Saturday, June 20, 2020

Publishers Sue Internet Archive for free access to E-books


Publishers Sue Internet Archive for free access to E-books 

Digitisation has made access to information much easier and more convenient for the public. Now, with pandemic forcing the public to stay home, the demand of online content or digital information has reached new heights, especially for the book readers. Even though digitisation has comforted the public but at the same time it has troubled IP holders.

One such instance is the recent lawsuit filed by the 4 major publishing houses, namely Hachette Book Group, INC., Harpercollins Publishers LLC, John Wiley & Sons, INC., and Penguin Random House LLC, against the Internet Archive (IA) for copyright infringement by way of creating a “National Emergency Library” (NEL) in view of the current Covid-19 pandemic.

The case was filed as the NEL was to temporarily suspend any wait list for borrowing e-books by the users/consumers and provide copies of work indefinitely to the reader in the times of Covid-19.

Further making copies of works and putting them on a platform to be available for download, forms a clear infringement of copyrights irrespective of the intention.


Regards

Pralhad Jadhav
Senior Manager - Library
Khaitan & Co

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