(4 Dec 2024) The Internet Archive lost its case against some of the largest publishers in the world after it decided not to elevate the September judgment to the Supreme Court. This ends the saga of the e-book case that started during the pandemic, and we can finally put everything behind us.
The primary focus of the case was the Internet Archive’s “Open Library.” After scanning millions of print books with abandoned—digital files, the Internet Archive proceeded to “lend” the copies worldwide without consent or payment to authors or publishers. It sought to justify its end-run around the publishers’ markets, including their substantial ebook markets with U.S. public libraries, by presenting a radical theory that IA or its partner libraries could make and distribute unlicensed digital copies if they retained a copy of the print book for each digital “borrow.”
Unsurprisingly, the Court concluded that Internet Archive’s theory of “controlled digital lending” lacks any legal authority, harms authors (who have the right to set the terms for each format of a work), and usurps the value of publishers’ markets in contravention of the Copyright Act. “If authors and creators knew that their original works could be copied and disseminated for free, there would be little motivation to produce new works,” the Court said. “And a dearth of creativity would undoubtedly negatively impact the public.”
Good e-Reader has the story in full here.
