Lawsuit
Lawsuit
(“HarperCollins”), John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (“Wiley”), and Penguin Random House LLC
(“Penguin Random House”), by and through their attorneys Davis Wright Tremaine LLP and
Oppenheim + Zebrak, LLP, for their Complaint, hereby allege against Defendant Internet
connection with website operations it markets to the public as “Open Library” and/or “National
Emergency Library.” Plaintiffs are four of the world’s preeminent publishing houses.
Collectively, they publish some of the most successful and leading authors in the world,
investing in a wide range of fiction and nonfiction books for the benefit of readers everywhere.
All of the Plaintiffs are member companies of the Association of American Publishers, the
mission of which is to be the voice of American publishing on matters of law and public policy.
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license or any payment to authors or publishers, IA scans print books, uploads these illegally
scanned books to its servers, and distributes verbatim digital copies of the books in whole via
public-facing websites. With just a few clicks, any Internet-connected user can download
digital scanned copies of over 1.3 million books. And its stated goal is to do so for millions
more, essentially distributing free digital copies of every book ever written. Despite the “Open
Library” moniker, IA’s actions grossly exceed legitimate library services, do violence to the
Copyright Act, and constitute willful digital piracy on an industrial scale. Consistent with the
deplorable nature of piracy, IA’s infringement is intentional and systematic: it produces mirror-
image copies of millions of unaltered in-copyright works for which it has no rights and
distributes them in their entirety for reading purposes to the public for free, including
4. Books have long been essential to our society. Fiction and non-fiction alike, they
transport us to new worlds, broaden our horizons, provide us with perspective, reflect the ever-
growing knowledge of humanity in every field, spark our imaginations and deepen our
understanding of the world. Yet, books are not self-generating. They are the product of training
and study, talent and grit, perseverance and creativity, investment and risk, and untold hours of
work.
5. The publishing ecosystem not only depends upon copyright law, it is historically
intertwined with the founding of the United States. In 1787, the Framers adopted the Copyright
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Clause of the Constitution, explicitly authorizing Congress “[t]o promote the Progress of Science
and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to
their respective Writings and Discoveries.” U.S. Const., Art. I, §8, cl. 8. In 1790, the First
Congress enacted the first Copyright Act, focused on incentivizing both the creation and legal
dissemination of books, maps, and charts. Congresses ever since have carefully balanced
copyright amendments to advance the public good and for more than 200 years have prescribed
encourage, invest in, license, and distribute to readers through bookstores, libraries, and a
multitude of e-commerce platforms. In this process of publishing books that educate, entertain,
and inspire the public, publishers rely not only on the exclusive rights that are their lifeblood, but
on the expectation that Congress has carefully considered and appropriately tailored any
6. IA not only acts entirely outside any legal framework, it does so flagrantly and
fraudulently. And it proceeds despite actual notice that its actions constitute infringement. For
the avoidance of doubt, this lawsuit is not about the occasional transmission of a title under
appropriately limited circumstances, nor about anything permissioned or in the public domain.
scan, reproduce, and then distribute digital bootleg versions online. IA’s Website includes books
romances to literary fiction, from self-help books to biographies, from children’s books to adult
books. IA often suggests that the Website is limited to twentieth-century books, but this is
neither accurate nor a defense. IA scans, uploads, and distributes huge numbers of in-copyright
books published in both the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, including many books
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published within just the past few years. IA’s unauthorized copying and distribution of
Plaintiffs’ works include titles that the Publishers are currently selling commercially and
currently providing to libraries in ebook form, making Defendant’s business a direct substitute
benefits to the public of ready access to books and other publications. This partnership turns
upon a well-developed and longstanding library market, through which public libraries buy print
books and license ebooks (or agree to terms of sale for ebooks) from publishers, usually via book
wholesalers or library ebook aggregators. IA’s activities are nothing like those of public
libraries, but rather the kind of quintessential infringement that the Copyright Act directly
prohibits. Moreover, while Defendant promotes its non-profit status, it is in fact a highly
commercial enterprise with millions of dollars of annual revenues, including financial schemes
that provide funding for IA’s infringing activities. By branding itself with the name “Open
Library,” it thus badly misleads the public and boldly misappropriates the goodwill that libraries
“Controlled Digital Lending” (“CDL”)—the rules of which have been concocted from whole
cloth and continue to get worse. For example, at first, under this theory IA claimed to limit the
number of scanned copies of a title available for free download at any one time to the number of
print books of that title in its collection—though no provision under copyright law offers a
colorable defense to the systematic copying and distribution of digital book files simply because
the actor collects corresponding physical copies. Then, in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic,
IA opportunistically seized upon the global health crisis to further enlarge its cause, announcing
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with great fanfare that it would remove these already deficient limitations that were purportedly
infringement is all the more egregious for its timing, which comes at the very moment that many
authors, publishers, and independent bookstores, not to mention libraries, are both struggling to
survive amidst economic uncertainty and planning deliberatively for future, changing markets.
adopting the invented CDL theory or filling the self-appointed role as “National Emergency
Library”—its actions find no support in the Copyright Act. IA’s defenses of its actions—both
before and after the onset of the COVID-19 crisis—are baseless. First, while IA claims to serve
an educational purpose, education has long been a primary mission and market of publishers. It
is authors and publishers who create the books of scholarship and literature for educators,
students, and other readers; IA creates nothing. IA plays no role in the hard work of researching,
writing, or publishing the works or, for that matter, in creating or sustaining the overall
publishing ecosystem and its distinct partnerships and markets. Nor does IA contribute to the
digitization business has no new purpose that is fundamentally different than that of the
Publishers: both distribute entire books for reading. In short, Defendant merely exploits the
investments that publishers have made in their books, and it does so through a business model
that is designed to free-ride on the work of others. Defendant pays for none of the expenses that
go into publishing a book and is nothing more than a mass copier and distributor of bootleg
works. In so doing, IA undermines the balance and promise of copyright law by usurping the
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Publishers’ ability to license and sell the books that they have lawfully produced on behalf of
both an actual legal doctrine and a justification for its infringement affronts the most basic
realities of the law and the markets it propels. As a matter of markets, IA’s one-to-one
conflation of print and ebooks is fundamentally flawed. Digital books are inherently different
from physical books. They can fly around the world in a second; they do not degrade over time
as physical books do; and they require devices to read them. For these reasons, the Publishers
have established independent and distinct distribution models for ebooks, including a market for
lending ebooks through libraries, which are governed by different terms and expectations than
print books. IA’s end-run around these differences and restrictions is aggressive and unlawful.
In short, all of the reasons why IA has scanned print books to create digital files are the very
same reasons why authors and publishers provide digital books under different terms than print
11. No concept of fair use supports the systematic mass copying or distribution of
entire books for the purpose of mass reading, or put another way, for the purpose of providing to
readers the very thing that publishers and authors provide in the first place through lawful and
established channels. IA does not add something new to the Plaintiffs’ books, with a different
purpose or character; thus, it cannot even begin to make the all-important showing that its use of
the works is transformative. Separately, Section 109 of the Copyright Act is clear that, pursuant
to the doctrine of first sale, the owner of a lawfully acquired print book may dispose only of
her/his particular print copy. One who makes and distributes reproductions of that physical
copy—such as IA’s low quality scans—is well outside the bounds of the law.
