The Electronic Frontier Foundation is proud to join with our co-counsel Morrison and Foerster to represent the Internet Archive in challenging the district court’s ruling in this case.
For centuries, libraries have served their patrons by purchasing books and lending them for free. In the United States, libraries predated the founding of the nation – in fact they contributed to it by improving access to knowledge. Today, libraries serve many purposes, providing Internet access, meeting spaces, and even community pantries. But the heart of their mission remains the same: lending.
What has changed is how that core mission is accomplished. Like copyright law itself, library lending has evolved as new systems and technologies have created new ways to meet patron needs. For the past decade, that evolution has included controlled digital lending—a modern, more efficient version of lending that is used by libraries across the country. Controlled digital lending allows libraries to lend books via the internet subject to strict controls, for a limited time, to one patron at a time.
But four giant publishers claim that this service violates their copyrights and threatens their businesses. They are wrong: Libraries have paid publishers billions of dollars for the books in their print collections. CDL merely helps libraries better serve their patrons, but still lending just one book at a time. It is fundamentally the same as traditional library lending and poses no harm to authors or the publishing industry. In fact, the concrete evidence in this case shows that the Archive’s digital lending does not and will not harm the market for books.
The district court gave short shrift to that evidence, one of many flaws in the ruling. Another was that it concluded that the Internet Archive’s free public library is actually a commercial activity. According to the court, a nonprofit has a commercial purpose if it derives virtually any benefit connected to its a work – including ordinary nonprofit activities like attracting new members, receiving recognition from its community, or having a donate button its website. That definition of “commercial” runs contrary to well-established precedent. What is worse, it would apply to almost every library and public interest organization in the country. It doesn’t make sense.
Our brief explains why the court was wrong, and why controlled digital lending is a lawful fair use. But the core problem is this: The publishers are not seeking protection from harm to their existing rights. They are seeking a new right: the right to take advantage of technological developments to control how libraries may lend the books they own.
They should not succeed. The Internet Archive and the hundreds of libraries and archives that support it are not pirates or thieves. They are librarians, striving to serve their patrons online just as they have done for centuries in the brick-and-mortar world. We are confident the Second Circuit will see that, and rule according.
On December 15, 2023, Brewster Kahle, founder and digital librarian of the Internet Archive, spoke at a press event for the filing of Internet Archive’s opening appellate brief in Hachette v. Internet Archive. These are his remarks:
We submitted our appeal to the court today to protect the core mission of libraries—preservation and access. This is a fight to keep library books available for those seeking truth in the digital age.
Libraries are not just repositories of books; they are guardians of history and the published record. In this time of wars, election angst, and unstable moments for democracy, this fight gains even more importance.
Why should everyone care about this lawsuit? Because it is about preserving the integrity of our published record, where the great books of our past meet the demands of our digital future. This is not merely an individual struggle; it is a collective endeavor for society and democracy struggling with our digital transition. We need secure access to the historical record. We need every tool that libraries have given us over the centuries to combat the manipulation and misinformation that has now become even easier.
This appeal underscores the role of libraries in supporting universal access to information—a right that transcends geographic location, socioeconomic status, disability, or any other barriers. Our digital lending program is not just about lending responsibly; it’s about strengthening democracy by creating informed global citizens.
The stakes of the lower court decision are high. Publishers coordinated by the AAP (Association of American Publishers), have removed hundreds of thousands of books from controlled digital lending. The publishers have taken more than 500 banned books from our lending library, such as 1984, The Color Purple, and Maus. This is a devastating loss for digital learners everywhere.
This lawsuit is about more than the Internet Archive; it is about the role of all libraries in our digital age. This lawsuit is an attack on a well-established practice used by hundreds of libraries to provide public access to their collections. The disastrous lower court decision in this case holds implications far beyond our organization, shaping the future of all libraries in the United States and unfortunately, around the world.
If this decision is left to stand, it will take away a library’s ability to lend books from its permanent collections to digital learners.
In the face of challenges to truth, libraries are more vital than ever.
