Rolling Stone reported that Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Capitol, and other record labels filed a copyright lawsuit on Friday against the Internet Archive, founder Brewster Kahle, and others over the organization’s “Great 78 Project,” accusing them of behaving as an “illegal record store.”
According to Rolling Stone, the suit lists 2,749 pre-1972 musical works available via Internet Archive by late artists, including Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Chuck Berry, Billie Holiday, Louis Armstrong, and Bing Crosby, among others.
The nonprofit Internet Archive began in 1996 and claims its mission is to “provide Universal Access to All Knowledge.” It purports to be a digital library that provides free access to researchers, historians, scholars, and the general public, Rolling Stone reported. Its “Great 78 Project” follows suit; the community project dedicates itself to “the preservation, research and discovery of 78rpm records”.
The Plaintiffs – UGM Recordings, Capitol Records, Concord Bicycle Assets, CMGI Recorded Music Assets, Sony Music, and Arista Music – who own in full or in part the copyrights to some of the music in the collection claim the works were illegally distributed to to those visiting Internet Archive “millions of times,” Rolling Stone reported.
The suit seeks statutory damages of up to $150,000 for each protected sound recording infringement, which could exceed more than $412 million, along with attorneys’ fees as well as injunctive and further relief determined by the court.
The Great 78 Project is a community project for the preservation, research and discovery of 78rpm records. From about 1898 to the 1950s, an estimated 3 million sides (~3 minute recordings) have been made on 78rpm discs. While the commercial viable recordings will have been restored or remastered into LP’s or CD, there is still research value in the artifacts and usage evidence in the often rare 78rpm discs and recordings.
Already, over 20 collections have been selected by the Internet Archive for physical and digital preservation and access. Started by many volunteer collectors, these new collections have been selected, digitized and preserved by the Internet Archive, George Blood LP, and the Archive of Contemporary Music.
Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, and other record labels on Friday sued the nonprofit Internet Archive for copyright infringement over its streaming collection of digitized music from vintage records, Reuters reported.
They named 2,749 sound-recording copyrights that the Archive allegedly infringed. The labels said their damages in the case could be as high as $412 million.
Representatives for the Internet Archive did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the complaint. The San Francisco-based Archive digitally archives websites, books, audio recordings and other materials. It compares itself to a library and says its mission is to “provide universal access to all knowledge.”
According to Reuters, The Internet Archive is already facing another federal lawsuit in Manhattan from leading publishers who said its digital-book lending program launched in the pandemic violates their copyrights. A judge ruled for the publishers in March, in a decision that the Archive plans to appeal.
The lawsuit said the recordings are all available on authorized streaming services and “face no danger of being lost, forgotten, or destroyed.”
Personally, I’m not convinced that having the music on “authorized streaming services” is a valid response. There have been plenty of times when content has been removed from “authorized streaming services”, including podcasts and music, without warning.