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12. Nor do IA’s efforts to brand itself as a library somehow imbue it with any right to
digitize and distribute unauthorized digital copies of books. Libraries are trusted institutions that
serve the communities that fund them. When Congress contemplated the making of digital
copies by libraries under 17 U.S.C. §108, it engaged all relevant stakeholders and created a set of
IA’s actions. As the Copyright Office observed in a relevant public study titled “Legal Issues in
Mass Digitization” (October 2011), “The Section 108 exception does not contemplate mass
digitization.”
disaggregates itself from this ecosystem, ignores the law, and asserts that its goal of providing
free copies of books somehow excuses it from any responsibility to those who have created the
works and hold exclusive rights under the Copyright Act. Its goal of creating digital copies of
books and providing them to whomever wants to download them reflects a profound
misunderstanding of the costs of creating books, a profound lack of respect for the many
contributors involved in the publication process, and a profound disregard of the boundaries and
balance of core copyright principles. IA does not seek to “free knowledge”; it seeks to destroy
the carefully calibrated ecosystem that makes books possible in the first place—and to
14. In sum, IA’s massive taking violates the Plaintiffs’ exclusive rights under 17
U.S.C §106. Plaintiffs bring this action to halt IA’s assault on their rights.
THE PARTIES
A. Plaintiffs
15. Plaintiffs are four of the leading book publishers in the United States. Working
closely with their authors, Plaintiffs source, develop, edit, publish, market, and distribute tens of
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thousands of books per year, across the full spectrum of genres and topics.
Delaware, with its principal place of business at 1290 Sixth Avenue, New York, NY 10104.
With a history stretching back to 1837, Hachette works with bestselling authors who have been
published all over the world. Hachette books and authors have won Pulitzer Prizes, National
Book Awards, Newbery Medals, Caldecott Medals, and Nobel Prizes. Its many publishing
imprints include prominent brands such as Little, Brown and Company, Little, Brown Books for
Young Readers, Grand Central Publishing, Basic Books, Public Affairs, Orbit, FaithWords and
Center Street.
Delaware, with its principal place of business at 195 Broadway, New York, NY 10007.
HarperCollins has more than 200 years of history in the book publishing industry and the
company now operates more than 120 imprints and brands in 17 countries worldwide. Each
year, HarperCollins publishes approximately 10,000 new books in more than a dozen languages
and boasts a catalogue of more than 200,000 titles in print and digital formats. Working across a
wide range of genres, authors published by HarperCollins have won the Nobel Prize, the Pulitzer
Prize, the National Book Award, the Newbery and Caldecott Medals, and the Man Booker Prize,
18. Plaintiff Penguin Random House is a publishing company, organized under the
laws of Delaware, with its principal place of business at 1745 Broadway, New York, NY 10019.
Penguin Random House can trace its history back to the mid-nineteenth century and one of its
progenitors, Random House, published the first authorized edition of James Joyce’s Ulysses in
the English-speaking world, among other landmark titles. The portfolio operated by Penguin
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Random House has grown to encompass nearly 275 independent imprints and brands across five
continents. Penguin Random House publishes 15,000 new titles per year—catering to readers of
all ages and at every stage of life—and sells close to 800 million print books, audiobooks, and
ebooks annually. It has published hundreds of the most widely read authors in the world.
19. Plaintiff Wiley is a publishing company, organized under the laws of New York,
with its principal place of business at 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030. Founded in 1807,
Wiley has over 200 years of experience publishing scientific, professional, and education books
and journals in print and digital formats. Wiley has published works by over 450 Nobel
Laureates. It publishes over 2,000 new books each year and currently offers over 120,000 titles.
20. Plaintiffs are the copyright owners or owners of exclusive rights under copyright
in, inter alia, each of the works listed in Exhibit A (the “Works”), on which they bring suit here.
through the activities complained of herein. Upon information and belief, all of the Works have
been scanned and uploaded to the Website by IA. All of these titles are commercially available.
21. The Works represent a cross-section of the exceptional books that are made
possible by a functioning publishing ecosystem, from perennial classic novels to more recent
highly acclaimed works of non-fiction and everything in between. Some of the greatest works of
fiction ever published find their place among the Works in suit, including The Lord of the Flies
by William Golding (winner of the 1983 Nobel Prize for Literature), Song of Solomon by Toni
Morrison (winner of the 1993 Nobel Prize for Literature), and Their Eyes Were Watching God by
Zora Neal Hurston. The Works also include New York Times bestselling authors like John
Grisham and James Patterson and equally popular thrillers like Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn as
well as hard-hitting contemporary novels, such as The Miseducation of Cameron Post by Emily
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M. Danforth and The Road by Cormac McCarthy, which won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
Children’s books are well-represented, from old favorites like Little House on the Prairie and
The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe to more recent treasures, like the works of Lemony
Snicket and Escape from Mr. Lemoncello’s Library. Books for young adults are also included,
like Scat by Carl Hiaasen and The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros.
22. No less important than the works of fiction are the outstanding examples of non-
fiction books represented by the Works. The Works contain multiple titles from the ever-popular
“For Dummies” series, which have taught intrepid readers the basics of everything from oil
painting to comparative religion. For those looking for success in business, the Works include
books by the management guru Patrick Lencioni and books on investment by billionaire analyst
Ken Fisher. Also included are Malcolm Gladwell’s highly influential works on psychology and
behavioral economics, a work by Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel, and the well-loved A
B. Defendant
with its principal place of business at 300 Funston Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94118.
24. IA is registered with the New York Department of State to transact business and
accept service of process within the State of New York. IA currently transacts business within
the State of New York and this District by, inter alia, distributing digital copies of books (and
other content) to New York residents over the Internet, by providing New York residents with
contributions from New York residents to further its digitization and distribution of books. In
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25. IA harms the Publishers in this District because IA has copied and uploaded the
Publishers’ copyrighted books to its Website, including each of the Works in suit, without
permission, and IA currently distributes copies to users of the Website, in New York or
elsewhere. Upon information and belief, many of the acts of copyright infringement committed
by IA set forth in this Complaint occurred within this State and District—including illegal
reproductions, distributions, public displays, and/or public performances. Both the Publishers’
economic and author relations damages are primarily felt in this State, where three of the
Plaintiffs have their principal place of business and the fourth (Wiley) is incorporated. IA knew
it would cause injury to Publishers in this State and District, or it should have reasonably
expected injury to occur here. Indeed, IA acknowledges that in the last thirty days over 151,000
views on its site came from New York State, making New York the jurisdiction with the third
According to public filings, IA has earned over $100 million in the last ten years from a national
network of supporters, at least some of whom are based in New York, and from the services it
sells to clients in New York and all over the United States, including industrial-scale book
scanning services.
27. Defendants Doe 1 through Doe 5 are certain individuals or entities whose true
identities are not currently known to Plaintiffs. Defendants Doe 1 through Doe 5, who are sued
under fictitious names, are those who also may be responsible for the unlawful activities
complained of herein. (Doe 1 through Doe 5 do not include any public, university, or academic
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libraries.) Once Plaintiffs ascertain their identities, Plaintiffs will seek leave of the Court to
amend the Complaint to include Defendants Doe 1 through Doe 5 as named defendants.
28. This Court has subject matter jurisdiction over this action, which arises under the
Copyright Act of 1976, 17 U.S.C. §§ 101, et seq., pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §§ 1331 and 1338.
