Internet Archive Forced to Remove 500,000 Books After Publishers’ Court Win
Freeman writes:
As a result of book publishers successfully suing the Internet Archive (IA) last year, the free online library that strives to keep growing online access to books recently shrank by about 500,000 titles.
IA reported in a blog post this month that publishers abruptly forcing these takedowns triggered a "devastating loss" for readers who depend on IA to access books that are otherwise impossible or difficult to access.
To restore access, IA is now appealing, hoping to reverse the prior court's decision by convincing the US Court of Appeals in the Second Circuit that IA's controlled digital lending of its physical books should be considered fair use under copyright law. An April court filing shows that IA intends to argue that the publishers have no evidence that the e-book market has been harmed by the open library's lending, and copyright law is better served by allowing IA's lending than by preventing it.
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IA will have an opportunity to defend its practices when oral arguments start in its appeal on June 28."Our position is straightforward; we just want to let our library patrons borrow and read the books we own, like any other library," Freeland wrote, while arguing that the "potential repercussions of this lawsuit extend far beyond the Internet Archive" and publishers should just "let readers read."
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After publishers won an injunction stopping IA's digital lending, which "limits what we can do with our digitized books," IA's help page said, the open library started shrinking. While "removed books are still available to patrons with print disabilities," everyone else has been cut off, causing many books in IA's collection to show up as "Borrow Unavailable."
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In an IA blog, one independent researcher called IA a "lifeline," while others claimed academic progress was "halted" or delayed by the takedowns."I understand that publishers and authors have to make a profit, but most of the material I am trying to access is written by people who are dead and whose publishers have stopped printing the material," wrote one IA fan from Boston.
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In the open letter to publishers-which Techdirt opined "will almost certainly fall on extremely deaf ears"-the Internet Archive and its fans "respectfully" asked publishers "to restore access to the books" that were removed.
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