Internet Archive's big battle with music publishers ends in settlement
17 comments
·September 15, 2025ethagnawl
Palomides
not really the same, the internet archive has, loosely, three categories of stuff:
* out of copyright (totally legal)
* copyright but abandoned (not legal but nobody cares and is good for society)
* copyright and actively being sold right now (not legal and huge exposure to lawsuits)
modern pop media movies, books, audio are not uploaded to the internet archive in their entirety under any kind of fair use
badlibrarian
A search for "Internet Archive rumors" returns a copy of Fleetwood Mac "Rumours" on my first page of results. Playable in browser and downloadable in high-quality lossless format.
The book lawsuit was over current titles (not really archival and preservation), and the record lawsuit wasn't really about the rare 78s, it was about the modern Jimi Hendrix and Paul McCartney records that somehow slipped in. And their refusal to follow the modern law that they themselves celebrated that made what they're trying to do (including downloads) explicitly legal. But that law prohibited fundraising, and they couldn't resist tweeting out links to Frank Sinatra records with a big banner on top asking for money.
In both lawsuits the discovery revealed tech debt and sloppy process at the Archive that made it impossible for them to argue on behalf of the future we all want.
tokai
There is so much pirated material on Internet Archive. They have so many movies with titles directly from the warez groups. I don't think they are done getting in trouble sadly.
Palomides
it's frustrating that so many people use the internet archive as pirate file hosting for things that are easy to find elsewhere (legally or otherwise)
it jeopardizes all of their other missions and access to otherwise inaccessible media
999900000999
It really needs to be at least 2 different organizations.
Preserve the internet, store old websites.
Everything else. The whole "Emergency Lending Library" situation was just strange. A random non government organization can just declare copyright unfair and distribute whatever they want ?
And they acted surprised when the book industry reacted ?
TimorousBestie
On the other hand, it doesn’t particularly matter what legal material the Internet Archive makes available; the various media companies will still attempt to sue them into nonexistence. How much “fair use” you’re entitled to in the states these days is merely a function of how big your legal budget is.
ilamont
> Days before the settlement was announced, record labels had indicated that everyone but the Internet Archive and its founder, Brewster Kahle, had agreed to sign a joint settlement
Does IA have an independent board of directors? If so, why is the board and its members never mentioned in the copyright lawsuits? Most other organizations (nonprofit and corporate) with independent boards would be heavily involved in any major litigation and issuing statements as developments warrant.
I don't see that here - the IA blog post is by a director of library services. The about page (https://blog.archive.org/about/) mentions nothing about a board.
Kwpolska
Is it really that important or significant?
This is the board: https://archive.org/about/bios
null
tiahura
IA has a board page. My guess is the other members are independent in the sense they have don’t have material financial ties. However, you can draw your own conclusions as to whether they would ever tell management “no.”
The issue is that nonprofits don’t have shareholders that can hold boards accountable. As seen w/ OpenAI, sometimes big donors can bully (or eject) the board, and that probably needs to happen with IA.
cramcgrab
Seeing with ai there’s not gonna be a need for copyright and patents in the future. So easy to invent new stuff now.
hsuduebc2
Oh the good ol' greed. They surely deserve the piracy.
josefritzishere
The inability to prove damages normally is the end of a suit. But there is something magic in copyright where judges seem to waive that requirement. This special dispensation seems to be extralegal, and limited to where it serves large copyright holders.
Anduia
See the Copyright Act of 1976. That battle was lost long ago and judges can't ignore statutary damages.
ToucanLoucan
The secret ingredient is b̶r̶i̶b̶e̶s̶ generous donations to political fundraisers
> He suggested that perhaps labels just "don't like the Internet Archive's way of pushing the envelope on copyright and fair use."
This seems to be the whole ballgame.
They're (UMG, specifically) doing the same to YouTuber Rick Beato. His music theory/analysis/reaction videos are very careful to abide by the rules of _fair use_ and, yet, UMG is still drowning him in copyright violation claims. He's had to hire representation to deal with the backlog of claims that are (extremely likely) all bogus and _hope_ to keep his videos and channel online.
On one hand, their behavior is baffling, as I've streamed and purchased music from these companies I would not have otherwise because of Beato's channel. On the other, it's completely unsurprising, as they stand to _have their cake and eat it too_ by introducing chokepoints for _all_ access to their music (in theory, anyways) and suing anyone in the hopes of inking these bullshit settlements with anyone who dares get within a few miles of their moat.