(25 Oct 2023) On a bright sunny day in August, in a second-floor room at the Gandhi Bhavan Museum in Bengaluru, workers sit in front of five giant tabletop scanners, lining up books and flipping pages with foot pedals. The museum building houses the largest reference library for Gandhian philosophy in the state of Karnataka,…
(16 Aug 2023) Recently, the Internet Archive (IA) was found guilty of copyright infringement related to its Controlled Digital Lending (CDL) service. The CDL service provides free access to a digital library of books. In the case, US District Judge John Koeltl stated that the IA infringed the copyright of four publishers. Now, the IA…
(12 Aug 2023) Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment and other record labels on Friday sued the nonprofit Internet Archive for copyright infringement over its streaming collection of digitized music from vintage records. The labels’ lawsuit filed in a federal court in Manhattan said the Archive’s “Great 78 Project” functions as an “illegal record store” for…
A federal judge’s ruling for book publishers delivered a swift verdict that has significant implications for librarians, writers and limits of digital libraries. (27 Mar 2023) On Friday, a federal judge in New York ruled that the Internet Archive violated U.S. copyright law when it digitized countless physical books from four major book publishers…
(11 Oct 2022) As the COVID-19 pandemic emerged in early 2020, librarians, archivists, and others with interest in preserving cultural heritage began documenting the personal, cultural, and societal impact of the global pandemic on their communities. These efforts included creating archival collections preserving physical, digital, and web-based records and information for use by students, scholars,…
(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…
(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…
(14 Aug 2021) In June 2020, major publishers Hachette, HarperCollins, John Wiley and Penguin Random House sued the Internet Archive, claiming that its Open Library is effectively a pirate site. The Internet Archive disputes this characterization and is now demanding that the publishers hand over sales data to show that its lending had little or…
(12 Jul 2021) New Zealand: The National Library will donate 600,000 books that it was planning to cull from its overseas collection to a United States-based internet archive that will make digital copies of the works freely available online. (official press release) National Librarian Rachel Esson announced the “historic” agreement on Monday, saying books…
Saying that the Internet Archive operates ‘the digital equivalent of traditional library lending,’ the nonprofit responds to four publishers’ test of ‘Controlled Digital Lending. (29 Jul 2020) Following the June 1 filing of a copyright infringement lawsuit by four publisher-members of the Association of American Publishers—including three of the Big Five—the Internet Archive has made its scheduled…