29. This Court has personal jurisdiction over Defendant pursuant to CPLR 302
because, inter alia, Defendant transacts business within the State of New York and supplies
services in this State; because Defendant has committed tortious acts within the State of New
York, including the direct and indirect infringement of Plaintiffs’ exclusive rights in copyrighted
books; and, because Defendant has caused injury to Plaintiffs in this State by allowing Internet
users to download and view Plaintiffs’ Works for free on the infringing Website and knew or
reasonably should have known its acts would have consequences in this State, all while deriving
30. This Court independently has personal jurisdiction over Defendant pursuant to
CPLR 301 because IA is registered to do business in the State of New York and has pervasive
corporate ties to the State that are sufficient to justify the imposition of general jurisdiction here.
31. Venue is proper in this District under 28 U.S.C. §§ 1391 and 1400.
FACTUAL BACKGROUND
32. Books are a cornerstone of our culture and system of democratic self-government
and play a critical role in education. Because books require so much time and effort to write and
develop, they offer the promise of high-quality expression, important insights, and long-term
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value to society. But the qualities that make books among the most reliable conduits of learning
and most intensive sources of creative expression come at a high cost. Publishers are largely
responsible for bearing these costs and, in doing so, act as leading defenders of free speech,
promoters of literacy and scientific knowledge, and creators of the stories people thrive on.
33. Authors devote great effort and care in researching and writing books, a skill
which requires training and imagination. It is not unusual for an author to spend years writing a
single book of fiction or nonfiction. Many authors, from the most celebrated New York Times
bestsellers to new talents still making a name for themselves, write books for a living and rely on
income from writing as their primary means of support. Writing is an expert craft, but one that is
commercially unpredictable. Authors who find success with one book may benefit from
renewed interest in and sales of their previous titles. Copyright law supports this long potential
34. In the United States, publishing dates back to the dawn of our democracy. Over
hundreds of years, book publishers like Plaintiffs have invested in the talent of authors and
variety of vital services including editing, marketing, and distribution. Publishers expend the
necessary resources, financial and otherwise, in reliance on the enforceable exclusive rights
afforded by copyright law that make recouping expenditures possible. The steadfastness of the
law, in turn, promotes new technologies and new business models and distribution mechanisms
by which to reach new audiences, no matter the circumstances. Indeed, at a time of crisis such as
we have now with COVID-19, the continued viability of publishing is more important than ever
to society.
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35. The founders of this nation wrote a copyright clause into the Constitution to
empower Congress to incentivize authors to create and publish their work, yielding a robust
history of Copyright Acts that date to 1790 and have always squarely addressed the protection of
books. The Copyright Act of 1976—which enacts the constitutional imperative into law and
balances the rights of readers with the rights of copyright owners—enables authors to profit from
writing books by granting them the legal right to control the reproduction, distribution, public
display, and public performance of their work, and to create derivative works, among other
36. In a related fashion, copyright law gives authors and publishers, as rightsholders,
exclusive control over how to publish their content in order to allow book markets to develop
and thrive. This includes empowering publishers to tailor their means of distribution and terms
of sale or license depending on the format or medium in which a particular title is released.
These carefully calibrated markets are precisely the markets that IA seeks to disrupt and destroy
by arrogating to itself the right to engage in bulk digitization of the Publishers’ in-copyright
books without a license and without any compensation, and by distributing the resulting illegal
37. Over hundreds of years publishers have found ways to maintain viable markets
for books even as revolutions in publishing have driven changes in format, from leather-bound
hardcover books to paperbacks to the paperless ebooks we read on digital devices. The ability of
publishers to develop a diversity of new channels as technology evolves is crucial to meeting the
38. This includes the market for both new and “backlist” books. Book publishers
derive substantial revenue from backlist books, which range from venerable classics like The
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Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath or Winds of War by Herman Wouk to works written only a few years
ago, including bestselling works such as Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert and
Commonwealth by Ann Patchett, all of which are Works in suit. Moreover, a great deal of the
most successful children’s books, including many of the Works, are backlist books.
39. The rise of a commercial market for ebooks provides an example of publishers’
adapting to new technologies to create new and diverse channels to meet the demands of readers.
Since the early 2000s, Plaintiffs and other publishers have offered readers digital versions of
their books, which can be read on portable electronic devices such as the Kindle, Nook, iPad, and
other smart devices. Since that time, ebooks have grown to become a major source of revenue
for authors and publishers. Publishers have invested heavily to expand the ebook market,
including by publishing their backlist titles in ebook form. They have devoted considerable time,
money, and professional expertise to create high-quality ebooks to deliver to readers. Authors
40. The fundamental differences between print and digital formats require publishers
to market print books and ebooks in different ways. Not only are the cost structures and
distribution systems different for these two formats, but ebooks are digital files that can pose
significant security concerns. Without protective measures, digital files can be copied perfectly,
instantaneously and in practically infinite quantity at virtually no cost, and distributed all over
ebooks the same way that they sell traditional paper books. Like other copyright sectors that
consumers or sell them pursuant to special agreements or terms established by each publisher
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and the platforms on which the ebooks may be read. By contrast, they sell copies of print books
42. When an ebook customer obtains access to the title in a digital format, there are
set terms that determine what the user can or cannot do with the underlying file. Publishers also
use digital rights management technology (“DRM”) to restrict the use and further distribution of
ebook files. The commercial ebook market would not be viable if publishers lacked the ability to
place any control over the means of distribution of ebooks or to prevent unlimited copying or
43. Copyright law recognizes and enforces the right of copyright owners to control
their works through DRM technology. In 1998, Congress enacted the Digital Millennium
Copyright Act (“DMCA”), which made it illegal to circumvent DRM technology. The rights
that enable publishers to control the publication of ebooks ultimately benefit readers because
they enable publishers to provide their ebooks to a variety of channels and at a variety of price
points that make sense for the specific authors and titles in their catalog.
44. Over the past twenty years, publishers have embraced the shift to digital
distribution, and access models. Indeed, Plaintiffs have collectively made thousands of the
books in their catalogs available in ebook form, including the Works identified in this suit and
hundreds of thousands of other works, backlist titles included. Virtually all of the trade books
being offered for sale by Plaintiffs, including backlist books, are available in both print and
ebook form.
45. At the same time, it is a basic tenet of copyright law that the copyright holder
retains the exclusive right to decide whether or not to publish a copyrighted book in a digital
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format. At times, authors and publishers make the purposeful decision not to publish particular
titles as ebooks. Some niche categories of books are excluded from the ebook market because
they are not suitable for that market. In other cases, authors and publishers decide not to publish
ebooks because a digital edition would be far inferior to a print version—as with some heavily
46. Public libraries are among the most cherished institutions in this country. To
Plaintiffs, libraries are not just customers but allies in a shared mission to make books available
to those who have a desire to read, including, especially, those who lack the financial means to
purchase their own copies. Much like a publisher must decide which books to invest in—
balancing all sorts of considerations—librarians must make reasoned decisions about which
47. Plaintiffs have worked with libraries and library aggregators such as OverDrive to
pioneer an innovative and highly successful service that enables library patrons to easily and
lawfully obtain digital copies of books. Under negotiated terms, publishers provide their ebooks
to library aggregators, who, in turn, work with libraries and their patrons to host a platform that
permits and tracks the lending of ebooks. In this way, library patrons can log onto their library
accounts from their homes or any other location, download ebooks onto their computers,
smartphones, or e-reading devices for a limited time period under stated terms of use and read
them without physically visiting their local library. Each library focuses its services on its
community, making ebook (and other) acquisition decisions based on the specific needs of local
patrons.
