(30 Nov 2021) The New Zealand National Library decided to cease its donation of 600,000 books from its overseas published collection to Internet Archive for digitization, following a wave of criticism due to copyright issues.
The US-based Internet Archive is a digital repository of books, movies, games and music free of use. Following digitization, the 600,000 books from NZ’s national library were intended to become part of the online collection.
The New Zealand National Library announced the initiative with the archive in July 2021. At that time, the library was in the process of donating books from its collection to different groups in order to create more space for new, local titles.
Since the announcement, criticism arose from different groups including the United Kingdom Society of Authors, Publishers’ Association, Authors’ Society and Copyright Licensing New Zealand.
Find out more from the original news here.
Here is the official announcement from the National Library of New Zealand.
