Internet Archive creates a National Emergency Library with over 1.4 million books you can borrow

guest · Mar 24, 2020

Internet Archive creates a National Emergency Library with over 1.4 million books you can borrow immediately
March 24, 2020
https://betanews.com/2020/03/24/internet-archive-national-emergency-library/

If you’re stuck at home as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Internet Archive has some good news for you. It has taken the step of suspending waitlists for books in its lending library, so you can gain immediate access to them.

There are over 1.4 million titles available to read, with more being added regularly.
The Internet Archive explains:

To address our unprecedented global and immediate need for access to reading and research materials, as of today, March 24, 2020, the Internet Archive will suspend waitlists for the 1.4 million (and growing) books in our lending library by creating a National Emergency Library to serve the nation’s displaced learners. This suspension will run through June 30, 2020, or the end of the US national emergency, whichever is later.
The National Emergency Library includes all the books from Phillips Academy Andover and Marygrove College, and much of Trent University’s collections, as well as over a million other titles donated from other libraries to readers worldwide.
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You can browse and borrow books from the National Emergency Library here.
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Internet Archive: Announcing a National Emergency Library to Provide Digitized Books to Students and the Public

ronjor · Mar 31, 2020

Copyright Alliance blasts Internet Archive’s Emergency Library launch as “vile”

By Charlie Osborne for Between the Lines March 31, 2020
The National Emergency Library opened to help learners “displaced” by COVID-19.
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guest · Jun 1, 2020

Book publishers sue Internet Archive for allegedly enabling piracy
They allege that the IA is committing ‘willful mass copyright infringement.’
June 1, 2020
https://www.engadget.com/internet-archive-publishers-lawsuit-open-library-193358101.html

When libraries around the US began closing their doors due to the coronavirus pandemic, the Internet Archive (IA) responded by creating a “National Emergency Library,” a collection of 1.4 million books from its free e-book repository Open Library. Publishers immediately took issue with their titles being shared for free (without payment to authors or publishers).
Today, four major publishers filed a lawsuit against the IA alleging “willful mass copyright infringement.”

“Despite the “Open Library” moniker, IA’s actions grossly exceed legitimate library services, do violence to the Copyright Act, and constitute willful digital piracy on an industrial scale,” Hachette Book Group, Inc., HarperCollins Publishers LLC, John Wiley & Sons, Inc. and Penguin Random House LLC wrote in the lawsuit filed in a New York court.
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The plaintiffs go as far as charging the Archive with piracy. The lawsuit seeks a declaration that the IA is committing copyright infringement, injunctions to stop the IA from sharing copyrighted work and statutory damages, which could be as much as $150,000 per infringement, TorrentFreak explains.

There’s no guarantee that this lawsuit will succeed, but if the IA is slapped with statutory damages it could be a fatal blow to the organization.
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guest · Jun 10, 2020

Internet Archive to close its National Emergency Library two weeks early following legal action
June 10, 2020
https://betanews.com/2020/06/10/national-emergency-library-closing/

Three months ago, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting lockdown, the Internet Archive created a National Emergency Library with over 1.4 million books that you could borrow immediately.

By suspending waitlists for books in its lending library, the Internet Archive hoped to best serve the nation’s displaced learners. The plan at the time was to offer this Emergency Library "through June 30, 2020, or the end of the US national emergency, whichever is later".
However, shortly after announcing the new library, the Internet Archive faced a backlash from authors and publishers [...] Today, the Internet Archive announces that it will close its National Emergency Library on June 16, two weeks earlier than planned, and return to traditional controlled digital lending.
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Internet Archive: Temporary National Emergency Library to close 2 weeks early, returning to traditional controlled digital lending

guest · Oct 14, 2020

Hachette v. Internet Archive
https://www.eff.org/cases/hachette-v-internet-archive

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), with co-counsel Durie Tangri, is defending the Internet Archive against a lawsuit that threatens its Controlled Digital Lending (CDL) program.

The Internet Archive is a nonprofit digital library, preserving and providing access to cultural artifacts of all kinds in electronic form. CDL allows people to check out digital copies of books for two weeks or less, and only permits patrons to check out as many copies as the Archive and its partner libraries physically own.
Four publishers sued the Archive, alleging that CDL violates their copyrights. In their complaint, Hachette, HarperCollins, Wiley, and Penguin Random House claim CDL has cost their companies millions of dollars and is a threat to their businesses.
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This activity is fundamentally the same as traditional library lending, and poses no new harm to authors or the publishing industry. In fact, the Internet Archive is helping to foster research and learning by making sure people all over the world can access books and by keeping books in circulation when their publishers have lost interest
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