Let this be a call to action—to protect the core mission of libraries in our digital age.
In tracing her family history, Taneya Koonce discovered stories about her African American ancestors in records going back to the late 1700s. Many were enslaved. She followed the path of some descendants from North Carolina to New York in the Great Migration.
Taneya Koonce
The Internet Archive is among the many sources that Koonce has relied on in her research. From her home in Tampa, Florida, she regularly accesses the collection’s online yearbooks, newspapers, location histories, and government records to piece together her family’s story—and has also contributed material in hopes of helping others.
“As a genealogist and family historian, the breadth of digitized materials in the Internet Archive is essential to my research and an invaluable source of information in my family history quest,” said Koonce, who works as an information scientist at an academic medical center.
Koonce began to record stories in her family by interviewing her grandmothers nearly 30 years ago. She learned about several siblings of her maternal grandmother who died in infancy and the hardships they faced in life. Rediscovering her notes from those conversations after they died, Koonce began to dive into genealogy in earnest in 2005.
Her interest turned from a hobby to a passion in recent years. Koonce maintains a family genealogy website, created a web database for research of Koonce surnames from all over the country, publishes on her genealogy blog, and runs a collaborative genealogy-focused online community, the Academy of Legacy Leaders.
Having found so many historical items on the Internet Archive, Koonce teaches others how to use the collection in their own research. She’s active in genealogy societies, frequently presenting to others about the wealth of materials online.
Koonce applauded the Archive for preserving New York voter lists that helped her find one of her ancestors. After researching slaveholders by the name of Koonce, she connected with a man in Wisconsin who had published a “Koonce to Koonce” newsletter on the family’s history. With his cooperation, Taneya digitized and uploaded the newsletter to the Archive to preserve it for others. She always documents her findings, should they be of interest to others pursuing their family history.
“I specialize in helping family historians be very cognizant about planning for the future and leaving a legacy,” said Koonce, who has presented about the importance of saving family history research for the next generation. “One strategy is sharing material on the Internet Archive. I want to help educate people that it is a library. It’s dedicated to preserving content for the future. If we can contribute information to the collection, we can spread the word about what we’re doing and make sure it’s long lasting.”
The mouse that became Mickey will finally be free of his corporate captivity as the copyright term of the 1928 animated Disney film, Steamboat Willie, expires along with that of thousands of other cultural works on the first day of 2024.
The year 1928 brought us a host of still relevant, oft-revived and remixed culture, from H.P. Lovecraft’s classic horror story, “Call of Cthulhu” (originally published in Weird Tales; now currently a popular video game), to the Threepenny Opera, a critique of income inequality and the excesses of capitalism that is surprisingly on point for our current era.
And further, classic works of literature such as Orlando by Virginia Woolfe, Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall, and Black Magic by Paul Mourad; children’s literature like House on Pooh Corner by A. A. Milne, which introduced the character Tigger, and Millions of Cats by Wanda Gág; movies like Charlie Chaplin’s The Circus, and Buster Keaton’s The Cameraman; and music like Dorothy Field’s “I Can’t Give You Anything But Love, Baby” and Cole Porter’s “Let’s Do It, Let’s Fall in Love” will grow the rich set of materials that are freely available to all of us as part of the public domain.
Join us for a virtual celebration at 10am PT / 1pm ET on January 25, 2024, with an amazing lineup of academics, librarians, musicians, artists and advocates coming together to help illuminate the significance of this new class of works entering the public domain!
Of course our program wouldn’t be complete without a discussion of Generative AI, which to some has become a new kind of Eldritch God unleashed upon humanity—a Chtulhu of sorts—out to alter or control human reality. New AI technologies have raised all kinds of questions about human creativity, and the various monsters we must vanquish in order to preserve it. We’ll get into all that and more in our panel discussion of AI, Creativity and the Public Domain.
This event is co-hosted by Internet Archive, Creative Commons, Authors Alliance, Public Knowledge, Library Futures, SPARC and the Duke Center for the Study of the Public Domain.
