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I'm talking about what libraries are allowed to do, the non-digital version of lending. It fails every fair use test, but they're allowed to do it.

The only difference is whether technically copying happens, because controlled digital lending has the same results as a system that involves no copying. It doesn't have the common definition of copying where two people can access two copies at the same time.

If IA came first, and libraries came second, would we refer to libraries as having a technicality/exception that lets them be legal?

Though I suspect that if libraries were invented right now they'd be declared illegal.

No fair use test applies to the lending of physical books, which do not create copies and are not governed by the Copyright Act.
They don't have to pass the test, but they still fail it.

Please look at what I'm actually saying instead of snapping off replies that don't address my point. (And yes I edited in another couple sentences but the part about libraries not copying was in the original version of both those posts.)

They can't "fail" it; the test simply doesn't apply to them. "Fair uses" governs the legitimate creation of unauthorized derived works. Lending a physical book does not create a derived work.

(You're fine editing; I edited too, just for clarity).

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