It seems quite clear to me - the authors lose their livelihood. Authors can (and generally do) write at home, and they can (and generally do) sell e-books. Their livelihoods are not inherently at risk because of a quarantine. This action puts their livelihoods at risk. You can certainly argue that they shouldn't have such a livelihood for whatever reason, but the fact remains that they do.
You may as well ask, what damage has sharing food freely during a national emergency done? What damage has sharing housing? Money? All are at least as important as books, and all are worth sharing during certain forms of emergency, but I hope we'd agree it would be quite wrong for me to walk into my local grocery store and walk out with everything without paying, saying "For the public good!", and then give things out. Perhaps we should nationalize the grocery stores and the apartment buildings and the banks - but such a decision should (at most) be made by the government, not by some individual non-profit.
Again, there are less drastic measures that don't cause this. Expanding Controlled Digital Lending would actually mean the authors lose nothing, and gain them readers. (Or, you know, do this except only for orphan works or not-available-in-ebook works or something. That would also meet the stated goals.)
Or simply have the Internet Archive contact authors, say "We scanned your books into e-books, want to make them freely available? You'll lose nothing and gain readers," and then make it their decision.
Why must you twist everything to make victims where you are the theoretical aggressor while comparing your desired outcome against what could conceivably happen should your proposed solutions be ignored? Is this a trick of some sort? A legalese technique? I am legitimately confused.
I don’t see them twisting anything. Their arguments are the most basic standard knowledge on the economics of
IP, and you just continue to refuse engaging with them with anything but superficial slogans.
You may as well ask, what damage has sharing food freely during a national emergency done? What damage has sharing housing? Money? All are at least as important as books, and all are worth sharing during certain forms of emergency, but I hope we'd agree it would be quite wrong for me to walk into my local grocery store and walk out with everything without paying, saying "For the public good!", and then give things out. Perhaps we should nationalize the grocery stores and the apartment buildings and the banks - but such a decision should (at most) be made by the government, not by some individual non-profit.
Again, there are less drastic measures that don't cause this. Expanding Controlled Digital Lending would actually mean the authors lose nothing, and gain them readers. (Or, you know, do this except only for orphan works or not-available-in-ebook works or something. That would also meet the stated goals.)
Or simply have the Internet Archive contact authors, say "We scanned your books into e-books, want to make them freely available? You'll lose nothing and gain readers," and then make it their decision.