500,000 Books Have Been Deleted From the Internet Archive's Lending Library
The Internet Archive's Open Library, which operates similarly to traditional libraries by lending out digital copies of purchased or donated physical books, has been forced to remove 500,000 books due to a lawsuit by big publishers. Mike Masnick reports via Techdirt: As we've discussed at great length, the Internet Archive's Open Library system is indistinguishable from the economics of how a regular library works. The Archive either purchases physical books or has them donated (just like a physical library). It then lends them out on a one-to-one basis (leaving aside a brief moment where it took down that barrier when basically all libraries were shut down due to pandemic lockdowns), such that when someone "borrows" a digital copy of a book, no one else can borrow that same copy. And yet, for all of the benefits of such a system in enabling more people to be able to access information, without changing the basic economics of how libraries have always worked, the big publishers all sued the Internet Archive. The publishers won the first round of that lawsuit. And while the court (somewhat surprisingly!) did not order the immediate closure of the Open Library, it did require the Internet Archive to remove any books upon request from publishers (though only if the publishers made those books available as eBooks elsewhere). As the case has moved into the appeals stage (where we have filed an amicus brief), the Archive has revealed that around 500,000 books have been removed from the open library. The Archive has put together an open letter to publishers, requesting that they restore access to this knowledge and information -- a request that will almost certainly fall on extremely deaf ears: "We purchase and acquire books -- yes, physical, paper books -- and make them available for one person at a time to check out and read online. This work is important for readers and authors alike, as many younger and low-income readers can only read if books are free to borrow, and many authors' books will only be discovered or preserved through the work of librarians. We use industry-standard technology to prevent our books from being downloaded and redistributed -- the same technology used by corporate publishers. But the publishers suing our library say we shouldn't be allowed to lend the books we own. They have forced us to remove more than half a million books from our library, and that's why we are appealing."

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