Step into a time capsule of creativity on January 24, 2024, at the Internet Archive, as we celebrate the release of new cultural treasures into the public domain. Join us for an unforgettable evening filled with period tunes, classic cocktails, and a cinematic journey into the past. These works, once bound by copyright restrictions, will be released into the wild, opening up new opportunities for artistic expression, adaptation, and innovation.
Discover the enchantment of animation with a special screening of Steamboat Willie on the large screen. Come together to witness the beloved icon, Mickey Mouse, as he enters the public domain. Let’s rejoice in this moment that commemorates the lasting legacy of a cultural gem that has captivated hearts across generations. Film Historian Eric Smoodin will explore the history of Steamboat Willie and how a mouse changed the entertainment world.
Be captivated by the cinematic brilliance of our annual short film contest winners. These films, inspired by the vast public domain materials on the Internet Archive, showcase the boundless possibilities of reimagining classic works.
Embrace the spirit of 1928 by dressing in your finest flapper dresses, dapper suits, and don’t forget the feathered headbands. You’re not just attending an event; you’re stepping into a world where every outfit tells a story. Be the “Bee’s Knees” and the “Cat’s Pajamas” as you immerse yourself in the glamour of a bygone era.
No celebration from the Jazz Age is complete without a classic cocktail. Let the clink of glasses echo the liberation of creative works now set free in the public domain.
Come share an evening of revelry, inspiration, and artistic freedom with us. Be part of a celebration where the past becomes the canvas for the future. Let the reimagining begin, and together, let’s toast to a world of boundless creativity in the public domain. See you there in your finest attire!
Where: Internet Archive – 300 Funston When: 6pm to 8 pm Cost: $15 Register now!
More ways to celebrate the public domain
In addition to our in-person event on January 24th & our film remix contest, we are also hosting a virtual celebration on January 25th, “Weird Tales from the Public Domain: Freeing Culture from Corporate Captivity”—register now!
We are looking for filmmakers and artists of all levels to create and upload short films of 2–3 minutes to the Internet Archive to help us celebrate Public Domain Day at our celebrations on January 24 (in-person screening & party) & January 25 (virtual celebration), 2024!
Our short film contest serves as a platform for filmmakers to explore, remix, and breathe new life into the timeless gems that have entered the public domain. From classic literature and silent films to musical compositions and visual art, the contest winners draw inspiration from the vast archive of cultural heritage from 1928. We want artists to use this newly available content to create short films using resources from the Internet Archive’s collections from 1928. The uploaded videos will be judged and prizes of up to $1500 awarded!! (see details below)
Winners will be announced and shown at the in-person Public Domain Day Celebration at the Internet Archive headquarters in San Francisco on January 24, 2024, as well as our virtual celebration on January 25. All other participating videos will be added to a Public Domain Day Collection on archive.org and featured in a blog entry in January of 2024.
Here are a few examples of some of the materials that will become public domain on January 1, 2024:
Make a 2–3 minute movie using at least one work published in 1928 that will become Public Domain on January 1, 2024. This could be a poem, book, film, musical composition, painting, photograph or any other work that will become Public Domain next year. The more different PD materials you use, the better!
Note: If you have a resource from 1928 that is not available on archive.org, you may upload it and then use it in your submission. (Here is how to do that).
Your submission must have a soundtrack. It can be your own voiceover or performance of a public domain musical composition, or you may use public domain or CC0 sound recordings from sources like Openverse and the Free Music Archive.
Note: Music copyright is TRICKY! Currently sound recordings published up to December 31, 1922 are public domain; on the upcoming January 1 that will change to sound recordings published up to December 31, 1923. Sound recordings published later than that are NOT public domain, even if the underlying musical composition is, so watch out for this!
Mix and Mash content however you like, but note that ALL of your sources must be from the public domain. They do not all have to be from 1928. Remember, U.S. government works are public domain no matter when they are published. So feel free to use those NASA images! You may include your own original work if you put a CC0 license on it.
Add a personal touch, make it yours!
