Internet Archive’s digital book lending has been found by the court to have violated copyright law

According to a report by Reuters, the non-profit digital library, Internet Archive, which previously provided internet multimedia data file browsing services, has been ruled by a court to have violated intellectual property rights.

The lawsuit was initiated by Hachette Book Group and other publishers, who argued that during the pandemic, Internet Archive had made up to 1.4 million e-book copies available for online use, severely damaging the interests of the publishing industry.

Internet Archive launched the “National Emergency Library” service during the pandemic, which was originally intended to be used in conjunction with the digital lending system. Each e-book was originally limited to one borrower, but Internet Archive later canceled this restriction, causing dissatisfaction among publishers.

In the lawsuit, the publishers argued that Internet Archive had no right to provide scanned books for borrowing, and the court ruling indicated that Internet Archive did not provide relevant book review content to the publishers, and thus did not act in accordance with the principle of mutual benefit. The court also determined that permission from the copyright-holding publishers must be obtained before e-books are lent, resulting in Internet Archive’s defeat.

However, Internet Archive subsequently announced that it would appeal the ruling, and argued that the ruling would affect how knowledge is acquired in the digital age and would be detrimental to both readers and authors. It further emphasized that it would continue to provide services such as lending, citation, and linking of e-book content through digital means in the future.