Super selfish of Anna's Archive to mention this. "Look what we did!" with zero thought to the consequences for others.

> the consequences for others.

The only people facing consequences are the license-holders. Online lending libraries aren't missing a copy now that AA archived it, and there's not really a substantial cost to the hosters in network bandwidth.

Am I missing something here? As a user I don't empathize with anyone but the archivers.

IA can be painted in court as an “unwilling enabler” of something like Anna’s Archive, instead of a regular library

If I go to the public library, check out a movie on disc, back it up, and share the back up file online, is my public library legally liable

Depends a bit probably if your local library has major lawsuits for operating in a very sketchy side of the legal gray area

Maybe your library shouldn't have made choices that put it at odds with the data preservation community then.

Strongly agree, but what does that have to do with the point I was making: that yes indeed they might be liable, and are different than a library?