Lawsuit over online book lending could bankrupt Internet Archive

Enlarge / The book drop outside the Spring Township library in Pennsylvania was closed on April 6, 2020. (credit: Ben Hasty/MediaNews Group/Reading Eagle via Getty Images)

Four of the nation's leading book publishers have sued the Internet Archive, the online library best known for maintaining the Internet Wayback Machine. The Internet Archive makes scanned copies of books-both public domain and under copyright-available to the public on a site called the Open Library.

"Despite the Open Library moniker, IA's actions grossly exceed legitimate library services, do violence to the Copyright Act, and constitute willful digital piracy on an industrial scale," write publishers Hachette, HarperCollins, Wiley, and Penguin Random House in their complaint. The lawsuit was filed in New York federal court on Monday.

For almost a decade, the Open Library has offered users the ability to "borrow" scans of in-copyright books via the Internet. Until recently, the service was based on a concept called "controlled digital lending" that mimicked the constraints of a conventional library. The library would only "lend" as many digital copies of a book as it had physical copies in its warehouse. If all copies of a book were "checked out" by other patrons, you'd have to join a waiting list.

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