Controlled Digital Lending Is Neither Controlled nor Legal - The Authors Guild

" “Controlled Digital Lending” or “CDL” is a recently invented legal theory that allows libraries to justify the scanning (or obtaining of scans) of print books and e-lending those digital copies to users without obtaining authorization from the copyright owners. A position statement on CDL, along with an accompanying white paper, was issued this past October by legal scholars, the culmination of several academic meetings on the subject. The statement and paper argue that it is fair use for libraries to scan or obtain scans of physical books that they own and loan those books through e-lending technologies, provided they apply certain restrictions akin to physical library loans, such as lending only one copy (either the digital copy or the physical copy) at a time and only for a defined loan period.

A couple dozen organizations, including Internet Archive, as well as a number of academics and academic librarians, are listed as signing the position statement. Several major library systems, including the California State University libraries and the Boston and San Francisco public libraries, are signatories and apparently already rely on CDL to e-lend scanned copies of books...."