on about books. we delve into the latest news about the publishing industry with interesting insider interviews with publishing industry experts. we'll also give you >> on about books, we delve into the latest news of the

publishing industry non-food aud copyright case.k non-food aud and now we want to introduce you to brewster kael. he is the founder of something you might be familiar with. it's called the internet archive. mr. kael, what is the purpose of the internet archive? the internet >> now we want to introduce you to brewster kl, he is the founder of something you might be familiar with, it is called the internet archive. mr. cale, what is the purpose of the internet archive? >> the internet archive is a nonprofit research library largely used over the internet by people trying to dive deeper into wikipedia articles by clicking through on the citations on the bottom and finding themselves on webpages that might have disappeared or on books right at the right page to be able to follow up and learn more. >> how many unique visitors do you have a day or per year?

>> per day, we got about 2 million people coming to the website, but about 5 million, and use the internet archive resources in one way or another. it is between the 200 or 300 most popular website. so, people actually want a library. >> and is it free? >> yes, everything is free on the internet archive. we collect webpages, books, music video, and the idea is this is free public access, and yes, you can borrow books, you can look at old webpages, it is a library. >> so, when you founded this in 1996, what was your thought behind it? >> the idea is to build universal access to all knowledge. could we go and make the digital library of alexander? could we actually make it so that people that are curious enough to want to have access to the public works of

humankind, they could get access to it. that was a promise when i was growing up, he walked into a library and they said we have everything, if we don't have it here, we will get it for you. that was the promise of the internet that i signed onto in 1980 to try to help build the internet into that. by '96, it was time to build the library. so, we have been building this library for the past 27 years. >> well, that was a recent headline on a website called the conversation, it said internet archives digital library has been found in breach of copyright. what is this about? >> so, what happened is we have been with about 100 other libraries directly, a couple hundred libraries have been lending digitized books since 2011. so, we tried to buy e-books, but it turns out that the big publishers will not sell e- books, which is really strange, we should go back into that. but because they will not sell

e-books to libraries, we are taking the physical books that we have, digitizing them, often from the 20th century long out- of-print, and we lend them to one reader at a time, so it is 26 possible readers a year, for one of the books that we own. and suddenly, this became a big trauma for the publishers in the early pandemic, the idea that people would be able to check out and 26 readers could see a particular book in a year. and they sued the internet archive. and at the district court level in new york, where they brought this, even though we are in california, i don't have anything to do with new york, the district court judge said that this is not right for us to do for books that are in publishers e-book collections that are licensed to libraries. >> well, mr. cale, there are a

couple things we want to break down there. first of all, why can't you get an e-book copy, a digitized copy of a book from a publisher? >> the internet archive for years and years has been trying to buy e-books. by them in the same sense that we would own a physical book, right? what librarians do is they buy, preserve, and lend, that's what they do. and the publishers are saying and the electronic world, you cannot buy an e-book, you cannot preserve an e-book, and you cannot land an e-book. that all of that is going to be controlled by them and under their terms. so, they won't allow you to buy, and they can take away or change electronic books at any time. so, what happens if you go to your public library and you think you are borrowing a book from your public library, an e- book? actually, what they're doing is shunting you to their database, the publisher, or overdrive which is controlled by the

publishers, and they get all that surveillance information about who is reading what and on what kids, and all of that. that is not in the tradition of library practices, so, we have tried to buy e-books, there are a few small publishers that will sell e-books, but very few. so basically, of the big libraries, they own nothing in the digital age, and that is atrocious. so, that is why we have had to go and do the awkward thing of acquiring physical books, storing those permanently, so we have a physical book that isn't circulating, digitalize it and lend it one reader at a time, using the same protections the publishers use further in work. for a dusty musty is sort of old, not very good scans. but this turns out to be extremely helpful to wikipedia users that want to go and to fact check. what we find is people use these books for about 30 seconds

to a couple minutes mostly. they basically go to a page, check it out, then they are done with it. it is like standing next to stacks in the library, that's what we are for, that is what we are, as a research library. it is not for beach reading. but this is what the publishers decided to make a massive lawsuit, for years and counting. now it is being appealed. it is extremely expensive to come up against the billion- dollar corporations as a nonprofit research library. >> how do you digitized books, what is the process? >> we acquire the books, we own them if it is a modern book, make sure that we don't have it already, so we tried to basically just do this once, so there is only one book that gets -- gets digitized, and the book is photographed, so a person turns the page, each page, goes click, click, raises and lowers

the glass so it is a nice ended, and click, click, petals through the book, and then they just check, they d sku, make sure all the page numbers are there, nothing is fuzzy, it costs tens of dollars per book to go and digitize books. then the physical book is preserved forever, which is an expensive investment, but books are worth it, and then we take the digital file and we make it available to the blind and dyslexic, so the major use of these books is to the blind and dyslexic. other uses available that we are allowed to do. for instance, interlibrary loan of the chapter or controlled digital landing, and tell this whole fight came up, it was going on for 10 years. everybody was happy with it, it seemed like it was all working. so, this is the way it is that we are using these, as well as

machine learning, people are going and trying to find the first uses of words and phrases and things like that, research purposes, all the flowers and shakespeare, that kind of research. how did women and blacks be pretrade in early 20th century fiction? those types of research questions that people are using the internet archive's book collections four point >> so, you use the number 26, what does that reference? >> that is two weeks. so, if somebody wants to read a book more than just a couple pages, where they sort of do it and hand it back, which is what happens, but if you want to go and compare it to something like going and parlaying a book from a public library that you are going to read, then you can check out a book for up to two weeks. and then you can try to renew it. but it means that there is basically 26 readers maximum per book.

