Internet Archive Case Concludes

The Internet Archive (IA) has elected not to further appeal its loss in the copyright infringement case upheld by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in September.

Now that the case is settled, IA will remove infringing books from their “lending library” and pay an undisclosed monetary sum to the plaintiff publishers, which the Association of American Publishers says should “substantially” cover the attorney fees and court costs.

The IA released a statement that reads,

While we are deeply disappointed with the Second Circuit’s opinion in Hachette v. Internet Archive, the Internet Archive has decided not to pursue Supreme Court review. We will continue to honor the Association of American Publishers (AAP) agreement to remove books from lending at their member publishers’ requests.

The suit was first brought in 2020 by HarperCollins, Penguin Random House, Hachette Book Group, and Wiley, alleging “willful mass copyright infringement” by IA’s “National Emergency Library,” which offered unlimited borrows of over a million ebooks. Judge John Koeltl of New York Federal Court issued a summary judgment against IA on March 24, 2023, and the Second Circuit upheld the judgement on appeal in September 2024.

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