Internet Archive ends “emergency library” early to appease publishers

Article note: This is a serious fuckin' problem. The Internet Archive is unbelievably valuable, but they've put themselves in a position that is clearly legally (but, I would argue, not by any other standard) in the wrong due to decades of copyright-maximalist legislation, and the publishers seem incentivized to go after them for a variety of horrible reasons.

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The Internet Archive has ended its National Emergency Library programs two weeks earlier than originally scheduled, the organization announced in a Wednesday blog post.

"We moved up our schedule because, last Monday, four commercial publishers chose to sue Internet Archive during a global pandemic," the group wrote. The online library called on publishers to "call off their costly assault."

But that doesn't seem very likely. The Internet Archive isn't ending its online book lending program altogether. Instead, the group is returning to a "controlled digital lending" (CDL) model that it had followed for almost a decade prior to March. Under that model, the group allows only one patron to digitally "check out" a book for each physical copy the library has in stock. If more people want to read a book than are physically available, patrons are added to a waiting list until someone checks the book back in.