John Paul M. Joaquin Tech 03.25.2023 02:30 AM EDT

The Internet Archive Loses First Court Battle Against Publishers

The public has lost a readily available online source of knowledge.

The Internet Archive recently lost its first court battle with four publishers who complained that one of its services cost them millions of dollars and was a threat to their businesses.

The Internet Archive is a nonprofit digital library that preserves and provides online copies of "cultural artifacts," such as books, movies, music, software applications, games, and even web pages, to the public for free, per the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).

(Photo : The Internet Archive)

Internet Archive Court Battle Details

The Internet Archive mentioned in its latest blog post that the lower court found that the four publishers, Hachette, HarperCollins, Wiley, and Penguin Random House, in their claim that its Controlled Digital Lending (CDL) service is hurting their businesses and is violating copyright laws.

According to The Verge's report, lower court Judge John G, Koetl found that the Internet Archive did nothing more than create "derivative works" of the books they were scanning for its CDL service, which meant that it needed authorization from the copyright holders - the publishers- before lending them through its service.

Judge Koetl explained in his ruling that while Google Books and HathiTrust had a similar case in 2014, the two companies provided a "transformed" service as it copied a searchable database instead of simply publishing copies of books on the Internet, which the Internet Archive did.

Moreover, the judge dismissed arguments about the Internet Archive's CDL theoretically helping publishers to sell more copies of their books as there was no evidence to support it.

On the other hand, the EFF explains that the Internet Archive's CDL is a way for the nonprofit organization to keep books in circulation, especially those that publishers stopped publishing due to lack of commercial interest, per Techspot.

For those unaware, the CDL is a system where libraries digitize copies of books in their collections and then offer online access to them as ebooks on a one-to-one basis, much like one would do when borrowing a book from a regular library, per an earlier report from The Verge.

However, the Internet Archive's CDL, which launched during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, allows an unlimited amount of people to access an online copy of a book with a two-week lending period - a measure that angered publishers.

Internet Archive's Response To the Finding

The Internet Archive took Judge Koetl's finding badly, with the nonprofit organization swearing it would make an appeal to keep fighting for "the traditional right of libraries to own, lend, and preserve books."

"Libraries are more than the customer service departments for corporate database products," said Internet Archive founder Brewster Kahle. "For democracy to thrive at [a] global scale, libraries must be able to sustain their historic role in society-owning, preserving, and lending books."

In the meantime, the organization states it will continue its work as a library as Judge Koetl's finding does not challenge many of the services it provides with digitized books, including interlibrary loan, citation linking, and access for the print-disabled.