| Title | Internet Archive Ends “Emergency Library” Early to Appease Publishers | |
| Date | Saturday June 13 2020, @02:16PM | |
| Author | Fnord666 | |
| Topic | ||
| from the never-let-them-see-fear dept. | ||
Internet Archive ends "emergency library" early to appease publishers:
The Internet Archive has ended its National Emergency Library programs two weeks earlier than originally scheduled, the organization announced in a Wednesday blog post.
"We moved up our schedule because, last Monday, four commercial publishers chose to sue Internet Archive during a global pandemic," the group wrote. The online library called on publishers to "call off their costly assault."
[...] If the publishers dropped their lawsuit now, they would be tacitly conceding the legality of CDL[1] and potentially endangering the revenues they currently earn from licensing e-books to libraries for digital checkout. Also, the Internet Archive's decision to stop its emergency lending now is unlikely to protect it from liability for lending it has done over the last three months.
A win for the publishers could easily bankrupt the Internet Archive. Copyright law allows statutory damages for willful infringement to go as high as $150,000 per work, and the Internet Archive has scanned 1.4 million works and offered them for online download. So the Internet Archive could easily face damages in the billions of dollars if it loses the lawsuit. That's far beyond the group's ability to pay.
[1] CDL - controlled digital lending - One electronic loan per physical copy in the library.
Previously:
Publishers Sue the Internet Archive Over its Open Library, Declare it a Pirate Site
Authors Fume as Online Library "Lends" Unlimited Free Books
Internet Archive Suspends E-Book Lending "Waiting Lists" During U.S. National Emergency
| Links |
printed from SoylentNews, Internet Archive Ends “Emergency Library” Early to Appease Publishers on 2024-04-24 17:43:55