This has been playing out for many years. And it's all because Brewster Kahle decided that an overly broad interpretation of the Internet Archive's mission trumped the rights of authors and publishers, and the laws of the United States.
When IA was asked to stop CDL - many times - he continued. The National Writers Union tried to open a dialogue as early as 2010 but was ignored:
The Internet Archive says it would rather talk with writers individually than talk to the NWU or other writers’ organizations. But requests by NWU members to talk to or meet with the Internet Archive have been ignored or rebuffed.
When the requests to abandon CDL turned into demands, Kahle dug in his heels. When the inevitable lawsuits followed, and IA lost, he insisted that he was still in the right and plowed ahead with appeals.
He also opened a new front in the court of public opinion. In his blog posts and interviews with U.S. media, Kahle portrays the court cases and legal judgements as a crusade against the Internet Archive and all librarians (see https://blog.archive.org/2023/12/15/brewster-kahle-appeal-st...). It's not. It's the logical outcome of one man's seemingly fanatical conviction against the law and the people who work very hard to bring new books into being.
In addition, there has been real collateral damage to the many noble aspects of the Internet Archive. Legal fees and judgements have diverted resources away from the Wayback Machine, the library of public domain works, and other IA programs that provide real value to society. I truly hope the organization can survive.
Very much not a surprise. I think the Internet Archive is providing an invaluable service to humanity in preserving works that would otherwise be lost to time. it is one of the crown jewels of the Internet, doing a job that nobody else is willing to do. But at the same time I know the courts side with publishers pretty much every time and copyright law being such as it is they're totally screwed. The only real question is how many trillions dollars will the judgment be. Preserving history is at odds with the profit motive, and lawmakers care a lot more about the latter than the former.
This struck me as significant (buried in the opinion's last footnote):
"IA makes a final argument that, even if its Open Libraries project did not qualify as a fair use, we should restrict the injunction to the Open Libraries project and allow IA to continue CDL for books that IA itself owns. In support of that argument, IA argues that the fourth factor analysis would be more favorable if CDL were limited to IA’s own books. In our view, the fair use analysis would not be substantially different if limited to IA’s CDL of the books it owns, and the fourth factor still would count against fair use. So we decline IA’s invitation to narrow the scope of our holding or of the district court’s injunction."
In other words, even if one purchases a print copy of the book, fair use would not allow them to lend a digital copy of the book to one person at a time. Why the court concludes that that "would not be substantially different" is unclear from just this footnote.
I still cannot imagine how IA thought that giving unrestricted access to copyrighted books was a good idea. It seemed inevitable that someone would sue them over it.
Honestly, I think that IA's ambivalence towards the use of their website for outright piracy might lead to their collapse, and that's a shame. The Archive can be a really wonderful tool, though I'm not sure that its current management really knows what they're doing.
dang ·5 days ago
https://www.theverge.com/2024/9/4/24235958/internet-archive-...
https://www.wired.com/story/internet-archive-loses-hachette-...
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/major-book-publishers-defeat-...
https://news.bloomberglaw.com/ip-law/internet-archive-digita...
ilamont ·6 days ago
When IA was asked to stop CDL - many times - he continued. The National Writers Union tried to open a dialogue as early as 2010 but was ignored:
The Internet Archive says it would rather talk with writers individually than talk to the NWU or other writers’ organizations. But requests by NWU members to talk to or meet with the Internet Archive have been ignored or rebuffed.
https://nwu.org/nwu-denounces-cdl/
When the requests to abandon CDL turned into demands, Kahle dug in his heels. When the inevitable lawsuits followed, and IA lost, he insisted that he was still in the right and plowed ahead with appeals.
He also opened a new front in the court of public opinion. In his blog posts and interviews with U.S. media, Kahle portrays the court cases and legal judgements as a crusade against the Internet Archive and all librarians (see https://blog.archive.org/2023/12/15/brewster-kahle-appeal-st...). It's not. It's the logical outcome of one man's seemingly fanatical conviction against the law and the people who work very hard to bring new books into being.
In addition, there has been real collateral damage to the many noble aspects of the Internet Archive. Legal fees and judgements have diverted resources away from the Wayback Machine, the library of public domain works, and other IA programs that provide real value to society. I truly hope the organization can survive.
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jandrese ·6 days ago
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pcaharrier ·6 days ago
"IA makes a final argument that, even if its Open Libraries project did not qualify as a fair use, we should restrict the injunction to the Open Libraries project and allow IA to continue CDL for books that IA itself owns. In support of that argument, IA argues that the fourth factor analysis would be more favorable if CDL were limited to IA’s own books. In our view, the fair use analysis would not be substantially different if limited to IA’s CDL of the books it owns, and the fourth factor still would count against fair use. So we decline IA’s invitation to narrow the scope of our holding or of the district court’s injunction."
In other words, even if one purchases a print copy of the book, fair use would not allow them to lend a digital copy of the book to one person at a time. Why the court concludes that that "would not be substantially different" is unclear from just this footnote.
Show replies
tombert ·6 days ago
Honestly, I think that IA's ambivalence towards the use of their website for outright piracy might lead to their collapse, and that's a shame. The Archive can be a really wonderful tool, though I'm not sure that its current management really knows what they're doing.
Show replies