Publishers File Appeal Brief in Internet Archive Copyright Suit
peter.suber's bookmarks 2024-03-19
Summary:
"In a brief filed this morning, the publisher plaintiffs in Hachette v. Internet Archive asked the Second Circuit court of appeals to uphold Judge John G. Koeltl's March 2023 unequivocal decision finding the Internet Archive's scanning and lending of library books to be copyright infringement.
The filing comes after lawyers for the Internet Archive argued in their December, 2023 opening appeal brief that Koeltl misunderstood the facts and misapplied the law in finding that IA’s scanning and lending of print library books under a novel practice known as controlled digital lending (CDL) infringed publishers’ copyrights, and should be reversed.
In their response, attorneys for the publishers reiterated the arguments that brought them victory in the lawsuit and hammered away against controlled digital lending, calling it “a frontal assault on the foundational copyright principle that rightsholders exclusively control the terms of sale for every different format of their work.”
Moreover, the brief states, “there is nothing transformative about IA’s CDL practices because it does nothing ‘more than repackage or republish’ the Works.” The publisher brief stresses that the original court decision rejected the IA’s fair use argument over the distribution of what the brief called IA’s “bootleg" e-books...."