Internet Archive: Maybe a Goner?
October 14, 2022
We conceptualize the Internet is an unobstructed entity. The Internet relies on a high-tech, interconnected network of servers and wires that requires an unknown amount of energy. If there are any power outages or the servers breaks, then the Internet is gone. Unfortunately, it could mean the Internet Archive, an online archive of digital media, could disappear due to a lawsuit brought on by authors and publishers.
Slate explains why authors and publishers are upset with the Internet Archive in: “Could The Internet Archive Go Out Like Napster?” In March 2020, the Internet Archive allowed users to check out more than one item from its scanned book collection due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The event was called the National Emergency Library, but publishers and authors claimed this was piracy and harmed their profits. Lawsuits were filed and the National Emergency Library was shut down. The lawsuits are still ongoing, but authors, librarians, and other organizations are worried the Internet Archive could disappear:
“One thing hasn’t changed: fears that the vagaries of this case could cripple the archive and, subsequently, the myriad services it offers the 1.5 million people who visit it every day. In addition to lending books digitally, the Internet Archive hosts the Wayback Machine, a tool that has chronicled internet history since 1996; the concern is that if legal costs drain the archive of its funds, all of its services could be affected. Users of the site and digital archivists have compared the potential loss of the archive’s services to the burning of the Library of Alexandria. Yet book companies also view the stakes here as existential for their business model; the International Publishers Association stated that this case is of “global significance” to its members.”
If the problem was only about the National Emergency Library, then the lawsuits would be over. The bigger picture surrounds how publishers want to block controlled digital lending. There are many ways libraries allow users to check out digital media, popular methods include securing licenses through an app like Libby. Publishers and some authors want to block controlled digital lending, because they only make profits from the first purchase. The use of ebook loans, however, allows them to charge per read. Librarians love controlled digital lending, because it would save them money.
The Internet Archive uses controlled digital ending and states its book collection falls under fair use. The Internet Archive allows users access to a multitude of books that are in copyright limbo: they are out of print, no one knows who owns the copyright, or physical copies are scarce.
Publishers could work with the Internet Archive, but profits always win over the decency of keeping a non-profit (that actually does something good) up and going. So much for the free, digital utopia, the Internet was supposed to be.
Whitney Grace, MLS, October 14, 2022
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