Ars Technica:
»Four of the nation’s leading book publishers have sued the Internet Archive, the online library best known for maintaining the Internet Wayback Machine. The Internet Archive makes scanned copies of books—both public domain and under copyright—available to the public on a site called the Open Library.« (…)
»The Internet Archive has scanned more than a million books that are still under copyright, so a loss could easily lead to billions of dollars in damages—far beyond the non-profit’s ability to pay. So if the publishers win the lawsuit, they could force the Internet Archive out of business. That would be an incalculable loss given the group’s work archiving other types of content, including the early Web.«
Länk: Lawsuit over online book lending could bankrupt Internet Archive »
By scanning books under copyright the Internet Archive not doubt is acting against the interest of their authors, their publishers , and the general public. Copyright is the legal means by which authors can make a living. They cannot do so without co-operating with publishers. I suppose that the existence of contemporaty literature is in the interest of all of us (except for in countries lacking freedom of expression where those in power are funding authors that are sharing their political convictions and goals. In this context it should suffice to mention the fate of contemporary literature under communist regimes. The Internet Archive thus is acting against public interest. No money to authors and publishers means, in the end, the death of contemporary literature. Independet of other purported noble goals of The Internet Archive.