US District Court rules in favour of publishers in Internet Archive case

(Image: Aaron Burden via Unsplash)

The US District Court has ruled in favour of four publishers, saying that the Internet Archive has infringed on their copyrights by offering scanned copies of their books online.

The Internet Archive is an online library that provides free public access to a vast collection of materials, including archived websites, software, music and books, among others.

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The archive has scanned millions of print books and lends out digital copies of them for free. As Engadget notes, the program was called "controlled digital lending", in which users had to sign up for a waitlist to borrow a book from the platform.

During the pandemic, the archive lifted the restrictions, making it easier for the public at large to access rare books. In June 2020, book publishers Harper Collins, Penguin Random House, Hachette and John Wiley & Sons sued the archive over the matter.

While the archive has turned the lending system back on again, hosting about 70,000 daily e-books that can be borrowed, it has had no impact on the case.

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The US District Judge, John Koeltl, who issued the ruling said, "Although IA has the right to lend print books it lawfully acquired, it does not have the right to scan those books and lend the digital copies en masse."

The Internet Archive has promised to appeal the ruling, saying that it "holds back access to information in the digital age, harming all readers, everywhere."