Internet Archive in danger of being sued out of existence

*out-of-print

Internet Archive, a non-profit digital library and a massive repository of online artifacts, has been collecting mementos of the ever-expanding World Wide Web for over two decades, allowing users to revisit sites that have since been changed or deleted. But like the web, it too has evolved since its genesis, and in the aughts, it also began to offer a selection of ebooks that any internet user can check out with the creation of a free account.

That latter feature has gotten the organization in some trouble. Internet Archive was sued by a suite of four corporate publishers in 2020 over copyright controversies—with one side saying that what Internet Archive does is preservation, and the other saying that it’s piracy, since it freely distributes books as image files without compensating the author.

Last week, the ongoing case entered a new chapter as the nonprofit organization filed a motion for summary judgment, asking a federal judge to put a stop to the lawsuit, arguing that their Controlled Digital Lending program “is a lawful fair use that preserves traditional library lending in the digital world” since “each book loaned via CDL has already been bought and paid for.” On Friday, Creative Commons issued a statement supporting Internet Archive’s motion.

The public libraries in your local neighborhood usually partner with platforms like Overdrive, Libby, Hoopla, and Cloud Library to provide digital copies of books that they can loan out. But these library ebooks are part of a surprisingly complex and lucrative financial structure (Daniel A. Gross’ piece in The New Yorker deep dives into the business behind library ebooks). Additionally, users must login to these services with an existing library card number.

Internet Archive works a little differently. Anyone can create a free account and start browsing materials like books, movies, software, music, websites and more.

... (more at the article link)

It's a known fact publishers loathe Fair Use.

NOOOOOO

Soon!

[quote] “each book loaned via CDL has already been bought and paid for.”

You just can't buy a book for fifteen bucks and put it up for unlimited lending and reading. That's taking income away from the writer and publisher who have invested in producing the book.

Unless you have the publishers permission of course. Then unlimited free access is fine and worthy.

R6, each book borrowed is tied to a physical copy in participating libraries so the borrowing is limited to that number of copies only.

The libraries may participate. The real question is, are the publishers participating?

R6 wants libraries banned.

Libraries buy multiple copies. With certain formats they pay a higher institutional price because the understanding is that there will be multiple users.

With digital technology it is a whole new ball game. You are not only lending from your local library branch to your neighborhood but blasting across the world.

Regulations are trying to keep up with ever and rapidly expanding tech borders.

Bomp.

Most of the books I’ve borrowed from the Internet Archive are out of print and only available from secondhand sellers anyway. And perhaps a few of the more obscure titles are public domain anyway. I’d be happy to pay a fee per title if they go that way.

Oligarchs please turn everything into shit as fast as possible.

I had to send them a letter via snail mail to request they stop archiving my website on the Wayback Machine. If you’re going to use my intellectual property, you can make the effort to get my permission first.

[quote] my intellectual property,

But you abandoned your copyright when you first uploaded your 'content' to the web.

There are anonymous pirates in Asia and the USA — and everywhere— who steal your efforts.

I'd say Neil Patrick Harris but i don't know if his hubby does anything interesting to qualify them as a glam couple.

This is not about books. This is about being able to erase inconvenient history.

I just read the excerpts of Tom Bower's book about sMEGs there and I have been able to find some hard-to-find movies on that site.

Hope they can ride out this storm and carry on regardless.

[quote]I had to send them a letter via snail mail to request they stop archiving my website

If you don't it to be public, don't put it on the fucking Net, Princess.

R14 can i find a website i had in the late 1990s in the Wayback Machine?

Neil Patrick Harris owns the Internet Archive?

[quote]But you abandoned your copyright when you first uploaded your 'content' to the web.

Um, no.

Unless an agreement is made, on a wholescale basis, to pay the authors royalties per download, as was done with Youtube, like ASCAP and BMI used to work for radio play (and still do, presumably), Internet Archive IS going to be shut down, as a matter of copyright law. It's just that simple. They are facilitating the electronic theft of authors' materials without compensating them. If you want to bellyache about it, try to get the copyright laws in the US abolished. And good luck with that...

It sounds like they shot themselves in the foot during the pandemic by technically violating copyright.

Previously they had only allowed one book to be checked out at a time (for each matching real life one they had), but during the pandemic they allowed unlimited checkouts of the same book to multiple people at the same time, which is what the publishers are suing over.

I'm not sure why the Archive thought this was a wise decision but clearly they didn't think they would get sued over it.

I don't see how they don't lose this lawsuit. I just hope it doesn't take them out of business. Sounds like the CEO or whoever made that bad decision should be replaced.

I do love the archive but they have a serious problem with people uploading copyrighted modern material and it just sitting there until someone files a DMCA claim against it. I use the archive to find copies of books I already have that are in storage, so I don't feel as guilty about downloading them. Of course I also use it for books that are no longer under copyright, but the fact that any user can upload anything and it doesn't appear to be checked by the Archive seems like it's a problem waiting to be discovered.

R24 I wach Youtube for a lot of documentaries, music, interviews, etc. I would say most of it is violating copyright. So why aren't they suing Youtube? I know they take things off for copyright infringement, but it's jiust a fractionof their content.