Keep the videos light hearted and fun! (It is a celebration after all!)
Submission Deadline
All submissions must be in by Midnight, January 19, 2024 (PST) by loading it into this collection on the Internet Archive.
Upload your film to archive.org with a subject tag field of “public domain day film contest 2024” in the upload form by January 17, 2024. This is the collection it will be archived in.
Link all your sourced materials from 1928 in the upload description
Prizes
1st prize: $1500
2nd prize: $1000
3rd prize: $500
*All prizes sponsored by the Kahle/Austin Foundation
Judges:
Judges will be looking for videos that are fun, interesting and use public domain materials, especially those from 1928. They will be shown at the in-person Public Domain Day party in San Francisco and should highlight the value of having cultural materials that can be reused, remixed, and re-contextualized for a new day. Winners’ pieces will be purchased with the prize money, and viewable on the Internet Archive under a Creative Commons license.
Amir Saber Esfahani (Director of Special Arts Projects, Internet Archive)
Rick Prelinger (Board Member, Internet Archive, Founder, Prelinger Archives)
BZ Petroff (Director of Admin & HR, Internet Archive)
Guest blog by Antonia Bustamante from the DWeb Camp Core Organizing team.
Cerca de Ubatuba, a cuatro horas de la inmensa capital del estado de São Paulo, nos recibió en septiembre un paraíso brasilero de montaña y mar donde uno quisiera quedarse para siempre: el Instituto Neos. Allí Coolab (laboratorio cooperativo de redes libres) organizó el primer DWeb+Coolab Camp, versión brasilera del DWeb Camp.
El Instituto Neos está ubicado en un espacio que a principios de la década de 2000 funcionó como centro cultural y de exploración artística para niñxs y adolescentes. Años después fue abandonado y la ávida vegetación tropical comenzó a devorar los edificios vacíos. En 2017 el predio fue rematado y algunas personas, que conforman el colectivo Neos, lo compraron para construir un proyecto de sociobiodiversidad. Este fue el lugar que Coolab eligió para alojar el encuentro, aprovechando además para dejar al Instituto la infraestructura de mejoramiento físico de acceso a Internet construida durante el evento.
Equipos para mejorar la infraestructura de la red de conexión a Internet.
Los días que pasamos allí dormimos en carpas y habitaciones compartidas. Delicias culinarias preparadas por la gente del colectivo con especies animales y vegetales locales nos alimentaron. Todxs nos turnamos las tareas de limpieza y bienestar, y algunxs asistentes trilingües nos hicieron sentir como en casa saltando del portugués al castellano y al inglés sin ningún esfuerzo.
En agosto de 2022 y nuevamente en junio de este año se organizó el DWeb Camp en un bosque de sequoias ubicado unas horas al norte de San Francisco. En este encuentro se convoca anualmente, durante cuatro días, a personas de distintas partes del mundo que trabajan y se interesan por la descentralización de la web, tanto desde el aspecto técnico como desde lógicas colectivas y proyectos de empoderamiento social.
En medio de ese bosque, el año pasado, un círculo alrededor del fuego invitó a hablar sobre una posible versión brasilera del encuentro. La cosa tomó forma y este año Coolab organizó la primera edición, siguiendo con su labor de abrir espacios de diálogo y cooperación sobre redes comunitarias y tecnologías de descentralización y apropiación tecnológica.
Los contextos naturales de ambos eventos, aunque bellísimos, son radicalmente distintos. También las lógicas de organización y de interacción entre las personas fueron otras. El Sur y el Norte haciendo sus propias versiones de un encuentro en el que tenemos todxs objetivos comunes pero, a la vez, particularidades locales a las que pensamos que es necesario responder con el desarrollo de tecnologías, narrativas y estrategias particulares.
Conversación al aire libre sobre formas cooperativas de trabajo.
Esa fue una de las preguntas que estuvo presente en los días que pasamos juntxs en Brasil: ¿Qué es para nosotrxs la web descentralizada? ¿Cuáles son sus principios?
