What constitutes fair use may depend on the book, according to Alan Inouye, interim associate executive director of the American Library Association. Scanning and lending a digitized version of a decades-old book that has no publisher-issued ebook differs from doing the same with a recent New York Times best seller. “When you’re in a lawsuit, there’re only two sides. It is inherently adversarial,” Inouye said. “For those of us who are not involved in a lawsuit, the issue is … incredibly nuanced.”
Source: A legal blow to Internet Archive, controlled digital lending