(20 Jul 2022) Earlier this month, the Internet Archive asked a US court to end a lawsuit filed against it by four large book publishers.
Publishers were particularly concerned about the “National Emergency Library” set up by the Internet Archive in March 2020. This temporary project aimed to give teachers access to digital teaching materials in the face of widespread library closures due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
In June 2020, the publishers Hachette, Penguin Random House, HarperCollins and John Wiley & Sons filed a copyright infringement action. The publishers appear to want to shut down not just the National Emergency Library, but all of the Internet Archive’s book-lending practices. The publishers claim the Internet Archive is engaging in wilful mass copyright infringement by lending digital books without permission from and payment to publishers.
Read more here.
