AAP says authors and publishers should control the terms of digital access
Association of American PublishersAssociation of American Publishers President and CEO Maria A. Pallante
AAP President Maria Pallante says authors and publishers should decide how their works are made available, after Internet Archive declined to seek Supreme Court review.
“when authors and their publisher licensees can decide the terms on which they make their works available.”
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 statement after Internet Archive declined to seek Supreme Court review.
Before the quotation
AAP's December 4, 2024 release announced the end of Hachette Book Group v. Internet Archive after the Archive declined to file a petition with the Supreme Court by the December 3, 2024 deadline. Pallante's statement, issued on behalf of AAP's board, opens by saying the Second Circuit's opinion leaves no room for arguments that controlled digital lending is anything more than infringement. The quotation completes her next sentence, which begins: "As the Court recognized, the public interest" and the progress of art and science mandated by the Constitution's copyright clause "is served best".
After the quotation
Pallante thanks Hachette, HarperCollins, Penguin Random House, Wiley, their authors and the amici who supported them. The release adds that the Archive is bound by a permanent injunction and must make a payment to AAP, in an amount kept confidential under a court-approved consent judgment.
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. Announcing the end of the litigation, Pallante says the Second Circuit's opinion leaves no room to argue that controlled digital lending is anything more than infringement, and that the public interest is served best "when authors and their publisher licensees can decide the terms on which they make their works available". That opposes lending scans without the publishers' permission, so we labeled it Condemned. The closest competing label is Challenged the characterization, since AAP puts the Archive's term for its lending in quotation marks; it loses because Pallante opposes the practice itself, calling it infringement.
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More from this case
Read the full caseAAP 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
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 authors and publishers should control the terms of digital access". First published: 2026-10-11. Last updated: 2026-10-11. https://disputeindex.com/events/5553-aap-president-maria-pallante-says-authors-and-publishers