and it turns out there are many, many, many fewer, because we are dealing with dusty musty is, we're dealing with the 20th century, we are dealing with the longtail of books. we never even put up the most recent five years of books, just to away from the publishers interest and to try and not trapped their ire, but their ire in the early pandemic came to light. >> so, brewster cale, do you consider the internet archive to be a community lending library in a sense? >> i think of it as a research library. so, there are different kinds of libraries. and it is not so much a lending library in the sense that people would take this and read the whole book, it is just not how we see people use the internet archive's collections. it is a research library that if you wanted to go and do some fact checks on a wikipedia article -- so, for instance, if

there is a recipe behind every webpage, say what fact or assertion makes it into the article? and the way that that tussle goes on is do you have a good citation and can you click on it? and if we want a strong wikipedia, which in this age of disinformation, you want to go and make it so that people can click and see and reference the claim, so that it will stand up in wikipedia. otherwise, it will just be on whatever blog post you can get a hold of, and we know that that is being actively poisoned by very well-funded institutions, such as states. so, the internet archive is a research library. >> so, brewster cale, if i have been on wikipedia and i click one of the citations, chances are i have used the internet archive?

>> well, we have also fixed 17 million broken links in wikipedia, so yes, you have probably used the way back machine. we go all over wikipedia, try to find the links, see which ones are either massively changed or deleted, and we fixed 17 million broken links. and we have now 1 million links and wikipedia that go to over 250,000 books, which foundations and individuals funded us to go and acquire those books and digitize them and weave them back into wikipedia to make wikipedia stronger. it is not all just wikipedia. we have tremendous collections of theological information, because seminarians are largely becoming decentralized or going out of business, and so, they have donated a lot of theological materials, a lot of historic materials, a lot of things that are used by genealogists and the like. so, that is the type of use

that we tend to see. >> how do you monetize this? >> we don't at all, zero, none. so, we are a nonprofit. we do accept donations, so there is a little hard on archive.org, and about 110,000 people go and contribute to wants. and actually, more are contributing now because we are being attacked by these large- scale publishers and other trolls. so, libraries are really under attack everywhere. so, we have politicians advocating book bans, we have legislators now going and defunding libraries. we had these large-scale publisher corporations, billion- dollar megacorporations that are suing not just the internet archive, but they sued maryland state for going and having the audacity to pass a law, saying that publishers have to go and

give reasonable licensing deals to libraries. so, they sued maryland. and there are suing the internet archive. and so, we are seeing library is under attack. and what's happening as we now have a digital world, and if you just have one copy on publishers, they can change and delete it at any time. it is actively happening. they have changed agatha christie. there are other books that are famous from wiley that were just taken off of academic bookshelves that teachers were teaching with point so, we basically have two an e-book

world where it is basically a netflix of books. it will have greatest hits, and it is not what libraries are designed and funded four point >> this is a statement by terrance hart, the general counsel of american publishers, "there is simply no legal support for the notion that internet archive or a library may convert millions of e-books from print books for public distribution without the consent of, or compensation to come the authors and publishers. copyright, not infringement, is the engine of creativity that serves the public interest." >> so, i don't think he is right. libraries have been buying publishers products forever. as long as there have been publishers. and even before there were publishers, libraries built collections and let them out.

this is the same thing in the digital world. it is very constrained. it is only one copy that is available to everyone, so it is an extremely constrained world. that has been going on now for 10 years by hundreds of libraries. and especially in the beginning of the pandemic when all the libraries closed, we had all of this investment not able to be seen in the physical form. so, going and digitizing these and making them available is not only fair use, it is good public policy, it is along the traditional what libraries do, and how libraries have supported publishers and authors forever. in the united states where 12 billion-dollar industry library system, about three or $4 billion of that goes to publishers products. it is basically a social support structure for about 20% of the trade books on -- distributed in the united states.

it is what the library system is. if we crush the library system and say you can't buy anything and you can't go and make your old, even out-of-print works, and make those available, we will see what's going on, which is people turn on the libraries, they will become defunded more and more, and the libraries, which support the longtail of authors, right? we buy everything, how do we go and have that support if the publishers have their way, which is basically just a netflix of books? >> brewster cale, you used the term fair use, what does that mean when it comes to copyright law? >> fair use is a part of the -- basically says yes, there are copyrights, but there are exemptions that are fair use, they are okay to do. so, for instance, when the same publishers went and sued google

over there process, the judge said, it is fair use. there digitizing these books, making them available as snippets, that is fair use. there are lots of different fair use court cases. it is one of the escape follows on the sort of absurd the too much control that was put in place in the united states in 1976. before that, the copywriter ben franklin, renewable once, and derivative works, no problem. so, we had a long tradition in this country, until it was really screwed down in 1976, and fair use, and specific exemptions for libraries to be able to offer -- land. those are written into copyright law, and are now being challenged in the courts by these billion-dollar corporations.

