A copyright lawsuit filed by major book publishers against the Internet Archive is set to define the boundaries of digital book lending. The parties shared their positions at a New York federal court yesterday. The Internet Archive claims that its library is protected by fair use and does no harm to rightsholders. For their part, the book publishers see massive infringement and damages.

In 2020, publishers Hachette, HarperCollins, John Wiley and Penguin Random House sued the Internet Archive (IA) for copyright infringement, equating its ‘Open Library’ to a pirate site.

IA’s library is a non-profit organization that scans physical books, which can then be lent out to patrons in an ebook format.

Staying true to the centuries-old library concept, only one patron at a time can get a copy. These restrictions were temporarily loosened at the height of the Covid epidemic when IA launched the National Emergency Library.

The rest of this article can be read on TorrentFreak.com

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