En el sitio de DWeb pueden leerse los principios propuestos desde el Norte por la organización:
Un atardecer, sentadxs en la playa, conversamos sobre ellos: ¿Estamos de acuerdo o quisiéramos proponer otros? ¿Entendemos de la misma forma la web, Internet, las redes comunitarias y las tecnologías de comunicación digital? Más que respuestas nos llevamos preguntas e ideas inspiradoras.
Conversación en la playa liderada por Nico Pace de APC.
En diálogo con las posibilidades de descentralización de la web, el encuentro en Brasil se enfocó, en gran parte, en la agroecología. Brasil tiene una larga historia de movimientos políticos relacionados con la tierra y el cultivo. Desde los años 70 del siglo pasado el Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (Movimiento de los Trabajadores Rurales sin Tierra – MST), uno de los movimientos sociales más grandes de América Latina, ha luchado por la reforma agraria y por la propiedad productiva de pequeñas y medianas extensiones de tierra por parte de quienes la trabajan. Hoy el movimiento reúne a cerca de 450 mil familias en 24 estados del país.
Al DWeb+Coolab Camp fue gente que trabaja la tierra, en la tierra, que nunca antes había salido de sus pueblos. Llegaron planteando problemas técnicos particulares y localizados. Fueron también personas que viven en la periferia de las ciudades brasileras y tienen proyectos de educación popular y uso de tecnologías digitales. Niñxs, adolescentes y adultxs llegamos desde el Sur y el Norte de América, y desde Europa. Yo me fasciné una vez más por la fuerza, el amor y la cooperación que une a esta comunidad y por la calidez del Brasil y su gente, que destila cariño y simpatía cada vez que canta, baila, ríe o habla en serio.
Uno de los invitados brasileros contándonos que nunca antes había salido del lugar en el que vive.
Los temas de las actividades propuestas por lxs asistentes (talleres, charlas, juegos, círculos de conversación…) fueron amplios. Desde las posibilidades o soluciones técnicas que ofrecen herramientas y desarrollos ya existentes, hasta preguntas humanas sobre el trabajo cooperativo, las formas de la atención, la relación con otrxs, la creación colectiva y la improvisación. Resalto entre los aprendizajes la importancia de vivir y comprender a fondo las problemáticas localizadas, las particularidades, el territorio, la temporalidad, el contexto, antes de proponer soluciones tecnológicas desde la abstracción de una pantalla o la distancia de las ciudades. Cada comunidad o grupo humano tiene sus lógicas de trabajo, de comunicación, sus ritmos, sus prioridades, sus formas, y es de esto que debemos partir para el desarrollo técnico. Lo contrario es a menudo violento o inútil.
Hiure (Coolab) hablando sobre el evento en el anfiteatro
En la comunidad de la web descentralizada (DWeb) aprovechamos Internet, que nos une, y trabajamos por la construcción de redes que faciliten y extiendan el acceso al conocimiento, pero sabemos que una red es mucho más que un conjunto de aparatos, cables y señales eléctricas. Una red es sobre todo la gente que construye, que enseña y aprende, que dialoga y sostiene. Larga vida a Coolab y al DWeb Camp y ojalá que en cada encuentro el movimiento se fortalezca cada vez más y halle nuevas razones e impulsos para existir y resistir.
Antonia Bustamante nació en Bogotá, Colombia. Se interesa por las relaciones entre el código, las tecnologías, las artes y los medios, especialmente en el ámbito digital. Trabaja como programadora e investigadora en el laboratorio EnFlujo (https://enflujo.com/) de la Universidad de Los Andes y como ingeniera de sonido en vivo con distintos grupos musicales. En su tercera vida cursa una maestría en Filosofía y cuida gatos.
Antonia Bustamante was born in Bogotá, Colombia. She is interested in the intersection between code, technologies, arts and media, especially in the digital realm. She works as a programmer and researcher in the EnFlujo laboratory (https://enflujo.com/) at Los Andes University and as a live sound engineer with different musical groups. In her third life she is pursuing a master’s degree in Philosophy and takes care of cats.
