The Internet Archive (IA) is involved in a legal battle in the US to defend what’s referred to as its “controlled digital lending” (CDL) program. IA is trying to fend off publishers, who sued the non-profit for copyright infringement.
Late last month, the AI effort continued in a bid to challenge a March 2023 US district court ruling that sided with the publishers regarding all 127 titles named in the original lawsuit filed against its Open Library project.
IA, dedicated to providing free access to collections of digitized materials, had partnered with libraries to scan books and then provide them to users as “lendable e-books.”
But the court decision said IA had no right to do that.
Now, comes the appeals process. And in between, IA had to remove as many as half a million books, prompting an open letter to publishers, signed by 30,000 readers, authors, researchers, etc., trying to argue their case in favor of the need to restore access to this content.
The letter tried to appeal to what big companies, like the publishers in question, at some (opportune) times seem to fully embrace, to the point of creating a “cancel culture” – namely, that people with low income, those living in rural areas, the “LGBT community” – suffer the most from the consequences of their actions.
But, this right now doesn’t seem to be one of those opportune moments, and after arguments were presented in late June, Brewster Kahle, who, way back when, founded the Internet Archive, was disappointed.
“Those voices weren’t being heard,” Kahle was quoted as saying.
Maybe the tactic was wrong – given that this is not 2020, or 2021. In this here 2024, “judges appeared primarily focused on understanding how IA’s digital lending potentially hurts publishers’ profits in the e-book licensing market, rather than on how publishers’ costly ebook licensing potentially harms readers” – that’s how one report summed up the hearing.
This, of course, is only one stage in the proceedings, and the final decision is not expected for quite some time – it’s perhaps months away, or may even be announced in 2025.
Meanwhile, lawyers for IA, including one from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, tried hard to see some silver lining here.
That the judges deliberated for an hour and a half instead of 20 minutes, is interpreted as them being “engaged” and “getting it” (namely, the big picture).
Here’s hoping.
