The Internet Archive (IA) has been enjoying a string of successes recently. Not only did its Wayback Machine service officially surpass the 1 trillion page archive milestone in October, but it was also designated by a U.S. senator as a key international archive.Federal Storage Library (federal depository library).
However, Brewster Kahle, founder of the Web Archive, recently...In an interview with Ars TechnicaAdmittedly, although the Online Archive survived years of copyright litigation, the cost was that one of its core projects, the Open Library, was severely damaged.
A spokesperson for the Internet Archive confirmed that the organization is currently free of major lawsuits, and the active threats to its collections have been temporarily lifted.
The National Emergency Library during the pandemic became the trigger.
This lawsuit stems from the Online Archive's long-standing "Open Library" initiative. This initiative employs a model called "Controlled Digital Lending" (CDL), which allows the library to lend a digital copy of every physical book it owns to one user simultaneously. This model has not triggered any major lawsuits in the past decade.
However, the turning point came at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, when libraries around the world closed. The Online Archive decided to temporarily suspend borrowing limits and launched the "National Emergency Library," which eventually increased its collection to 1.4 million items.
This move immediately triggered a joint lawsuit from major publishers such as Hachette and HarperCollins, accusing it of large-scale copyright infringement. The lawsuit dragged on for years, with the Online Archive losing in 2024.Final appealAlthough the publisher's claim could have reached as high as $4 million (enough to bankrupt the Online Archive), the two sides eventually reached an agreement."Confidential Currency Payment Agreement"This ultimately saved the online archive from bankruptcy.
In addition, the Web Archive is facing another lawsuit in October of this year seeking up to $700 million in damages related to its "Great 78 Project" (a 78 rpm vinyl record digitization project). This lawsuit was also filed under the same confidentiality agreement.reach a settlement.
The Lost 50 Books: Founder Laments Hindered Research Functions and Shattered Dream of Wikipedia Links
Although the Online Archive avoided bankruptcy, Brewster Kahle said its mission suffered a major setback. The settlement came at the cost of removing more than 50 books from Open Library.
Brewster Kahle emphasized that the vision of the online archive is not only as a book lending platform (which is only one of its functions), but also as a research library that allows people to "stand on the shoulders of giants" to make comparisons, citations, and verifications.
One of the core objectives is to allow Wikipedia, the world's most visited encyclopedia, to directly link to scanned book content in its online archive, providing researchers with a convenient and accurate source of information. However, Brewster Kahle believes the real purpose of the lawsuit is for "large multinational media groups" to control the flow of information. He bluntly states, "What they really succeeded in was ensuring that Wikipedia readers couldn't access the books."
Experts: "Statutory damages" are scaring away the digitization of libraries; online archives have already crossed the boundaries of fair use.
Regarding the legal impact of this ruling, copyright lawyer Brandon Butler analyzed that the Online Archive's loss does not mean that the library's existing rights (such as the Google Books ruling) have been reversed, but rather that the Online Archive is trying to "explore another frontier" and test the boundaries of "fair use" to push further.
However, this case also highlights the chilling effect of the "statutory damages" system in the current copyright law.
Brandon Butler points out that copyright holders can claim huge sums of money without proving actual damage. This puts libraries at extremely high risk when undertaking seemingly "completely harmless" digitization preservation projects (such as the Great 78 Project).
This high risk could force under-resourced libraries (especially with federal funding cuts) to delay or abandon necessary digitization efforts, fearing threats of costly lawsuits from publishers.
Future directions: Shifting towards "democratic libraries" and calling for copyright law reform.
Despite the setback, Brewster Kahle's determination has not diminished. The Online Archive will now focus on promoting a project called "Democracy's Library"—a free and open compilation of global government research and publications, linked to Wikipedia entries—while the Online Archive will also continue to collect as much physical material as possible to preserve knowledge.
Brewster Kahle also expressed concern about the current trend in the AI race, believing that it could lead to a greater concentration of power in the hands of large tech companies and governments, making it more difficult for archives dedicated to preserving public memory to survive.
Brewster Kahle concluded by calling for a “re-architected” approach to existing copyright law to ensure it’s a game with multiple winners—authors, publishers, booksellers all get paid, and the mission of libraries is respected—so that society can then figure out “how to use this new set of AI tools.”
