Internet Archive's digital book lending violates copyrights, US judge rules (updated)

John Wiley & Sons

25/03/2023 10:42

(Adds details from ruling)
    By Nate Raymond and Blake Brittain
       March 25 (Reuters) - A U.S. judge has ruled that an
online library operated by the nonprofit organization Internet
Archive infringed the copyrights of four major U.S. publishers
by lending out digitally scanned copies of their books.
    The ruling by U.S. District Judge John Koeltl in Manhattan
on Friday came in a closely watched lawsuit that tested the
ability of Internet Archive to lend out the works of writers and
publishers protected by U.S. copyright laws.
    The San Francisco-based non-profit over the past decade has
scanned millions of print books and lent out the digital copies
for free. While many are in the public domain, 3.6 million are
protected by valid copyrights.
    That includes 33,000 titles belonging to the four
publishers, Lagardere SCA's  LAGA.PA  Hachette Book Group, News
Corp's  NWSA.O  HarperCollins Publishers, John Wiley & Sons Inc
 WLY.N  and Bertelsmann SE & Co's  BTGGg.F  Penguin Random
House.
    They sued in 2020 over 127 books, after Internet Archive
expanded lending with the COVID-19 pandemic's onset, when
brick-and-mortar libraries were forced to close, by lifting
limits on how many people could borrow a book at a time.
    The nonprofit, which partners with traditional libraries,
has since returned to what it calls "controlled digital
lending". 
        It currently hosts about 70,000 daily e-books "borrows".
  
    It argued its practices were protected by the doctrine of
"fair use" which allows for the unlicensed use of others'
copyrighted works in some circumstances.
    But Koeltl said there was nothing "transformative" about
Internet Archive's digital book copies that would warrant "fair
use" protection, as its e-books merely replaced the authorized
copies publishers themselves license to traditional libraries.
    "Although IA has the right to lend print books it lawfully
acquired, it does not have the right to scan those books and
lend the digital copies en masse," he wrote.
    Internet Archive promised an appeal, saying the ruling
"holds back access to information in the digital age, harming
all readers, everywhere."
    Maria Pallante, the head of Association of American
Publishers, in a statement said the ruling "underscored the
importance of authors, publishers, and creative markets in a
global society."

 (Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston and Blake Brittain in
Washington; editing by Michael Perry and Jason Neely)
 ((Nate.Raymond@thomsonreuters.com and Twitter @nateraymond;
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nate.raymond.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net))