"Nonprofit library" promises to appeal lower court ruling restricting
their ability to digitally lend unauthorized e-books: "This ruling is a
blow for libraries, readers, and authors"
<https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/internet-archive-copyright-infringement-lawsuit-1234703776/>
Digital database Internet Archive lost the first ruling in a copyright
<https://www.rollingstone.com/t/copyright/> infringement lawsuit
<https://www.rollingstone.com/t/lawsuit/> filed against the “nonprofit
library” by four of the biggest publishing companies.
In June 2020, amid the Covid-19 pandemic, John Wiley & Sons, Hachette
Book Group, HarperCollins and Penguin Random House sued
<https://www.npr.org/2020/06/03/868861704/publishers-sue-internet-archive-for-mass-copyright-infringement>
Internet Archive <https://www.rollingstone.com/t/internet-archive/> over
their attempt to create a “National Emergency Library” by uploading
countless e-books — or scanned versions of printed books — for users to
“borrow” while bookstores and libraries across the nation were shuttered
due to the pandemic.
“Its goal of creating digital copies of books and providing them to
whomever wants to download them reflects a profound misunderstanding of
the costs of creating books, a profound lack of respect for the many
contributors involved in the publication process, and a profound
disregard of the boundaries and balance of core copyright principles,”
the publishers argued at the time.
Internet Archive countered that “as a library, the Internet Archive
acquires books and lends them, as libraries have always done. This
supports publishing, authors and readers. Publishers suing libraries for
lending books, in this case protected digitized versions, and while
schools and libraries are closed, is not in anyone’s interest.”
Nearly two years later, the lawsuit went before a U.S. District Court in
Manhattan, where the judge ruled that Internet Archive was producing
“derivative” works that required permission from the publishers as the
copyright holders. “An ebook recast from a print book is a paradigmatic
example of a derivative work,” Judge John G. Koeltl wrote in his
decision, adding that the publishers already license their own
authorized e-books to libraries (via /The Associated Press/
<https://apnews.com/article/books-and-literature-manhattan-john-g-koeltl-business-0674119646bd920492f87490e8d2027b>).
In a statement <http://blog.archive.org/2023/03/25/the-fight-continues/>
following the ruling, Internet Archive — which also houses millions of
other materials, including films, TV broadcasts, radio and music
recordings, photographs and more — pledged to appeal the lower court’s
decision.
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