Four American publishers — Penguin Random House, Hachette, HarperCollins and Wiley — have sued Internet Archive for its Open Library in general and its National Emergency Library in particular. The latter had suspended the waitlists on its digital lending mechanism until June 30, 2020 or the end of USA’s national emergency (whichever is later), and made its 1.4 million digital books can be digitally borrowed by multiple readers simultaneously. The publishers are seeking statutory damages on each work that has been infringed, damages that the publishers have sustained because of the infringement and profits that Internet Archive has earned through such acts. The publishers want the court to declare Open Library’s practices as “wilful copyright infringement” and issue a permanent injunction against Internet Archive that also orders it to destroy all “unlawful” copies. They filed a lawsuit in the Court of Southern District of New York on June 1. Publishers Marketplace first reported this development. All the four publishers are members of the Association of American Publishers which, according to its website, represents publishers in the US “on matters of law and policy”. In their petition, they clarify that this is not about books that the Internet Archive has permission to distribute, or are in public domain, or about the “occasional transmission of a title under appropriately limited circumstances”. In response, Brewster Kahle, the founder of Internet Archive, wrote on the official Internet Archive blog: "This morning, we were disappointed to read that four commercial publishers are suing the Internet Archive. "As…