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48. As competitors in the marketplace, Plaintiffs have each worked with libraries and
library aggregators to develop innovative models capable of sustaining a functioning market for
their respective ebooks. These pricing and agreed terms of use—which vary from publisher to
publisher and can vary by market segment—continue to evolve based on the feedback from
libraries and other considerations. There is a vibrant market for selling and licensing ebooks to
libraries to provide their patrons with lawful copies of ebooks. But that market cannot be
sustained if, rather than patronize their local library, individuals can freely download
iv. Plaintiffs and Libraries Reacted Rapidly to Ensure Library Patrons Have
Access to Books During the COVID-19 Lockdown
49. The advent of the COVID-19 pandemic has shown that online commerce is more
important than ever to publishers, authors, bookstores, and libraries. During this time period,
many customers have been well-served by existing digital business models, both commercial and
related initiatives to ensure that readers retain access to books while nationwide stay-at-home
orders remained in effect. They have ranged from providing free ebook copies to library patrons
during the shutdown in specific instances, to donating hundreds of thousands of print books, to
working closely with schools, colleges, and teachers to ensure access to and availability of books
50. The Publishers have used their exclusive rights to strike an appropriate balance
between the interests of the relevant parties, particularly authors and readers. Moreover, the
measures taken by the Publishers in response to the COVID-19 pandemic also take into account
the needs of booksellers, particularly independent bookstores, most of which are small
businesses that have been crippled by the shutdowns. Copying and giving books away to
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everybody for free—as IA has done with Plaintiffs’ and others’ works—deprives booksellers of
the sales that they need to stay afloat and authors of royalties they otherwise count on as
51. Libraries have been equally proactive in meeting the challenges of the COVID-19
pandemic. For example, despite the closure of their physical locations, many libraries have
allowed new patrons to sign up for library cards online. Patrons are still able to lawfully
download hundreds of thousands of ebooks and online materials through the digital lending
systems that libraries and publishers have developed. IA’s Website steers readers away from the
52. Despite its efforts to cast itself as the hero in this story, IA’s business model for
the Website—which is essentially to freely disseminate scanned copies of every physical book it
can lay its hands on—is parasitic and illegal. IA exploits the invaluable work that authors and
publishers do without investing in any of the effort or paying any of the costs associated with the
creation and publication of the books. What IA does is copyright infringement, plain and simple,
i. Internet Archive
53. Brewster Kahle founded Internet Archive in 1996. Internet Archive provides a
number of services not at issue in this action, including its Wayback Machine and digitization of
public domain materials. At issue here is IA’s scanning of in-copyright books and distribution of
digital copies via its Website. Notably, it operates with a surprisingly unsubtle penchant for
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54. IA reported more than $150 million of revenue in the last ten years, according to
publicly available tax filings. As per its 2017 tax filings, it employed 150 employees. IA’s
headquarters are located in an exclusive area of San Francisco. Kahle expanded the IA empire in
2019 by purchasing through Better World Libraries, a shell company he controls, the for-profit
Better World Books, an online retailer that predominantly sells used books.
55. The bulk of IA’s revenue is derived from contributions from large donors,
including tens of millions of dollars from the Kahle/Austin Foundation. The Kahle/Austin
Foundation is an entity established by Brewster Kahle and his wife to give money to IA and
other favored projects. In 2018, the Kahle/Austin Foundation reported assets of $104,483,456.
IA also has reported sizeable donations from other large foundations, some of which are based in
New York.
56. IA has an interlocking web of contributions and commercial services that support
its Website. In addition to receiving large-dollar donations, IA has made tens of millions of
dollars from selling commercial services. One of the services it offers is industrial-scale book
scanning and digitization, which has generated more than $25 million in revenue since 2011. IA
provides this service to customers nationwide, and as its marketing materials tout, employs a
Regional Digitization Manager for customers in the “NJ/NY/PA” area. Upon information and
belief, this employee currently resides in New York City. This same employee helped to set up
and manage IA’s first digitization center, which was housed for an extended period of time in
this District.
57. IA started the “Open Library” in or around 2006 with the goal of providing “one
web page for every book published.” An online catalog of all the books in the world was not a
novel concept. Since 1998, the WorldCat database run by the Online Computer Library Center
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has provided an exhaustive online catalogue of library books, which currently contains over 450
58. But IA was not content with a resource tool designed to help users find books.
Taking a step further, IA created the Website with the goal of providing free downloads of entire
copies of every book ever published. Over the course of several years, IA has gradually built up
a program designed to obtain vast quantities of print books in bulk, scan them on an industrial
scale, and distribute digital copies through the Website without any license from the copyright
owner.
59. IA engages in this massive, industrialized scanning of print books to create digital
files in large part to evade the Publishers’ commercial terms for ebooks and because DRM
precludes the duplication of Plaintiffs’ ebooks. In other words, IA employs this end-run as a
means to avoid both the Publishers’ ebook use restrictions and the dictates of the DMCA by
creating its own bootleg electronic versions of the books through scanning. But that end-run is
unlawful and equally harmful to the Publishers and their authors, who receive no compensation
for IA’s reproduction and distribution of their works in digital form and whose paid offerings
60. The basic purpose of IA’s massive book digitization project is the same as
Plaintiffs’ basic purpose in publishing books, which is to distribute reading material. This is in
stark contrast to other large-scale book digitization projects, like the ones carried out by Google
and the HathiTrust, which created digital indexes of the contents of books that could be used for
the purpose of online search, but which never made the contents of entire books freely available
to the general public. Here, IA allows every person in the world to instantly download complete
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books or download them—without ever receiving the necessary permission from the copyright
owner.
61. In a 2017 interview, IA’s founder stated, “We’re trying to . . . make all the
want to have access, we can make it available [sic] to all the books, music, video, web page,
software, lectures, available to anybody wanting to have access.” Mary Kay Magistad, Where to
find what’s disappeared online, and a whole lot more: Internet Archive, PRI.org (Feb. 23, 2017,
whole-lot-more-internet-archive.
62. In recent years, IA has started to ramp up its efforts. The annual income reported
by IA has nearly doubled since 2013 and the rapid accumulation of funds has been accompanied
by public statements promising aggressive expansion. In 2019, for instance, the Director of
Open Libraries told Library Journal that he aimed to increase the acquisition of books in bulk
and speed up the rate of book digitization to 500,000 books per year. The goal of this
accelerated activity is to put “more than four million books online for the public,” which would
match the number of books in the collection of a large metropolitan library system. Matt Enis,
Internet Archive Expands Partnerships for Open Libraries Project, Library Journal (May 2,
2019), https://www.libraryjournal.com/?detailStory=internet-archive-expands-partnerships-for-
open-library-project.
63. As the number of scanned books on the Website increases exponentially, the
misrepresentations IA employs to justify its infringing activities are exposed. For example, IA
frequently characterizes the books on the Website as twentieth-century works that do not have
active sales or available ebooks, as if infringement is allowed if a work is not readily available
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(which it is not). But this “old books” defense is a fantasy. As is evident from IA’s own figures
and the Works in suit, many of the books that IA provides in the most popular categories, such as
biographies, were published in the years leading up to 2000 and in the twenty-first century, with
relatively few books from earlier in the twentieth century. This is evident from the Open
Library’s own graph illustrating the year of publication for its biographies:
64. Indeed, the Works in suit include books first published in 2019, including The
Man Who Solved the Market: How Jim Simons Launched the Quant Revolution by Gregory
65. In short, IA directly harms the Plaintiffs’ print and ebook markets in all market
segments by providing competing substitutes for numerous original works currently available in
their catalogs.
