Publishers, Internet Archive submit negotiated agreement for judgement

In the US, publishers Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins, Penguin Random House and Wiley, and the Internet Archive (IA), have submitted a negotiated agreement for a judgement in the Hachette Book Group, et al, v. Internet Archive case, reports Publishers Weekly.

The proposed agreement includes a declaration that the IA’s unauthorised scanning and lending of 127 in-suit copyrighted books constitutes copyright infringement, a key finding from federal judge John G Koetl’s summary judgement decision in March.

The proposed agreement also includes a permanent injunction that would bar IA from lending unauthorised scans of copyrighted, commercially available books. The agreement also includes a confidential monetary settlement, contingent upon the publishers winning the appeal.

The IA retains the right to appeal the case.

In a statement, the Association of American Publishers (AAP) said: ‘This comprehensive proposed consent judgment—made possible by the District Court’s unequivocal infringement finding—underscores the public purpose of copyright law and the well-established rights of authors and publishers to license and communicate their works to readers through a variety of formats and delivery models. As the Court has so clearly reinforced, infringement serves only the infringer, not the public.’

The IA said the negotiated judgement allows it to get the case to the appeals court more quickly, without the time and expense of a damages trial. ‘We remain steadfast in our belief that libraries should be able to own, preserve, and lend digital books outside of the confines of temporary licensed access,’ IA officials said in a statement. ‘We believe that the judge made errors of law and fact in the decision, and we will appeal.’

As previously reported by Books+Publishing, the suit was first filed by the AAP and major publishers Hachette, HarperCollins, John Wiley & Sons, and Penguin Random House in June 2020, alleging IA’s scanning and lending of library books is piracy on an industrial scale. The IA argues that its activities are protected by fair use, and that the suit fundamentally threatens the core mission of libraries to own and lend collections in the digital age.

Category: International news