Electronic Frontier Foundation: Internet Archive Files Appeal Brief Defending Libraries and Digital Lending From Big Publishers' Legal Attack

Corynne McSherry, Press Release, December 15, 2023
A cartel of major publishing companies must not be allowed to criminalize fair-use library lending, the Internet Archive argued in an appellate brief filed on December 15, 2023. The Internet Archive is a San Francisco-based 501(c)(3) non-profit library which preserves and provides access to cultural artifacts of all kinds in electronic form. The brief filed in the U.S. Court of Appeal for the Second Circuit by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and Morrison Foerster on the Archive's behalf explains that the Archive's Controlled Digital Lending (CDL) program is a lawful fair use that preserves traditional library lending in the digital world. Nonetheless, publishers Hachette, HarperCollins, Wiley, and Penguin Random House sued the Archive in 2020, claiming incorrectly that CDL violates their copyrights. A judge of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York in March granted the plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment, leading to this appeal.