66. IA knows that it cannot proceed with the mass digitization and distribution
reflected by the Website without an agreement with the Publishers on mutually agreed terms.
The Publishers and/or their trade association AAP have put IA on direct notice that Open
example, in 2018, HarperCollins put IA on express written notice that its actions in connection
with Open Library with respect to HarperCollins’ titles were infringing and not justified under its
various manufactured defenses. Despite actual notice that its actions were illegal and without
any basis in law, IA has willfully persisted with its infringing activities.
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67. From the perspective of the Website user, IA offers an ostensibly attractive
proposition: free copies of about 1.3 million books. Anyone with an Internet connection and an
email address can sign up for an account to use the Website in a matter of minutes. The process
requires no verification of the user’s identity, and there is nothing to prevent users from creating
multiple accounts with dummy email addresses in order to circumvent limits, assuming any are
in place at all.
68. Once on the Website, a user is taken to a landing page that suggests titles under
categories such as “Books We Love,” “Romance,” “Science,” “Kids” and “Thrillers.” Users can
also search for books according to title, author, subject, ISBN, and other categories.
69. Clicking on a book title takes the user to the title’s webpage on the Website,
which contains a picture of the cover, a description of the book and bibliographic information,
such as the publication date and the WorldCat catalog number. As shown in the screenshot on
the following page, which is a typical webpage on the Website, the user is also presented with
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70. The first—and most prominent—“Buy this book” link is to Better World Books,
the online, largely used bookseller owned by a shell company controlled by IA founder, Brewster
Kahle. Notably, IA does not provide links to the book publisher’s or author’s website.
71. For each book on the Website, IA gives users one of two options, which it calls
“read” or “borrow.” The books in the “read” category are books that IA presumably has
concluded are in the public domain. For books in the “read” category, the Website has no limit
on how many users can download them, either at any point in time or in the aggregate. Users
who choose the “read” option can download to their computers, e-readers, or mobile devices a
scanned copy of the entire book in a variety of digital formats that lack any DRM protection,
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including as a .pdf file. Once a user downloads a book as a .pdf, he or she is free to make
unlimited copies of the book and can distribute it to whomever they wish at no cost.
Alternatively, users can read these books through the IA’s “Book Reader” interface described
below.
72. Although the books that IA classifies in the “read” category are presumably
supposed to be in the public domain, sometimes the books are in fact protected by copyright.
For instance, at one point, any Internet-connected individual could download copies of the
modern classic To Kill a Mockingbird, which is still under copyright, without any restrictions. In
other cases, copyrighted books have been distributed without DRM restrictions because, upon
information and belief, IA erroneously decided that they were public domain works based on
73. Under the second option, IA permits users to “borrow” titles from the Website
that it recognizes are not in the public domain through its so-called “controlled digital lending”
below, “controlled digital lending” is a manufactured legal paradigm, conceived by IA, to cast
74. Under IA’s “controlled digital lending,” a Website user can download a certain
number of books at a given time, which IA has currently set at ten. Once IA has distributed the
maximum number of books the user is allowed, he or she must check a book back in before
taking another one out, although there is nothing to prevent a user from circumventing this limit
by setting up multiple accounts. Each such “loan” lasts for a two-week period. When the period
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75. Until the recent pandemic and the advent of IA’s so-called “National Emergency
Library,” IA claimed that it also enforced an “owned to loaned” ratio that restricted the number
of users who could borrow a copyrighted book at once. In theory, this means that the number of
scanned copies of a title downloaded from the Website at any one time cannot exceed the
number of print copies of that title owned by IA or its partner libraries. If that number is
76. Users that have successfully checked out a book can read it immediately on the
Website’s Book Reader platform. IA publicly displays a copy of the work on that platform.
This interface operates in the user’s web browser and provides a digital replica of a hard copy
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Users can turn the pages by clicking on them or using buttons below the page. The Book Reader
also allows users to click an “audio” button, at which time IA’s software mechanically reads the
book aloud.
77. IA also enables users to download and view copies of books using a software
program called Adobe Digital Editions (“ADE”). The ADE files are purportedly protected by
DRM technology that restricts certain copying and only allows users to access the file during the
78. The Website allows users to “borrow” books in two ADE formats: “Encrypted
Adobe PDF” (which is billed as containing “High Quality Page Images” of the entire hard copy
book) and “Encrypted Adobe ePub.” The Encrypted Adobe PDF is not the kind of specially-
formatted ebook that a user would purchase as an authorized ebook. Rather, it is a digital file
consisting of a scan (i.e., photograph) of the pages of a physical book. IA generates the
Encrypted Adobe ePub file from scanned books using optical character recognition technology.
The Website distributes the Encrypted Adobe ePub as a “smaller file,” but acknowledges it “may
contain errors.” This is an understatement. The ePub files tend to be rife with transcription
errors and are sometimes entirely illegible, as can be seen from the example on the following
page.
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79. Users can read the books they download as ADE files on devices such as
smartphones, tablets, and e-readers like Kindle, Nook or iPad. The Book Reader platform has
been designed to work on mobile devices as well. IA has boasted on its blog that Website users
can borrow books and read them on their devices just as easily as they can read ebooks
legitimately purchased or borrowed from licensed services. While the quality of the digital
format scans that IA provides are inferior to the quality of Publishers’ ebooks, these bootleg
versions act as a substitute for the authorized versions, since readers select titles for their content.
No one reads a James Patterson thriller after downloading a scan of the book from Open Library
and then declares, “I liked it so much, I am going to read an authorized ebook again on my
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80. Defendant bills its Website as “an accredited California State Library run by the
non-profit Internet Archive,” but this branding fraudulently misleads on several levels.
81. The Open Library is not an “accredited library” by any commonly understood
definition of those words. The reference to accreditation refers, upon information and belief, to
the fact that the State of California provided IA with federal funding through the Library
Services and Technology Act (“LSTA”) in or around 2011. LSTA awards are available to a
wide array of organizations, not just actual libraries, including for example the Los Angeles
Philharmonic Association. In short, the fact that Internet Archive was able to meet the broad
criteria for LSTA funds does not make it an “accredited library,” and it most certainly does not
82. More fundamentally, the Website lacks the characteristics shared by actual
libraries. Instead, the service it provides more closely resembles that provided by aggregators
like OverDrive, that Plaintiffs routinely engage to distribute ebooks, with defined terms of use
instance, whereas libraries serve local and academic communities, the Website distributes copies
Internet.
83. IA tries to wrap itself in the flag of an “educational” enterprise, but it is not. First,
university community. It is devoted to education no more specifically than any platform that
transmits, streams, or otherwise delivers content on the global Internet. Moreover, the notion
that the Website specializes in educational material is pure fiction. A quick glance at the
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Website’s landing page shows that it lists thrillers and romance novels more prominently than
textbooks or other works that may be used in schools. Further, upon information and belief,
many of the non-fiction books on the Website are read for personal entertainment or edification,
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84. Branding itself as a “library” does not imbue Defendant with the right to engage
85. IA has devised a commercial full-service loop that funds its quest to distribute
digital copies of every book, and at the same time, provides millions of copies of the very works
86. To this end, IA has implemented an industrial process that enables it to scan the
many millions of books it has acquired and continues to amass. The “Scribe system” developed
by IA uses a sophisticated scanner operated by manual labor. See Internet Archive, Internet
accessed May 31, 2020). IA invented the Scribe scanner for the purpose of scanning books in
bulk:
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87. Upon information and belief, a single Scribe scanner can digitize a 300-page book
in five minutes. According to its promotional materials, IA operates seven “regional digitization
centers” and eleven “satellite locations” in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom,
with multiple Scribe scanners at each location. Upon information and belief, IA has employed
more than 50 “book scan center staff” to work within facilities housing Scribe scanners, who are
responsible for digitizing the books to add to the Website. Upon information and belief, IA has
also engaged low-wage contractors in other countries, such as the Philippines and China, to scan
bulk quantities of books that are shipped there from the United States. Upon information and
belief, IA also has recruited and used unpaid volunteers to scan copyrighted books for the
Website. IA can scan 3,000 books in a single day when operating at full capacity, according to
its Archivist and Software Creator, Jason Scott (believed to be a New York resident).
