As a result of book publishers’ successful lawsuit against the Internet Archive (IA) last year, the free online library, which strives to further expand online access to books, recently shrank by about 500,000 titles.
IA reported in a blog post this month that the abrupt forced closure by publishers triggered a “devastating loss” for readers who rely on IA to access books that would otherwise be impossible or difficult for them to access.
To restore access, IA has now filed an appeal, hoping to reverse the previous court’s decision by convincing the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit that IA’s controlled digital lending of its print books should be considered a fair use right under copyright law. An April court filing shows that IA plans to argue that publishers have no evidence that the e-book market has been harmed by the open library lending and that copyright law is better served by allowing IA’s lending than by prohibiting it.
“We use industry-standard technology to prevent our books from being downloaded and redistributed – the same technology used by commercial publishers,” IA’s director of library services Chris Freeland wrote in the blog. “But the publishers suing our library say we can’t lend the books we own. They have forced us to remove more than half a million books from our library, and that’s why we are appealing.”
IA will have the opportunity to defend its approach when oral arguments in the appeal begin on 28 June.
“Our position is clear: we just want to allow our library patrons to borrow and read our books as they would at any other library,” Freeland wrote, arguing that the “potential impact of this lawsuit extends far beyond the Internet Archive” and that publishers should simply “let readers read.”
“This is a fight to preserve all libraries and the fundamental right of access to information, a cornerstone of any democratic society,” Freeland wrote. “We believe in the right of authors to profit from their work; and we believe that libraries must be allowed to fulfill their role of providing access to knowledge, whether it is in physical or digital form. This supports the principle that knowledge should be equally and equitably accessible to all, regardless of where they live or learn.”
Fans of the Internet Archive call on publishers to stop deleting content
After publishers obtained an injunction stopping IA’s digital lending, which “limits what we can do with our digitized books,” IA’s help page said, the open library began to shrink. While “removed books are still available for users with print disabilities,” everyone else was denied access, resulting in many books in IA’s collection showing as “loan unavailable.”
Since then, IA has been “inundated” with requests from readers around the world looking for the removed books, Freeland said. And “we’re faced with questions every day on social media, people asking, ‘Why have so many books disappeared from our library?'” Freeland told Ars.
In an open letter to publishers signed by nearly 19,000 supporters, IA fans asked publishers to reconsider the forced removal of the books and quickly restore access to the lost books.
Among the “far-reaching consequences” of the lockdowns, IA fans included the negative impact on the education of academics, students and educators – “especially in underserved communities where access is limited” – who are suddenly cut off from “research materials and literature that support their learning and academic development.”
They also argued that the lockdowns “dealt a severe blow to low-income families, people with disabilities, rural communities, and LGBTQ+ people, among many others,” who may not have access to a local library or “do not feel safe publicly accessing the information they need.”
“Your removal of these books hinders academic progress and innovation and endangers the preservation of our cultural and historical knowledge,” the letter said.
“This is not happening in the abstract,” Freeland told Ars. “This is reality. People no longer have access to half a million books.”
