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Author: Porter Anderson, Editor | @porter_anderson
“Copyright rather than infringement serves the public interest”
oxygenOn Friday (March 15), four major publishers – Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins, Penguin Random House and Wiley – filed a brief opposing the Internet Archive’s 2023 March 24 Appeal filed against damages in copyright case Hachette Book Group et al v. Internet Archive.
The original lawsuit was filed by the publisher in June 2020 and argued that the Internet Archive had digitized “millions of print books and books.” [distributed] The resulting pirated e-books can be obtained for free from their websites without the consent of the publisher and its authors or the payment of any licensing fees. “
“The publisher has established a prima facie evidence Copyright Infringement Case,” his opinion included a scathing rebuke of the controversial concept of “controlled digital lending.”
Nonetheless, the Internet Archive made good on its promise to appeal, arguing that Judge Cortel did not understand the facts of the case and that his decision was wrong.
Terrence Hart
In response to the Internet Archive’s appeal, Terrence Hart, general counsel for the Association of American Publishers, wrote in September: “The publisher plaintiffs and the AAP community support the district court’s clear opinion in this case that the Internet Archive The museum’s industrial-scale format-diversion activity constitutes copyright infringement, consistent with numerous other precedents defining clear boundaries between fair use and first sale provisions.
“There is simply no legal basis for the idea that the Internet Archive or libraries can convert millions of paper books into e-books for public distribution without consent or compensation from authors and publishers.
“Plaintiff publishers will vigorously appeal this case, which represents fundamental copyright principles. Copyright, not infringement, is the engine of creativity that serves the public interest.”
Therefore, the Association of American Publishers announced the submission of a new brief and highlighted the following points in the new brief:
- “
Controlled digital lending is a frontal attack on the fundamental copyright principle that rights holders have exclusive control over the terms of sale of each different format of their work, a principle that has given rise to the proliferation of books, movies, television and music formats that consumers love. Broad diversity. Enjoy today. - “…the Internet Archive’s conversion of millions of print books into e-books bears no resemblance to the historical practice of lending print books. The Internet Archive does this without paying authors and their publishers a penny. Distributing e-books under circumstances is also inconsistent with modern practices of libraries, which obtain licenses to lend e-books to local communities and legally enjoy the benefits of digital distribution.
- The Internet Archive operates a massive digitization enterprise that copies millions of complete, copyrighted printed books and distributes the resulting pirated e-books from its website to anyone in the world for free. In granting summary judgment, the district court correctly held that fair use did not save the Internet Archive from its infringement because all four factors weighed against the Internet Archive based on longstanding case law.
- “In summary, the Internet Archive distributes publishers’ copyrighted material in markets where the publisher, as the copyright holder, has exclusive development rights, and the Internet Archive wishes to replace the publisher as a supplier of e-books to its customers. “This It is the harm that the fourth factor is designed to prevent. “
- “‘The Internet Archive’s controlled digital lending practice has no transformative implications, as it ‘simply repackages or republishes’ works. “The Internet Archive does not reproduce the works in question to provide criticism, commentary, or information about them Information. ” Instead, the Internet Archive acknowledges that controlled digital lending serves a “similar” purpose to licensed library e-books, making books available for reading, which precludes being transformative “even if the two are not perfect substitutes.”
- “The Internet Archive’s flawed policy argument is that the law must be changed to ‘ensure technological innovation enables libraries to improve access to books…’ But public libraries nationwide that practice ‘traditional library lending’ already do so through the Internet Archive of this ‘technological innovation’. The publisher’s authorized Library eBooks – Serving “people of diverse geographical, cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds”, “disabled persons” and “residents of rural and urban areas” and promoting research. In other words, publishers have innovated. [that] The Internet Archive is a belated champion; the Internet Archive has simply usurped it.
- “The market for licensed library e-books is booming—readers have never had more opportunities to get free, licensed e-books… 430 million e-books and audiobooks were loaned through OverDrive in 2020, more than In 2012, it increased by more than 500%.
- “Copyright law benefits the public by guaranteeing authors and publishers the right to be compensated for e-book versions of their works, not by worshiping consumer convenience.
- “While the potential for catastrophic market damage should be obvious, the dangers facing the publisher e-book market are far from hypothetical, not only because of the historic damage done to the music and news industries by out-of-control content distribution, but also because of generative artificial intelligence. The rapid development of intelligence brings new threats involving large-scale duplication and replacement of literary works and works of other authors.
- “The Internet Archive attempts to justify its mass infringement with a completely fabricated theory called ‘Controlled Digital Lending’ (‘CDL’), arguing that CDL is ‘modern, more efficient lending’ version, used by libraries around the world’. But, as the district court ruled, “there is no case or legal principle to support”[ing the] The concept that “controlled digital lending constitutes fair use”—and “[e]Very authoritatively pointed in another direction. “
The publisher’s 75-page brief filed with the appeals court on Friday can be found here (PDF).
More publishing perspectives on copyright here , more about “controlled digital lending” here , more about the Internet Archive here , more about the Association of American Publishers here , more about Information from the International Publishers Association is here.
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