Commentaries by Binit Agrawal

Reforming Digital Lending Libraries and the End of the Internet Archive

jarmoluk / Pixabay

Reforming Digital Lending Libraries and the End of the Internet Archive

July 20, 2020 11:59:33 pm

Four US publishers, including three from the big five, have sued the Internet Archive (IA) for mass copyright infringement under its emergency library program (ELP). IA is known for championing Controlled Digital Lending (CDL) through its open library, wherein it lends out e-copies of books it holds physically, maintaining a loaned-to-owned ratio. In response to [...]

THIS DAY @ LAW

Congress set minimum federal sentences for drug offenders

On November 2, 1951, President Harry Truman signed the "Boggs Act" into law, setting minimum federal sentences for drug offenders.

Read Richard J. Bonnie and Charles Whitebread, The Forbidden Fruit and the Tree of Knowledge: An Inquiry Into the Legal History of American Marijuana Prohibition, 56 Virginia Law Review (1970).

Balfour Declaration issued

On November 2, 1917, British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour issued the United Kingdom's formal statement regarding Jewish people in Palestine. The Balfour Declaration was later endorsed by the World War I Allied Powers. It stated the British intention to support a national homeland for Jewish people and became a cornerstone of the Zionist movement.

Read the full Balfour Declaration as well as other documents regarding Israeli-Palestinian relations from the BBC.