R25 YouTube has a pretty turnkey DMCA policy and they get hit with a lot of those to remove copyrighted content (and many false positives) each day. It just has to do with whether or not the copyright holder looks for it and files a report. The bigger organizations can afford to have their vast archives under patrol, whereas the individual authors and such do not usually have this ability of the time and money to do it.

I personally think that is a cop-out, it's due to the law that allows them not to be responsible for what individual users post on their system. While I agree they should not be held liable for speech, I think posting copyrighted material that clearly violates Fair Use is a different issue.

It is very frustrating to me, living in a college town with a huge university library that I have access to, not to be able to just download these books from archive.org. I can check them out for months at a time there, but to get them from the library, I have to get in the car, drive there and deal with the goddamned parking rules (worst part), find the book, bring it back home, etc. It seems so counterproductive. The books SHOULD be available. I am not sure whether libraries pay royalties based on checkout statistics, maybe someone else knows about that better... I have personally collected a pretty big library of books from online, to keep this way, but I do see that the days of that are swiftly closing down. Archive is ALSO facilitating the downloading of LOTS of old movies, in case you haven't figured that out yet. There are some other sites where these things (books) are generally available, not as well known as archive.org but the sites are vast. But so far as living authors with live copyrights are concerned, Archive has already lost this law suit, it's a foregone conclusion, a matter of settled law in the digital age. -R23

R15, if that were the case, anyone who publishes a book, prints a poster of their own design, exhibits a film, etc would be giving up their copyright.

First Pornhub, now Internet Archive. This is no longer a world fit to live in.

R28 I've had excerpts of my work 'stolen' multiple times. When I've confronted the 'thieves' they merely smirk at me because we both know the expense of litigation is crippling.

Confronting the thieves in Malaya, Taiwan, China, Indonesia and Japan etc etc etc is impossible.

^ One shouldn't criticise Oriental thieves, the pirates were everywhere

[quote] Gilbert and Sullivan were big moneymakers In the 1870s. There were eight theaters in New York simultaneously presenting rival, pirated productions of "H.M.S. Pinafore'. Soon there were six "Pinafore" productions in Philadelphia, four in Washington. To secure a usable American copyright for "The Pirates of Penzance," they actually went to New York to present its international premiere to stump the 'The Pirates of America'.

I am choosy about donations but give to them every year, I have read so many books and used the Wayback machine too.

Since the suit was filed, many of the authors who’d protested the archive have deleted their tweets or released statements explaining they’ve changed their minds. Wendig, who initially appeared to be leading the charge, has since stated several times that he is not involved with the case. And on July 14, the Authors Alliance, an organization that helps authors to reach more readers, filed an amicus brief in the lawsuit on behalf of the Internet Archive.

This fight was probably lost over 20 years ago,” said Witt, referring to cases like 2005’s MGM v. Grokster, in which the Supreme Court unanimously held that peer-to-peer file-sharing services like Napster could be sued for copyright infringement, as well as Authors Guild v. Google, which was filed the same year but only decided in 2015. That case kicked off the moment Google began scanning various publications for its Books feature.

I give ebooks rights along with the print rights. I don't care if libraries lend them out over and over again. There will always be people who like printed books. There will always be cheapskates who won't pay or poor people who cannot. Big deal.

[Quote] Currently, libraries must pay to rent, not own, e-books from publishers, and the prices, according to the letter, "are often likened to extortion." This, despite e-books often being cheaper to manufacture than print books and more accessible.

This is unconscionable.

And in walk the communists. Change the words you change the song. Wake up people.

There are so manh interesting issue in this.

For example, with a hard copy, could I gather up the mountains and mountains of discarded copies and lend them out for people to read? Can I digitize a hard copy I own, then lend out the single digital copy?

Traditional publishing has failed to do the one thing that it should have continued to do - be gatekeeping and provide editing to improve books. They've abdicated the true value-added activities they used to do in favor of pushing a commodity - the actual books, digital or paper - whose contents are created by others, both authors and book agents.

I know multiple published authors who say that all the copy editing, revisions, and even major story changes are driven by their book agents. Essentially, the agents are freelance publishing editors who work with multiple publishers to sell them books. Publishers merely provide nominal, very nominal, marketing and distribution of the finished product.

For the last few years I only read ebooks, when they are a new book I sometimes have to wait a month or two but it's worth it to me. I am a broke bitch and I hope the libraries are not losing money on the ebooks because it is a wonderful service.

I use the Internet Archive for research access to out of print books and also regularly give a donation to the site so they can keep going. I am also a published order and although they don't have any of my books on their site, I would not begrudge them scanning them or any lost income.

R36, publishers long ago gave up a lot of the functions you talk about. The agents have been freelance publishing editors for decades. It was that way long before digital publishing.

I’m a dedicated reader. It’s my outlet. I read from 10-15 books a month and sometimes more. My local library died not stock every book I want to read and I’ve had some success with suggesting books for purchase. I wouldn’t be able to read as much without the Internet Library.

some recent decisions detailed inside link below

love to hear feedback from anyone who is affected by these lawsuits/ descisions.

What’s a book?