i have learned a lot about what happens when billion-dollar corporations go after small nonprofits, it is a very tilted environment. i think we all read about what happens if you are poor or a minority, but the same kind of tilt of the justice system comes into play if you are a small nonprofit. >> so, you mentioned you are not a lawyer, what is your background? >> i am a librarian. so, i started out as a computer scientist. and i learned that technology, but the idea was i saw the opportunity that the internet would become, the library that we had been promising for a long time. the library of congress on your desk or ted nelson or what became of tim berners-lee vision of the world wide web. we could actually make that come true with this technology. so, i went to library school, took class there, and i actually honorary degrees, i am kind of happy about. specifically in the library

world. but then really went to build this -- the internet into a library that can make it so that anybody, anywhere can learn , if they are curious enough to want to have access. this is not what the publishers are trying to have happen, but that's what libraries are for. we have our carnegie moment now, to go and make it so that dream of public education could be made more broadly available to people with disabilities, that didn't have access to libraries , or just wanted to have access digitally. we can do that fairly without impacting the publishers. during this whole lawsuit, they never even claimed there was a financial problem for them at all. 26 readers a year of a book, is that really going to cause damage? it often actually helps, but it is 26 readers a year. so, they never claimed any

damages. and so, it is just sort of the clerk of the united states copyright law that has been influenced heavily by these billion-dollar corporations over the course of decades to make it so they can stomp on libraries. >> and brewster kahle, how do you store your physical books that you have acquired? >> those are carefully contained, they are not on shelves, accessible, but we know where everyone is in a physical archive building that is filled with boxes of books. and it is now millions of them, because libraries are deaccessioning. so, it is not like you can just go back to your library and get some of these books, because people want the space back for having meetings or maker labs or 3-d printing and things like that, so libraries are deaccessioning and a deaccessioning often to a nonprofit bookstore called better world books, and then they donate to us and to books

for africa and other places, or they go and directly. we have the funding to preserve these physical books for decades, and we have been and it is working. and going into the library system and making these treasures that are what people spent their lives writing available to somebody, even if it is just 26 readers a year, that, i think, is a worthwhile investment and it has turned out to be very useful, especially for you research purposes. >> brewster kahle is the founder and digital librarian of internet archive.org. mr. brewster kahle, thank you for your time. in that my name is rachel olsen and i'm the director of education, and we are standing

in front of the burlington depot in red cloud, nebraska, where the railroad arrived in 1879. later, the burlington depot became a stop on the main line between kansas city and denver for the railroad. this is also an important stop for homesteaders traveling to nebraska, a busy depot that saw up to eight passenger trains daily, this is where anna and willow in 1883 arrived to start their lives on the divider. we are standing in front of the house built in 1878 and just a block away from the childhood home. as a child, they would have spent a lot of time in this house, both because she was good friends with the minor children, and julia miner, the family matriarch, and also got to know their domestic worker, anna, who worked here as a

teenager. willow would have gotten to know anna and her experiences as part of an immigrant family trying to homestead on the planes, and is later inspired the famous novel, my antennae up. if you walk inside the minor home, he will see a parlor, followed by formal dining room, and he will also walk through there into the kitchen, where there is a small bedroom that anna stayed in when she was employed by the miner family. you would also see a hallway that served as a parlor for julia miner to entertain guests, this is where she played piano. and you would also see julia and mr. minor's bedroom, that also served as mr. minor's office. red cloud really developed in kind of the 20 years that would have included her childhood here, so from the 1880s to the turn-of-the-century.

she herself would have witnessed a town in the making, so the businesses and services that we take for granted as always being available in our hometown or in our community, were still sort of in development as she grew up, and that evolution of the town made a strong impression on her that later came out in her writing. we are standing in front of the farmstead, and we are about 60 miles north of red cloud in webster county, nebraska. this is where anna and john raised their 10 children and where they farmed, and this is also the site where willow and anna were reunited in 1916, during a visit she paid to nebraska. this visit proved to be very important, it served as sort of inspiration for her to write my antennae out, which was published two years later, and

many of the beautiful final scenes that you read are set at this farmstead. this farmstead is far different from the dugouts that many homesteaders lived in in the early 1880s, just like anna did with her family. but it is a great representation of the larger homesteading culture and immigrant farm life that she endeavored to capture in her novel. >> [ music ] i'm guessing that n

didn't expect to be here today,n i'm also guessing that he didn't expect to be on speaking circuit, let alone write a book. and he's been saying in >> i'm guessing that harry done didn't expect to be