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88. At one point, IA operated a digitization center in this District and, although it has
been discontinued, the Website currently contains many copyrighted books that were scanned in
photographs each page of a book using the Scribe scanner, the scanner creates a digital copy of
those pages and then combines them with copies of all the other pages to make a single digital
copy of the entire book. IA then copies each digital book file onto its main computer servers
located in San Francisco, together with metadata about the book and the scan or file. Multiple
copies of the scanned book pages are made in the course of this process as IA converts the file
into different formats (including, inter alia, .pdf, ePub, OCR text files and audio formats) and
vi. Internet Archive Shifts the Costs of Its Illegal Book Digitization Project Onto
Publishers, Libraries, Open Library Users, and Other Third Parties
90. IA’s business model for Open Library is predicated upon infringement, and it
willfully inverts the carefully balanced book publishing ecosystem. Whereas publishers, authors
and libraries actually invest the time and money that it costs to publish and distribute a book, IA
refuses to pay for any of these costs and has even devised a parasitic system to shift the costs of
But despite its technical not-for-profit status, IA has set itself up to generate huge amounts of
revenue from the very people and entities it is supposed to be helping in order to fuel its
copyright infringement project, as the following examples illustrate. IA should be seen for what
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services. This provides a critical revenue stream that IA uses to fund and facilitate its piracy
scheme. IA first induces various libraries to pay to have books in their collections scanned at a
set price, and, at the same time, copies of all the works scanned are provided to the Open
Library. While most public libraries have agreed to scan only public domain materials, on
information and belief, IA also has earned substantial fees scanning and uploading some library
93. In a recent blog post, Brewster Kahle admits that “[l]ibraries paying for our
scanning services is a major source of earned income for the Internet Archive.” See Brewster
Kahle, Internet Archive Staff and Covid-19: Work-at-Home for Most, Full-Pay Furlough and
IA’s publicly available tax records confirm that it has made over $25 million from book scanning
since 2011. Of course, IA also profits from adding copies of the books it scans to the Website,
94. Plaintiffs obviously have no objection to the digitization of public domain titles.
Nor do they object to anyone granting IA a license to put books or journals that they own the
rights to on the Website. But IA has designed its bulk book scanning service for libraries to be a
pipeline that feeds the Website with extensive copyrighted material in addition to the permitted
b. Better World Books Feeds the Open Library with Copyrighted Books
95. The acquisition of Better World Books by a shell company controlled by Brewster
Kahle in 2019 has provided IA with yet another way to acquire books for the Website without
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actually paying for them. As part of its business model, Better World Books acquires mass
quantities of used print books, including what it refers to as a “Library Discards & Donations”
program that it claims works with librarians to “reuse or recycle” surplus library books. Better
World Books funnels books to IA, which scans and uploads them to the Website. Moreover, the
complex series of circular relationships between IA and Better World Books further contributes
96. This arrangement creates a perfect closed loop system that benefits IA in several
ways. As IA stated in the press release accompanying the acquisition, the new relationship
between Better World Books and IA “will allow Better World Books to provide a steady stream
of books to be digitized by the Internet Archive, thereby growing its digital holdings to millions
of books.”
97. Upon information and belief, the system works as follows: first, Better World
Books acquires millions of used print edition books (provenance unknown), which it provides to
IA to be scanned and added to the Website for widespread downloading and distribution.
Second, the webpage for every digital format book on the Website—including the pages for the
books provided by Better World Books—includes a prominent link inviting the user to buy a
print copy of the book from Better World Books. Upon information and belief, this sale not only
benefits Brewster Kahle’s shell corporation, but the traffic that IA drives to Better World Books
results in more book sales, which enables IA to acquire more books to scan and upload to the
Website. And the cycle repeats. Better World Books also encourages its customers to donate
98. IA also earns revenue from users in exchange for special access to individual
book titles through its “sponsorship” program. In some ways, this is little different from
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“selling” limited access to digital books to these sponsors. In brief, IA gives users the option to
“sponsor” books that it does not have and wants to add to its collection. The sponsorship
program is so central to IA that the main landing page for the Website features at the very top the
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99. Users who click on the sponsor option are taken to a webpage that informs them
that a “tax deductible donation can add this book to Internet Archive’s lending library, forever.”
The book page informs the user of the cost of the “donation” required to purchase the book.
100. In this case, users were given the option to purchase for IA a copy of Back to the
Batcave by the late actor Adam West, who played Batman in the cult-classic 1960’s television
show, for a hefty donation of $93.12. As an inducement to sponsor the book, users are given the
right to be the first to borrow the book when it becomes available and to add a “personalized
sponsorship message.” IA uses donations it receives for sponsored books to obtain a physical
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copy of the book, scan it, and upload the digital copy to the Website for download. It is not clear
101. IA’s book sponsorship scheme is breathtakingly brazen. In essence, IA tells its
users which copyrighted books it wants to infringe. Then it asks users to pay a “donation” far in
excess of the list price of the book for IA to go out and buy a print copy from an undisclosed
source, possibly Better World Books. Finally, IA uses the user’s money to scan the book and put
it online, where anyone can get a copy for free—completing the copyright infringement process
without spending a single dollar of its own money. Tax-deductible donations are not meant to
foster piracy.
infringement. By encouraging users to sponsor the books they most want, IA incentivizes its
users to select popular books. Once IA obtains the print book, scans it, and uploads it to the
Website, that infringing file will attract new users. The new users will, in turn, sponsor even
more popular books, which will attract even more users and so on, ad infinitum.
103. Yet another way IA acquires books for free is to solicit and accept bulk donations
of books from struggling or defunct libraries. In a May 2019 article, Open Libraries Director
Chris Freeland described IA’s “acquisition program,” stating that it “involves collecting
donations of in-copyright materials from libraries and booksellers, digitizing this content in
[IA’s] scanning center in Cebu, the Philippines, and then storing the physical copies in archive
104. Ironically, the many thousands of hard copy books IA obtains from defunct
colleges or libraries will likely end up in “archive facilities in Richmond, CA,” which consist of
large shipping containers owned by IA. Once locked away, upon information and belief, IA will
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make no effort to make the print books available to be read, like books in actual library
collections. Instead, the print copies primarily exist to rationalize, or provide the predicate for,
IA’s argument that there is a one-to-one correlation between print copies legitimately owned and
105. Through its acquisition program—and similarly aggressive book scanning, Better
World Books and “sponsorship” schemes—IA seeks to achieve its next benchmark of putting 4
106. Remarkably, every one of the systems for acquiring books described above is
designed so that IA avoids paying authors or publishers anything, while simultaneously ensuring
that IA rakes in money from its infringing services and, at the same time, obtains free books for
the Website.
