading books is not "transformative" so it won't be considered fair use for me to yoink them (transformative as in transforming more damage to the society at large into more money for the already rich).
What do you mean by "negotiating"? They can buy the books in paperback form from Amazon. And for e-books available for sale without DRM, they get to skip the cutting and scanning part.
If the book is out of print, then tough luck. That's not a license to infringe on the publisher's copyright. If we're not ok with that, we have legislative means to change that. A judge shouldn't be rewriting law in that manner.
I love this argument so much. "But judge, there's no way I could ever afford to buy those jewels, so stealing them must be OK."
The argument is more along the lines of, negotiating with millions of individuals each over a single copy of a work would cause the transaction costs to exceed the payments, and that kind of efficiency loss is the sort of thing fair use exists to prevent. It's not socially beneficial for the law to require you to create $2 in deadweight loss in order to transfer $1, and the cost to the author of not selling a single additional copy is not the thing they were really objecting to.
I used to order books in English from the US before shipping costs became prohibitive and the cost of shipping the book went to about twice to thrice the cost of the book itself. Is it fair use for me to download books from Anna's Archive now considering that books in English are not available in my region through other means (including the vast majority of ebooks)?
Rhetorical question, we all know that me reading books is not "transformative" so it won't be considered fair use for me to yoink them (transformative as in transforming more damage to the society at large into more money for the already rich).
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That's right, so I can't individually discuss terms with each and every media creator, so from now on, I can just pirate everything.
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They can. That's how any media service from Spotify to Netflix to Audible have to do things.
They simply don't want to and think they can skirt the law while the judges catch up.
What do you mean by "negotiating"? They can buy the books in paperback form from Amazon. And for e-books available for sale without DRM, they get to skip the cutting and scanning part.
If the book is out of print, then tough luck. That's not a license to infringe on the publisher's copyright. If we're not ok with that, we have legislative means to change that. A judge shouldn't be rewriting law in that manner.
> and that kind of efficiency loss is the sort of thing fair use exists to prevent.
No it's not. And you ever heard of a publishing house? They don't need to negotiate with every single author individually. That's preposterous.
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I don't even think their argument is about the money, I think it's more like we couldn't possibly find all these works in any other practical way.