And, regrettably, The Archive lent books regardless of physical possession.

Publishers had accepted the prior arrangement before The Archive decided to push it, if not explicitly then implicitly by not suing.

I'm a believer in The Archive's mission, and I wish they had treated the goodwill they'd accumulated as something worth preserving and not a currency to be spent.

It has been stated by many before me: lending books should have been handled by a separate entity, especially when they removed the physical backing requirement.

Yeah, why would it be bad for publishers? If anything they'd most likely encourage more book shredding!

There are many reasons but it's just rare books - in general: they are setting a precedent for people to pirate instead of using libraries. In general companies are trying really hard to make people switch back to torrenting, pirate sites, sharing media etc.

of the rare books, which was the rarest of them all? What year was it published?