Big publishers think libraries are the enemy

Today's e-book lending limits are a system publishers created rather than a legal requirement, and the Second Circuit's September 4, 2024 decision in Hachette v. Internet Archive treats libraries as harmful to society. The court upheld most of a March 2023 lower-court ruling that aspects of the Internet Archive's Open Library controlled digital lending program violate copyright; the suit was brought in June 2020 by Hachette, HarperCollins, Wiley and Penguin Random House. Critics of the ruling note the court relied on unsupported claims of harm, while the Internet Archive cited an economist who found no measurable effect on e-book or print sales.