107. IA relies on the contrived theory of “controlled digital lending” described above
as its central defense to charges of copyright infringement. But CDL is an invented paradigm
that is well outside copyright law, appears to have sprung up in response to the objections of
copyright owners to IA’s infringing activities and, in any event, does not excuse IA’s massive
infringement.
activists seeking to find a way to justify a “scan first, figure out the details later” approach to the
mass digitization of copyrighted books. In 2018-19, IA sponsored the drafting of a “White Paper
on Controlled Digital Lending of Library Books” by law professors David R. Hansen and Kyle
K. Courtney. IA and Brewster Kahle broadly promote CDL, speaking widely and engaging in a
broad public relations campaign, inducing others, including libraries, to join their cause and
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cynically using them to reflect their glow of legitimacy onto the Website. But IA’s “controlled
records or practical control necessary to sustain the so-called “owned to loaned ratio” that is the
cornerstone of CDL, i.e., the notion that the number of electronic copies of a book for download
from the Website at a given time never exceeds the number of physical copies of the book owned
by IA or one of its partner libraries. With respect to the Website’s titles for which the
corresponding print books are allegedly stored at partner libraries, it defies reason that the
partner libraries will have the wherewithal to faithfully and consistently remove a book from
circulation each time it is borrowed on the Website, and put it back on the shelf when the
Website version is checked back in. As for the truckloads of books warehoused by IA, IA
archivist Jason Scott admitted in a recent tweet that for the millions of physical copies acquired
by IA, “[o]nly one or two unique copies are kept” and “stored at the physical archive.”
“[D]uplicates (which have increased over time) are donated to various charities and non-profits.”
110. But even if IA were scrupulously following its own invented theory of “controlled
digital lending,” the theory has no legal justification. First, IA and its supporters relied heavily
on the “first sale doctrine” codified at 17 U.S.C. §109, which entitles the lawful “owner of a
particular … lawfully made” copy of a copyrighted work, like a book, “to sell or otherwise
dispose of the possession of that copy or phonorecord.” The central thesis of the White Paper
sponsored by IA was that the broader principles reflected in this doctrine should be imported into
the fair use doctrine to protect IA’s actions. But as enacted by Congress, the first sale doctrine is
carefully confined as a limitation on only the distribution right. It permits the owner of a copy to
distribute the particular copy that has been lawfully acquired—for example, as in the secondary
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sale of a hardcover book or a painting—but it provides no exemption from the copyright holder’s
exclusive right to reproduce a work. The lynchpin of IA’s whole operation is that it scans a print
book to create a digital file—a classic unauthorized reproduction of a work that puts the
111. Faced with these inconvenient facts, IA has also advanced the illogical premise
that its massive illegal copying and distribution is “format shifting” protected by the fair use
doctrine. But the rudimentary use of a scanner to “format shift” print books into digital works
for distribution to the public does not constitute either a permitted personal use or a
transformative use. The activity squarely intrudes upon the exclusive rights under 17 U.S.C. §
112. At bottom, CDL is based on the false premise that a print book and a digital book
share the same qualities. But, as outlined above, they are fundamentally different mediums, and
they exist as distinct economic markets. As the Copyright Office phrased it in a key report,
“Time, space, effort and cost no longer act as barriers to the movement of [digital] copies, since
digital copies can be transmitted nearly instantaneously anywhere in the world with minimal
effort and negligible cost.” Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) Section 104 Report:
Before the Subcommittee on Court, the Internet and Intellectual Prop., 107th Cong. (Aug. 2001)
In stark contrast, a range of physical obstacles impact the distribution of books as material
objects—from the need to transport them to each reader, to the need for library patrons to travel
to libraries to take them out and return them. Further, print books deteriorate over time, unlike
digital files. Copyright law vests the copyright owner with the right to develop each market
based on terms appropriate to the medium, as well as the right to extract the full value of
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publication in digital form. These economic rights would be severely undermined if IA can
circumvent the rightsholder entirely and copy millions of print books into digital copies to be
113. IA’s mass digitization of books is potentially even more pernicious than ordinary
online piracy. First, its use of “library” branding deceives some users into thinking the Website
is a legitimate site. Moreover, IA not only makes millions of dollars as outlined above in ways
related to its systematic infringement but also uses those profits to fuel its mission to fill the
digital Library of Alexandria with every book ever written. Allowing IA to operate the “Open
Library” for in-copyright works will create an indelible impression for libraries and readers that
digital format books should be free—and can be free just as soon as IA scans a print copy. This,
in turn, will impair the sales and licensing of books and ebooks that actually make it possible to
pay the high cost of writing and publishing the quality books that IA purports to value so much,
114. On March 24, 2020, IA doubled down on its infringement, announcing that in
light of the COVID-19 pandemic, it would suspend the “owned to loaned” ratio aspect of CDL,
while retaining other aspects of it. In other words, Defendant altered how the Website operates
so that it could distribute as many copies of any book it wanted, no matter the number of print
copies on hand purportedly because the pandemic required it. This so-called “National
Emergency Library” was tantamount to asserting an emergency copyright act unilaterally and by
private action.
115. IA admits that it did not bother to “engage with the creator community and the
ecosystem in which their works are made and published” before launching this revised approach
for the Website. When IA was roundly criticized by publishers, authors, individual librarians,
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and the bookselling community for disregarding their interests and legal rights, IA responded
that it had merely “moved in ‘Internet Time’ and the speed and swiftness of our solution [to the
notice and takedown system. But this turns copyright law on its head. Copyright owners have
the power to decide in advance how their exclusive rights will be exercised. Copyright is not an
“opt-out” system whereby infringers can distribute copyrighted works for free, with impunity,
until they are told to stop. The Copyright Act does not and never has put the burden on authors
and publishers to police the unlawful actions of direct infringers, which in the case of the IA not
only copies, uploads, and distributes infringing files, but asserts conditions and procedures for
under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The DMCA allows the operators of online services
that host content posted by users and meet certain conditions to avoid copyright liability by
responding expeditiously to a takedown request from the rightsholder. The DMCA notice and
takedown system is inapplicable to this case because IA, not third-party users, uploads the
infringing files to the Website. And to add insult to injury, both before and since the “National
Emergency Library,” when faced with the frustrated demands of authors or publishers, IA has
often failed to stand by its proclamation to honor takedown requests, or opt-outs, thereby further
118. The Website as operated under the “National Emergency Library” parameters
does not qualify as a fair use. Among other reasons, no one anointed IA to address the
educational needs of the nation, and the Website has not been designed to meet specific
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educational needs or even to focus only on books that are not commercially available. Section
110 of the Copyright Act, known as the TEACH Act, already grants teachers broad rights
regarding the use of literary works, and book publishers, libraries and schools have on their own
initiative sought to address educational needs directly during the health crisis while keeping in
mind the needs of all stakeholders. In short, Defendant opportunistically seized upon the
COVID-19 pandemic as an excuse to accomplish its long-desired goals while ignoring the law
119. In all its different iterations (including under its “controlled digital lending”
protocols), IA’s Website causes substantial harm to Plaintiffs, who produce and distribute books
on behalf of themselves and their authors, to whom they pay royalties. Without the Publishers’
permission, IA and its Open Library business are using the unauthorized book scans to exploit
existing markets (and potentially new related markets), causing authors and Plaintiffs substantial
and irreparable harm. This includes, but is not limited to, the types of market harm outlined
below.
