Internet Archive Loses Appeal in Major Copyright Battle Against Publishers

The Internet Archive on Wednesday lost an appeal of a lower court’s decision that it committed copyright infringement with a pandemic-era digital books project, dealing the nonprofit what could be a decisive blow in a lengthy legal saga. Four major book publishers—Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins Publishers, John Wiley & Sons and Penguin Random House—sued the archive, an organization that works to digitize and preserve online and cultural history, in June 2020. The plaintiffs alleged that its National Emergency Library, a digital lending program that allowed more than one user to “borrow” a book at a time, constituted piracy. (Previously, there was a single-user borrowing system.) The Internet Archive defended its project under the fair use doctrine, saying that the limits were removed in the public interest. A federal court ruled against the archive in March 2023. In a statement, the Internet Archive said it was “reviewing the court’s opinion and will continue to defend the rights of libraries to own, lend and preserve books.” It did not say whether it would appeal the matter to the U.S. Supreme Court. More than 500,000 books have been removed from its library since the March 2023 decision, according to the archive.

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