The Second Circuit Court of Appeals affirms the District Court's ruling in Hachette v. Internet Archive

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From the review (page 2):

Defendant-Appellant Internet Archive appeals from the judgment of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (Koeltl, Judge) denying plaintiff-appellant’s motion for summary judgment and granting plaintiff-appellant’s motion for summary judgment.

The Internet Archive creates digital copies of printed books and posts those copies on its website, where users can access them in their entirety, for free, as part of a service it calls the “Free Digital Library.” Except for a period in 2020, the Internet Archive has maintained a one-to-one ratio of digital books in possession to loans: initially, it allowed only as many simultaneous “loans” of a digital book as it had physical copies. The Internet Archive later expanded its Free Digital Library to include other libraries, thus counting the number of physical copies of a book that those libraries own against the total number of digital copies that it has available at any given time.

The plaintiff-defendants—four book publishers—sued the Internet Archive in 2020, alleging that its Free Digital Library infringed their copyrights in 127 books and seeking damages and declaratory and injunctive relief. The Internet Archive raised a fair use defense under Section 107 of the Copyright Act. The district court rejected that defense and granted summary judgment in favor of the plaintiff.

The question raised in this appeal is: Is it “fair use” for a nonprofit organization to scan copyrighted print books in their entirety and distribute those digital copies online, in their entirety, for free, subject to a one-to-one possession-to-borrowing ratio between its print copies and the digital copies it makes available at any given time, all without the authorization of the publishers or copyright owners? Applying the relevant provisions of the Copyright Act, as well as applicable Supreme Court and Second Circuit precedents, we conclude that the answer is no.

We therefore CONFIRM.

WITH Conclusions from the opinion (page 63):

The parties in this case represent potentially serious interests. On the one hand, e-book licensing fees can burden libraries and limit access to creative works. On the other hand, authors have a right to compensation for the copying and distribution of their original works. Congress has balanced these “competing public interest claims” in the Copyright Act. Twentieth Century Music Corp., 422 U.S. at 156. We must strike that balance here. The IA asks this Court to bless the large-scale copying and distribution of copyrighted books without permission or payment to publishers or authors. Such a ruling would allow for large-scale copying that deprives authors of compensation and reduces the incentive to create new works. This may be the preference of the IA and its amici, but it is not the approach permitted by the Copyright Act.

For these reasons, we CONFIRM.

Directly to the full text of the court’s opinion
64 pages; PDF.

Directly to the complete case register

See also: Internet Archive fights to preserve digital libraries in second district court hearing (June 28, 2024)

The Second Circuit Court of Appeals affirms the District Court’s ruling in Hachette v. Internet Archive

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