Link to the tech debt aspect? I knew that was the case but want to know specifics.
Also the book lawsuit wasn't over old or new titles, it was loaning them 1:N instead of 1:1 because "pandemic". I didn't think it was a great idea at the time and everything in that lawsuit has pointed towards it just being an outright foolhardy effort. There were on a great path towards expanding digital lending boundaries (by letting any library add their books to the IA's lending circulation) and screwed it all up.
>it was loaning them 1:N instead of 1:1 because "pandemic
It was over loaning them 1:1, the pandemic actions were barely mentioned as part of the lawsuit and the result is that 1:1 loaning was ruled illegal. The only harm the pandemic actions did was to public opinion.
Or, the 1:1 lending was probably okay until Kahle showed his willingness to abandon copyright entirely with the emergency library, and publishers decided it was worth putting down CDL as a whole.
The book publishers had been building a case against the CDL for a decade. They saw an opportunity to control the narrative and took it.
That's what I said? The pandemic excuse was IA's reason for doing it at first.