Docket: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/17 ... t-archive/
Opinion and Order:
Mar 24, 2023 OPINION & ORDER re: 97 MOTION for Summary Judgment. filed by Internet Archive, 87 MOTION for Summary Judgment against Internet Archive with respect to the causes of action set forth in the Complaint. filed by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Penguin Random House LLC, HarperCollins Publishers LLC, Hachette Book Group, Inc.. The Court has considered all of the parties' arguments. To the extent not specifically addressed above, the arguments are either moot or without merit. For the foregoing reasons, the plaintiffs' motion for summary judgment is granted and the defendants' motion for summary judgment is denied. The parties should submit their respective proposals (or preferably a joint proposal) for the appropriate procedure to determine the judgment to be entered in this case. The submission or submissions should be made within fourteen (14) days of the date of this Opinion and Order. The Clerk is respectfully directed to close all pending motions. SO ORDERED. (Signed by Judge John G. Koeltl on 3/24/2023) (ks) (Entered: 03/24/2023)
Main Document (47pgs) https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/17 ... t-archive/
https://www.theverge.com/2023/3/24/2365 ... ry-lawsuitThe lawsuit came from the Internet Archive’s decision to launch the “National Emergency Library” early in the covid pandemic, which let people read from 1.4 million digitized books with no waitlist. Typically, the Internet Archive’s Open Library program operates under a “controlled digital lending” (CDL) system where it can loan out digitized copies of a book on a one-to-one basis, but it removed those waitlists to offer easier access to those books when stay-at-home orders arrived during the pandemic. (CDL systems operate differently than services like OverDrive, which can lend you publisher-licensed ebooks.) Some weren’t happy about the Internet Archive’s choice, and the group of publishers sued the organization in June 2020. Later that month, the Archive shut down that program.
The Internet Archive says it will continue acting as a library in other ways, despite the decision. “This case does not challenge many of the services we provide with digitized books including interlibrary loan, citation linking, access for the print-disabled, text and data mining, purchasing ebooks, and ongoing donation and preservation of books,” writes Freeland.
https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/Hache ... d/1113803/Judge Rules Online Archive Violated Copyright
Saturday, 25 March 2023 04:29 PM EDT
A federal judge has sided with four publishers who sued an online archive over its unauthorized scanning of millions of copyrighted works and offering them for free to the public. Judge John G. Koeltl of U.S. District Court in Manhattan ruled that the Internet Archive was producing "derivative" works that required permission of the copyright holder. The Archive was not transforming the books in question into something new, but simply scanning them and lending them as e-books from its website. "An e-book recast from a print book is a paradigmatic example of a derivative work," Koeltl wrote.
The Archive, which announced it would appeal Friday's decision, has said its actions were protected by fair use laws and has long had a broader mission of making information widely available, a common factor in legal cases involving online copyright. "Libraries are more than the customer service departments for corporate database products," Internet Archive founder Brewster Kahle wrote in a blog post Friday. "For democracy to thrive at global scale, libraries must be able to sustain their historic role in society — owning, preserving, and lending books. This ruling is a blow for libraries, readers, and authors and we plan to appeal it."
In June 2020, Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins Publishers, John Wiley & Sons, and Penguin Random House sued in response to the Archive's National Emergency Library, a broad expansion of its e-book lending service begun in the early weeks of the pandemic, when many physical libraries and bookstores had shut down. The publishers sought action against the emergency library and the archive's older and more limited program, controlled digital lending (CDL). Works by Toni Morrison, J.D. Salinger, and Terry Pratchett were among the copyrighted texts publishers cited as being made available. While the Authors Guild was among those opposing the emergency library, some writers praised it. Historian Jill Lepore, in an essay published in March 2020 in The New Yorker, encouraged readers who couldn't afford to buy books or otherwise were unable to find them during the pandemic to "please: sign up, log on, and borrow!" from the Internet Archive.
In a statement Friday, the head of the trade group the Association of American Publishers praised the court decision as an "unequivocal affirmation of the Copyright Act and respect for established precedent. "In rejecting convoluted arguments from the defendant, the court has underscored the importance of authors, publishers, and lawful markets in a global society and global economy. Copying and distributing what is not yours is not innovative — or even difficult — but it is wrong," said Maria Pallante, the association's president and CEO.
The Internet Archive, founded in 1996, is a nonprofit "founded to build an Internet library, with the purpose of offering permanent access for researchers, historians, and scholars to historical collections that exist in digital format." Unlike traditional libraries, it does not acquire books directly through licensing deals with publishers, but through purchases and donations. The archive also includes millions of movies, TV shows, videos, audio recordings, and other materials.
From Internet Archive:
http://blog.archive.org/2023/03/25/the-fight-continues/The Fight Continues
Posted on March 25, 2023 by chrisfreeland
Today’s lower court decision in Hachette v. Internet Archive is a blow to all libraries and the communities we serve. This decision impacts libraries across the US who rely on controlled digital lending to connect their patrons with books online. It hurts authors by saying that unfair licensing models are the only way their books can be read online. And it holds back access to information in the digital age, harming all readers, everywhere.
But it’s not over—we will keep fighting for the traditional right of libraries to own, lend, and preserve books. We will be appealing the judgment and encourage everyone to come together as a community to support libraries against this attack by corporate publishers.
We will continue our work as a library. This case does not challenge many of the services we provide with digitized books including interlibrary loan, citation linking, access for the print-disabled, text and data mining, purchasing ebooks, and ongoing donation and preservation of books.
Statement from Internet Archive founder, Brewster Kahle:
“Libraries are more than the customer service departments for corporate database products. For democracy to thrive at global scale, libraries must be able to sustain their historic role in society—owning, preserving, and lending books.
This ruling is a blow for libraries, readers, and authors and we plan to appeal it.”
EFF:
https://www.eff.org/cases/hachette-v-internet-archiveThe Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), with co-counsel Durie Tangri, is defending the Internet Archive against a lawsuit that threatens its Controlled Digital Lending (CDL) program.
The Internet Archive is a nonprofit digital library, preserving and providing access to cultural artifacts of all kinds in electronic form. CDL allows people to check out digital copies of books for two weeks or less, and only permits patrons to check out as many copies as the Archive and its partner libraries physically own. That means that if the Archive and its partner libraries have only one copy of a book, then only one patron can borrow it at a time, just like any other library. Through CDL, the Internet Archive is helping to foster research and learning by helping its patrons access books and by keeping books in circulation when their publishers have lost interest in them.
Four publishers sued the Archive, alleging that CDL violates their copyrights. In their complaint, Hachette, HarperCollins, Wiley, and Penguin Random House claim CDL has cost their companies millions of dollars and is a threat to their businesses.
They are wrong. Libraries have paid publishers billions of dollars for the books in their print collections, and are investing enormous resources in digitization in order to preserve those texts. CDL helps ensure that the public can make full use of the books that libraries have bought and paid for. This activity is fundamentally the same as traditional library lending, and poses no new harm to authors or the publishing industry. Libraries have never been required to get permissions or pay extra fees to lend books. And as a practical matter, the available data shows that CDL has not and will not harm the publishers' bottom line.
The Internet Archive and the hundreds of libraries and archives that support CDL are simply striving to serve their patrons effectively and efficiently, lending books one at a time, just as they have done for centuries. Copyright law does not prevent that lawful fair use. Indeed, it supports it.
On July 7, 2022, we filed a motion for summary judgment, asking the court to put an end to this dangerous lawsuit. Briefing will continue through the fall, and we'll update this page as the case develops.
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