Internet Archive Forced to Remove 500K Books, Files Appeal

TapTechNews on June 22, the Internet Archive issued an open letter on June 17. Due to its loss in the lawsuit against the book publishers, its online library service had to remove approximately 500,000 volumes of books.

After the book publishers forced the removal of these books, for the readers who rely on the Internet Archive, it is a 'devastating loss'.

The Internet Archive now files an appeal to restore the right of access and hopes to convince the US Second Circuit Court of Appeals to reverse the previous court's judgment that the controlled digital lending of its physical books should be considered fair use under the copyright law.

In the court documents submitted by the Internet Archive in April, the publishers have no evidence that the borrowing behavior of the Open Library has damaged the e-book market, and the borrowing behavior of the Internet Archive is in line with the copyright law.

TapTechNews translates the content in the blog of Chris Freeland, the head of the Internet Archive service, as follows:

We use industry-standard technology to prevent our books from being downloaded and redistributed, and the same technology is used by corporate publishers.

But the publishers who sued our library said that we should not be allowed to lend out the books we owned. They forced us to remove more than 500,000 volumes of books from the library, and that's why we are appealing.

The appeal will be heard on June 28, and the Internet Archive will have the opportunity to defend its approach.