It lending done flagrantly in violation of the licensing. They were taking a copy licensed to be lent ONCE and giving it to thousands of people at once.

You’re confusing the COVID “emergency lending” period (which was highly dubious, I agree) with their normal lending system. They track borrows against physical copies of the books stored in their warehouse. Typically you can only borrow a book for one hour before having to renew in the viewer.

Under discovery in the case it turned out that nope, they weren't doing that right either.

True, but the judge's conclusion was "Even full enforcement of a one-to-one owned-to-loaned ratio . . . would not excuse IA’s reproduction of the Works in Suit." So even if they had done it right, this wouldn't have gone their way.

their lending scheme is timed by hour with the option to renew with some restraints, it is not lending to thousands at once

Then why did they just get their ass royally handed to them in court?

Serious answer: it was judged that the act of scanning and delivering the book was ‘copying’ it - which copyright laws say they need permission to do. The whole ‘we only let one person at a time read it’ thing was deemed to be irrelevant.

Note that I’m not commenting on whether a reasonable person would also interpret copyright law this way, or on whether the laws are fair, just what the judgment was.

Because publishers are assholes.

Are all "rich monopolists" the same?

Because they didn’t pay publishers for separate “ebook” licenses.

Because the justice and political systems, particularly in regards to copyright, are deeply corrupt.

Because billion-dollar capitalist rent-seeking bullies got their panties in a wad and threatened to bankrupt them with legal fees that the bullies wouldn’t even feel if they lost. And the archive is just a non-profit that were offering a not-for-profit service for the betterment of society, with literally zero actual negative consequences.

Trying to normalize a DRM system is not advancing the betterment of society. If IA wanted to be pro-social scofflaws, they should have published DRM-free epubs/PDFs/etc for download, copyright law be damned. If they wanted to be law-abiding, they should have declined to offer this service, and informed users of the existence of shadow libraries.

> taking a copy licensed

I'm curious what license applies when I buy a physical book, as a library does? Do you have a resource where I could learn more?

doctrine of first sale, it's a really interesting concept in the United States at least.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-sale_doctrine