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I feel like the Internet Archive debate hits differently in countries like the US and UK, and countries like Hungary.

I do tons of academic research. The volumes needed to keep up with academia often run $100+ each. And unless I order them from overseas (delivery $30-50 each) there is no access to them. Several don't have a copy *on the entire continent* (few Hungarian libraries do international loan but it takes large amounts of money and months.)

I imagine many countries are even worse off.
Addendum:

1. One page of academic writing often requires 5+ of those books.

2. I still buy a whole lot of books (yep) and go to a whole lot of libraries.

3. Even university libraries have budgets.

4. Copyright is obviously still a thing.

#research #InternetArchive #books #writing #academia
Older folklore books are insanely expensive. When I was actually routinely in university libraries a lot more I felt the pressure and scarcity was very artificial. I think it's partly normalised because academic journal publishing is such a racket as well. People have no idea how much access you need to produce anything researched, because they're so used to google digested pap.
Also, for comparison:

When I was in the US, the university had free inter-library loan (that I greatly took advantage of). Once they got me a sigle copy of a rare folklore book. From Hawaii.
However they break copyright law on living authors, not just dead ones.. Some day they will share stuff you are selling for free.
Yes, copyright has been extended too much and some works are overpriced (or out of print, ignoring POD).
The solution is reform, not encouraging bandits..

Libraries in some countries have to buy an ebook licence and pay per loan royalty.

IA is arrogantly making their own rules.