Lawsuit Against Internet Archive Heard on Monday 20 March

[engine]

According to archive.org, the organization is in court on Monday March 20, and it is "standing up for the digital rights of all libraries in court!"

On Monday at 1pm ET, the Southern District of New York will hear oral argument in Hachette v. Internet Archive, the lawsuit against our library and the longstanding library practice of controlled digital lending, brought by 4 of the world’s largest publishers.

Internet Archive is a non-profit library of millions of free books, movies, software, music, websites, and more.

[blog.archive.org...]

[tangor]

I'll have to look into this one! The site is primarily Public Domain content.

Note: Works written TODAY can be declared Public Domain by the creator(s) when released, just something to consider.

Wonder why libraries are suing. Seems these days most are focused on live events of a social nature rather than distributing the world's knowledge in books, video, audio, or film...

[engine]

Wonder why libraries are suing.

It's not libraries, it's publishers suing to "cut off libraries’ ownership and control of digital books..."

[lucy24]

TIA now holds two types of books, and to a lesser extent various types of AV like sound recordings or movies. Public-domain material can be downloaded in a variety of formats (it's my usual starting point for ebooks) and then it's yours forever. The digital library is a more recent service, applied to material that is still under copyright. Here you can “check out” the book for a very limited time--sometimes as little as an hour. (They say two weeks, but I swear every time I accidentally land on one of these titles, it says I can have it for an hour.)

The odd thing is that publishers have known forever that traditional libraries don't hurt them, because the people who patronize libraries are the same people who buy books. Why do they think digital libraries are any different? And, a nastier question, why aren't they suing G### Books for their presentation of copyrighted material?

Longer article (linked from the blog in OP): [eff.org...]

[tangor]

A little more information...

[theregister.com...]

[tangor]

A federal judge rejected the Internet Archive's claim that it has a fair use right to lend out a digital copy of each printed book that it has purchased, raising the possibility of it facing huge damages for copyright infringement.

A week ago, Judge John Koeltl from the Southern District of New York heard oral arguments in Hachette v. Internet Archive, a lawsuit filed by four large publishers (Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins Publishers, John Wiley & Sons and Penguin Random House) that challenged the Internet Archive's Controlled Digital Lending (CDL) initiative.

The Internet Archive has been making digital copies of physical books that it acquires and lending those copies to online library patrons in a controlled manner – it circulates only as many digital books as it has actual copies. It is offering a digital proxy that stands in for the physical title.

Copying works protected by US copyright law may be excused if the copying falls under the fair use exemption.

[theregister.com...]

The present walk away is nix to IA, but there is an appeal that has legs. Will have to wait and see how this shakes out. Brick and Mortar libraries have a significant reason to see this through.

[edited by: not2easy at 12:26 pm (utc) on Mar 29, 2023]
[edit reason] splice cleanup [/edit]

[lucy24]

Oh, and ... traditional libraries’ holdings may include ebooks. Some even let you check out kindles or equivalent devices to read them on. Will publishers turn to those next?

[Brett_Tabke]

Whatever the cause or outcome, any bruise the Internet archive gets - is ok by me. I have never agreed that they are anything but copyright thieves.

[phranque]

I have never agreed that they are anything but copyright thieves.

i will admit here in public that i have benefited from their thievery.

[lucy24]

Are we now talking about the Wayback Machine? It's like a tow truck: Everyone hates them ... until the day you need one.

[phranque]

Everyone hates them ...

there have been many fans of their audio archives for a couple of decades now.

[engine]

Before sites were more complex, I used the web archive to help a site owner recover their website. In simple terms, they had no recovery plan should they lose their site.

Equally, it does have a resource of incorrect and out-of-date information, which can be unhelpful.

[Brett_Tabke]

So, reading through the law suit (I found it fascinating), a thought struck me.
What if I print a copy of my website (say all of WebmasterWorld), and sell it as a book, that Internet Archive Publishes?

Or what if the author makes a digital copy of a book available online?

[engine]

Or what if the author makes a digital copy of a book available online?

It's all down to who owns the copyright, and the permissions involved, imho. Simple to say, but more difficult to enact.

The IA has published a blog post on the lawsuit.

Four months after the disappointing decision on summary judgment in Hachette v. Internet Archive, a number of papers were filed today in the district court, and then the judge is expected to make his final judgment. We expect that, at least while the appeal is pending, there will be changes to our lending program, but the full scope of those changes is a question pending with the district court. We will provide an update on those changes once the district court decision is final.

[blog.archive.org...]
[courtlistener.com...]