Book Publishers Sue to Halt Internet Archive’s Open Libraries
Internet Archive should be blocked from scanning and sharing millions of literary works, the Association of American Publishers said Monday in a lawsuit at U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. AAP accused IA of sharing “some…
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1.3 million bootleg scans of print books” through public-facing online libraries. Plaintiffs are Hachette, HarperCollins, John Wiley & Sons and Penguin Random House. The lawsuit “condemns the fact that IA solicits and collects truckloads of in-copyright books in order to copy and make them available without permission,” AAP said, arguing there are no exceptions for this activity under fair use, the first sale doctrine or in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. IA founder Brewster Kahle called the lawsuit “disappointing.” IA “acquires books and lends them, as libraries have always done,” which supports the publishing industry, he emailed. “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.” For too long, "IA has brazenly scanned and distributed published works while refusing to abide by the traditional contours of copyright law,” Copyright Alliance CEO Keith Kupferschmid said. Public Knowledge Legal Director John Bergmayer wrote in support of IA, saying controlled digital lending is fair use under copyright law: "The National Emergency Library, which expands on CDL, is justified under the circumstances of the pandemic, when so many print books paid for by the public are inaccessible." He urged Congress to support legislation "clarifying the right of libraries to make print books available to patrons electronically, and to serve their constituencies during times of emergency.”