Yes, the NEL period surely soured even more what was already going to be a hard case, and gave the publishers greater impetus to bring it, and blunted the negative PR they'd have gotten. I don't know that any CDL that was done on a significant enough scale to be worth the suit was ever going to survive, though.
I've thought since the beginning of this saga that a change in statute would pretty much be needed for CDL or something similar. The idea being to craft something that extends the philosophy or idea of libraries in the face of an increasingly digital world where doing much of anything requires a copy, things are licensed rather than sold, and the first sale doctrine has little application, but I agree with you that such an idea has dim prospects.
Also, I lazily assumed differently, because I'm used to appellate courts making it as easy as possible and narrow as possible and not making new law they didn't need to make. I expected since the NEL thing was so blatant and made the decision easier, they'd just make a decision about that. Isn't that how it usually used to work? New era I guess.
But looking at it, maybe this was the way the original suit was set up necessarily, and the lower court decision? OK.
I've thought since the beginning of this saga that a change in statute would pretty much be needed for CDL or something similar. The idea being to craft something that extends the philosophy or idea of libraries in the face of an increasingly digital world where doing much of anything requires a copy, things are licensed rather than sold, and the first sale doctrine has little application, but I agree with you that such an idea has dim prospects.