120. First, a verbatim copy is a classic non-transformative use and a substitute for the
original work. By operating the Website, IA competes directly with Publishers’ works in all
formats (including, without limitation, print and digital) and market segments (including, without
121. Second, by providing copies of digital books for free, IA devalues the book
market. Consumers begin to view works as cheap and become increasingly unappreciative of
what it takes to produce them and unwilling to pay fair value for them.
122. Relatedly, IA’s decision to provide free and full copies of Plaintiffs’ books,
including the Works, to anybody who wants them interferes with Plaintiffs’ relationships with
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customers and distributors, including libraries, who had already paid full value for them. The
willingness of those distributors and customers to acquire digital formats in the future is
diminished by the free distribution of Plaintiffs’ books, including the Works, on the Website.
123. Third, public libraries are evolving to meet the changing needs of their patrons
and trying hard to remain at the center of their communities. Defendant’s Website undercuts
public libraries by disintermediating them. Harm to and loss of community support for public
libraries, in turn, hurts the Publishers, since these libraries pay for their books, which, in turn,
hurts authors, who share in and depend upon compensation for their copyrights.
124. Fourth, the Website’s .pdf and ePUB files are often of inferior quality. Authors
expect their publishers to be guardians, ensuring the high-quality of their works as delivered to
the marketplace. Websites like Open Library, thus, hurt Plaintiffs’ relations with authors.
125. Likewise, inferior quality scans affect the Publishers’ relationships with
consumers. For example, in certain instances book scans from IA have surfaced on retailer
reviews on the product pages. When a consumer gives such a work a one-star review because of
the scan quality, other consumers may only focus on the negative rating, even if it has nothing to
do with the content of the work. More generally, consumers may be confused about whether the
publisher has authorized the IA scan, leading to a negative impact on the publisher’s goodwill.
126. Fifth, IA interferes with the author’s and publisher’s right to decide which works
will be distributed in which format and at which time. For example, as noted above, some works
or authors are ill-served by the conversion of print editions into digital works, either for
commercial or artistic reasons. IA has appropriated to itself this right that belongs exclusively to
the rightsholder.
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127. Finally, Plaintiffs have legitimate fears regarding the security of their works both
as stored by IA on its servers and subsequently publicly displayed or transmitted to users. For
example, upon information and belief, IA has not developed and does not enforce sufficiently
rigorous DRM protocols and related logistical systems that aggregators must employ to ensure
that books appearing on their websites are not pirated or unlawfully infringed by users.
128. Plaintiffs repeat and reallege each and every allegation above as if fully set forth
herein.
129. The Works are original, creative, and copyrightable subject matter under the laws
130. The copyrights in the Works are registered, and the Copyright Office has issued
131. By its actions, alleged above, Defendant has infringed and will infringe the
Publishers’ copyrights in and to the Works by, inter alia, reproducing, distributing, publicly
displaying, publicly performing, and making derivative works of the Works without any
132. Each infringement of the rights of Plaintiffs in one of the Works constitutes a
Works, is willful.
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134. Upon information and belief, as a direct and proximate result of its wrongful
conduct, Defendant has and will obtain benefits, including, but not limited to, profits to which
135. As a direct and proximate result of Defendant’s wrongful conduct, Plaintiffs have
been, and will continue to be, substantially and irreparably harmed in an amount not readily
capable of determination. Unless restrained by this Court, Defendant will cause further
entitled to recover statutory damages, pursuant to 17 U.S.C. § 504(c), with respect to each work
are further entitled to recover from Defendant the damages they have sustained and will sustain,
as well as any gains, profits and advantages obtained by Defendant as a result of its acts of
infringement alleged above. At present, the amount of such damages, gains, profits, and
137. Plaintiffs are entitled to recover their attorney’s fees and costs.
138. Plaintiffs repeat and reallege each and every allegation above as if fully set forth
herein.
139. Although it is clear that IA is directly liable for copyright infringement, Plaintiffs
also bring claims for secondary liability, in the alternative, to the extent IA attempts to evade
responsibility for its own direct liability by blaming the conduct on others, such as users of the
Website.
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inducement liability, and vicarious liability for the underlying reproduction, distribution, public
display, and public performance of Plaintiffs’ Works, as well as the making of infringing
Plaintiffs’ Works are infringed each time Plaintiffs’ Works are scanned, uploaded, downloaded,
publicly displayed, or publicly performed in connection with the Website, and it has caused
responsible at every level for scanning copyrighted books, including the Works, uploading the
scanned copies to its Website, and then distributing, displaying, and performing the works
publicly. Defendant could take simple measures to prevent further infringement, such as by not
scanning books under copyright, limiting the books on the Website to works in the public
143. Further, Defendant is vicariously liable for copyright infringement because it has
the right and ability to supervise the infringement of its users and possesses a financial interest in
the infringement. As detailed above, Defendant has the right and ability to supervise the
infringement of Plaintiffs’ copyrighted books, including the Works. Defendant provides the sites
and facilities on which the infringing activity occur. Defendant can stop allowing users of the
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Website to download Plaintiffs’ copyrighted books, including the Works. In brief, Defendant is
144. Defendant possesses an obvious and direct financial interest in the infringement.
The uploading and downloading of increasing numbers of copyrighted works to the Open
Library, including the Works, enhances the reputation of Defendant and its Website as a
comprehensive source of free digital books. It draws more user registrations from people
wishing to download from the Website and more donations of funds and books. The infringing
files also increase the number of visitors to the Website, in turn increasing the numbers of people
who view the link to purchase books at the Defendant’s affiliate, Better World Books, which as it
acquires more books, provides them to IA for scanning. Further, Defendant obtains a direct
financial benefit by charging for the costs of scanning copyrighted books, which are then
145. Each infringement of the rights of Plaintiffs in one of the Works constitutes a
willful.
147. Upon information and belief, as a direct and proximate result of its wrongful
conduct, Defendant has and will obtain benefits, including, but not limited to, profits to which
148. As a direct and proximate result of Defendant’s wrongful conduct, Plaintiffs have
been, and will continue to be, substantially and irreparably harmed in an amount not readily
capable of determination. Unless restrained by this Court, Defendant will cause further
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entitled to recover statutory damages, pursuant to 17 U.S.C. § 504(c), with respect to each work
are further entitled to recover from Defendant the damages they have sustained and will sustain,
as well as any gains, profits, and advantages obtained by IA as a result of its acts of infringement
alleged above. At present, the amount of such damages, gains, profits, and advantages cannot be
150. Plaintiffs are entitled to recover their attorney’s fees and costs.
B. Issuing a preliminary and permanent injunction enjoining Internet Archive, and its
agents, servants, employees, attorneys, successors and assigns, and all persons,
firms and corporations acting in active concert or participation with it, from
destroyed;
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C. Entering judgment for Plaintiffs against Internet Archive for statutory damages in
Works, as alleged above, pursuant to the Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. §§ 101, et seq.;
Works and entering judgment for Plaintiffs against Internet Archive for all
damages suffered by Plaintiffs and for any profits or gain by Internet Archive
G. Granting such other further and different relief as this Court deems just and
proper.
Pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 38, Plaintiffs demand a jury trial on all issues
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John M. Browning
Meredith I. Santana
1251 Avenue of the Americas, 21st Floor
New York, NY 10020
Phone: (212) 489-8230
Email: [email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
Matthew J. Oppenheim
Scott A. Zebrak (pro hac vice motion forthcoming)
4530 Wisconsin Avenue, NW, 5th Floor
Washington, DC 20016
Phone: (202) 480-2999
Email: [email protected]
[email protected]
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