On March 24, the Internet Archive (Archive) unveiled what it called the “National Emergency Library” (NEL) in order to “address our unprecedented global and immediate need for access to reading and research materials.” The announcement specified that Archive would suspend the waitlist for 1.4 million books in its unlicensed “lending library” until at least June 30, thus allowing an unlimited number of people to download electronic copies of the same book at the same time. Read more
Tag: publishers
IP Industries Step Up in This Time of Crisis
The global COVID-19 pandemic has challenged multiple aspects of modern society in a short time. Health and public safety, education, commerce, research, arts, and even basic government functions have had to change dramatically in the space of a couple months. Some good news in all this is the response of many companies in the intellectual property (IP) industries: they are stepping up to make sure crucial information and materials are available to speed research and development (R&D) towards vaccines, therapeutics, and medical devices. Read more
Publishers v. Audible: An Army of Red Herrings
Audible has now filed its Audible’s Planned Caption Service is Not Fair Use
Late last month, a group of publishers filed a complaint against Audible in the Southern District of New York asking the court to enjoin the audiobook distributor’s launch of a new audio-to-text transcription service. Although Audible has yet to file a response, a statement from the company—a subsidiary of Amazon since 2008—hints at a fair use defense based on the service’s supposed educational purpose. Read more
Publishers v. Audible: VCRs and DVRs to the Rescue?
On August 23, a group of publishers, including Penguin Random House, HarperCollins, and Simon & Schuster, sued Audible for copyright infringement. Audible, which is a subsidiary of Amazon, sells and produces audiobooks, and it planned to launch a new speech-to-text feature on September 10. Read more
New CPIP Policy Brief: Open-Access Mandates and the Seductively False Promise of “Free”
CPIP has published a new policy brief entitled Open-Access Mandates and the Seductively False Promise of “Free.” The brief, written by CPIP Legal Fellow Bhamati Viswanathan and CPIP Director of Academic Programs & Senior Scholar Adam Mossoff, exposes the lack of evidence or justification for the proliferating legal mandates by federal agencies that coerce authors and publishers to make their scholarly articles available for free to the world. Read more