AAP says unauthorized lending harms the public interest
Association of American PublishersTrade association statement by President and CEO Maria A. Pallante
AAP welcomes the ruling, arguing that unauthorized digital copies undermine authors' and publishers' rights to license and receive payment for books.
Responding to
Controlled digital lending of owned in-copyright books should qualify as fair use without publishers' permission.
“infringement is both costly and antithetical to the public interest.”
Official statement
Where this statement fits
Should the Internet Archive need publishers' permission to lend scans of in-copyright books it owns?
In June 2020, Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins, John Wiley & Sons and Penguin Random House sued the Internet Archive for scanning print books and lending the digital copies online without their permission, usually one borrower at a time for each print copy the Archive or a partner library owned. A federal district court in New York rejected the Archive's fair-use defense on March 24, 2023, and on September 4, 2024, the Second Circuit affirmed, finding the lending noncommercial but not transformative and declining to carve out books the Archive owns itself. The Archive, represented by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, called the practice controlled digital lending and said it is what libraries have always done with the books they acquire; the Association of American Publishers said authors and publishers have the right to license and be paid for their books. On December 4, 2024, the Archive said it would not seek Supreme Court review, ending the case, but would keep advocating for libraries to own and lend digital books. The dispute is over whether owning a print copy of an in-copyright book should let the Archive lend a scan of it without the publisher's permission.
Source and context
Official statement
About this source
AAP speaks as a publishing trade association and supports the publishers' ruling. Its statement should be distinguished from the court's reasoning, quoted elsewhere in the release.
Archived copy (opens in a new tab)Before the quotation
AAP's September 4, 2024 release says the Second Circuit affirmed the district court's March 2023 opinion for Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins, John Wiley & Sons and Penguin Random House, rejecting all four factors of the Archive's fair-use argument. It quotes the court's conclusion that scanning and lending the books without authorization is not fair use, then introduces Pallante's statement, which begins by saying the decision upholds the rights of authors and publishers to license and be compensated for their books.
After the quotation
Pallante continues that the court rejects the Archive's lending theory "irrespective of whether the actor is commercial or noncommercial" and makes clear that "there is nothing transformative about converting entire works into new formats without permission". The release then lists passages from the court's decision.
How this statement is classified
The label describes this statement's response within the context above.
Why this label?
The case asks whether the Internet Archive should need publishers' permission to lend scans of in-copyright books it owns. AAP President and CEO Maria A. Pallante says the Second Circuit's decision upholds the rights of authors and publishers "to license and be compensated for their books" and that "infringement is both costly and antithetical to the public interest". That opposes the Archive's lending of scans without permission, so we labeled it Condemned. The closest competing label is Challenged the characterization, since she calls controlled digital lending the defendant's self-crafted theory; it loses because she opposes the lending itself as infringement.
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More from this case
Read the full caseAAP says authors and publishers should control the terms of digital access
Association of American Publishers
“when authors and their publisher licensees can decide the terms on which they make their works available.”Read statement
Internet Archive continues to defend library lending rights
Internet Archive
“will continue to defend the rights of libraries to own, lend, and preserve books.”Read statement
EFF defends controlled digital lending on appeal
Electronic Frontier Foundation
“Action: Filed an appellate brief for Internet Archive defending controlled digital lending of owned books as fair use.”Read statement
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The Dispute Index. "AAP says unauthorized lending harms the public interest". First published: 2026-10-11. Last updated: 2026-10-11. https://disputeindex.com/events/5539-aap-welcomes-the-ruling-arguing-that-unauthorized-digital