(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 seems to have reached an agreement with these publishers, including Hachette, HarperCollins, John Wiley & Sons, and Penguin Random House. The IA will have to pay an unspecified amount of money to the publishers if the appeal is unsuccessful.
Publishers sued the IA in 2020 after the organization started lending free digital copies of books during the pandemic. According to the judge, the free ebooks that IA was distributing were being licensed to traditional libraries. If the consent judgment is accepted, the IA will be able to overturn Koeltl’s unfavorable decision.
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