Bahaiworks:Lending program

Book lending program

Note: The legality of this idea was recently decided, and therefore a lending program can not be started. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hachette_v._Internet_Archive

The purpose of Bahai.works is to provide individuals with access to a large collection of Bahá’í books and documents and make it possible to search through them in one place. Some of the material we host is protected by copyright laws, in these cases we provide search-only access. Users will be shown a short snippet of text that is in proximity to their search keyword. Our goal in providing this access is to direct people to the resources that discuss the topics they are interested in, and also to provide confidence in purchasing decisions.

A challenge arises among certain works that are still protected by copyright but are no longer in print, or are inaccessible in some regions. In these cases, some individuals would benefit from being given temporary access to a copyright protected work. There is a principle known as controlled digital lending which may allow us to lend books in our collection, however the legality of this practice is currently being challenged in the United States. Until the legal status of controlled digital lending is determined, or permission is granted by a publisher or copyright holder we can not give out access to copyright protected works.

The mechanism exists to allow automatic checkout of copyright protected works and is described in the administrators guide.