Internet Archive defends lending books to one reader at a time
Internet ArchiveInternet Archive, represented by founder and digital librarian Brewster Kahle at its press conference
In its press conference statement, Internet Archive says its books can be read by one reader at a time and argues that this follows library practice.
“A library where each of those books can be read by one reader at a time. This is what libraries have always done.”
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
Internet Archive's full publication of Brewster Kahle's press-conference statement.
Before the quotation
The Archive posted the statement Kahle gave at a press conference it hosted ahead of oral argument in the lawsuit. Before this passage, he says digital learners need access to a library of books at least as deep as the libraries older people grew up with, and that the Archive has worked with hundreds of libraries for decades to provide one.
After the quotation
Kahle continues that the Archive also works with libraries that are under threat or have closed, which entrust their books to it as a peer library, and says most of those books are not available from publishers in digital form. Later in the statement he says the publishers are demanding that millions of digitized books be destroyed.
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. At a press conference the Archive held before oral argument in the publishers' lawsuit, Kahle says the Archive's books "can be read by one reader at a time" and adds, "This is what libraries have always done." That defends the Archive's lending as ordinary library practice, so we labeled it Defended or excused. The closest competing label is Challenged the characterization, since he presents the lending as library lending rather than copying; it loses because his point is to justify the practice rather than to dispute a description of it.
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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
AAP says unauthorized lending harms the public interest
Association of American Publishers
“infringement is both costly and antithetical to the public interest.”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
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The Dispute Index. "Internet Archive defends lending books to one reader at a time". First published: 2026-10-11. Last updated: 2026-10-11. https://disputeindex.com/events/5551-in-its-press-conference-statement-internet-archive-says