Internet Archive Canada’s Executive Director, Andrea Mills, and Jamie Joyce from Internet Archive discuss unlocking gov docs using AI at FWD50 2023
FWD50 is an international govtech conference which, since 2017, has been bringing together global leaders working to innovate government from the inside and out. This year’s gathering in Ottawa featured Jennifer Pahlka (founder of Code for America), the Honourable Anita Anand (President of the Treasury Board for the Government of Canada), his Excellency Saeed Al Mulla (from the Department of Government Enablement in Abu Dhabi), and dozens more – including the Andrea Mills and Jamie Joyce from Internet Archive Canada and Internet Archive.
In their 90 minute workshop, Andrea and Jamie demonstrated the power of using AI not only to make each government document more accessible by improving metadata and the output of digitization efforts, but they also walked government officials through the possibilities of using AI to perform higher order government functions, like modeling deliberation, structuring policy, and creating more robust representations of constituent’s sentiments on policy issues.
“My humility and imagination about what AI can do tripled watching your presentation.”
– Workshop Attendee
Because the conference was occurring at the same time as OpenAI’s DevDay, the workshop also included an overview of OpenAI’s new offerings, including the new possibilities with GPT4 Turbo. By showing off these new capabilities, both those recently announced by OpenAI and capabilities currently deployed at the Internet Archive and Internet Archive Canada, Andrea and Jamie invited participants to think big about how AI can transform their work in government.
By the end of the workshop, attendees wrote out descriptions of their daily professional work, detailed how they currently use AI, identified their pain points, and dreamt up new services they want to exist to make their work more efficient and impactful.
Andrea and Jamie brought these learnings back from the conference, hoping to inform potential services that Democracy’s Library, and its partners, may be able to provide to help bring democracy more so into the digital age.
We thank FWD50 for the invitation to present and participate in this fabulous event! It’s truly an honor to be among so many passionate and incredible innovators and public servants.
As an academic librarian helping connect students and faculty with the research materials they need, Sanjeet Mann has turned to the Internet Archive many times.
“I really value having the Wayback Machine as an additional tool in my librarian’s toolbox,” Mann said. “Information preservation is an essential, but often overlooked, part of the infrastructure for teaching and learning.”
Mann, currently working as the Systems & Discovery Librarian at California State University, San Bernardino (CSUSB), said he first learned about the value of the Internet Archive in 2006 during his library science master’s program.
Over his career, Mann has worked at various libraries, tapping into the Archive on the job.
Assisting budding writers, composers and artists as Arts Librarian at University of Redlands, Mann found that the vast amount of free information online, including biographies, can shape students’ projects.
“We can draw on the Archive whenever we need inspiration for creative work, or when we need to understand how current scholarship and the issues that we’re facing now aren’t completely new—they’re based on this history of work by scholars, by politicians, by citizens active in the public interest,” he said. “These issues tend to recur over time. As a society, we need to know where we have been in order to meet the challenges of the future.”
At CSUSB, Mann also helps computer science and business students use the Archive’s collections to better understand the cultural roots of new technologies—the historical context for their innovations.
“It is the only entity I’m aware of that preserves the Internet’s scholarly and historical record at this scale,” Mann said.
“I really value having the Wayback Machine as an additional tool in my librarian’s toolbox.”
Sanjeet Mann, librarian
On a practical note, Mann leveraged information through the Wayback Machine when he was researching how to set up a campus laptop loaner program for University of Redlands. This can be an essential service that libraries provide students who have trouble with their computers.
Mann wanted to understand policies at other universities, such as how they handled the return of damaged laptops. Looking at archived versions of university library websites through the Wayback Machine, Mann was able to learn about other approaches and find contacts to follow up for additional details.
The Internet Archive is a source to verify information that is no longer listed on websites, he said.
“Companies themselves don’t have any incentive to archive the history of their website. New products get launched. The platform gets migrated from one platform to another,” Mann said. “An organization like the Internet Archive, being a library, is uniquely positioned to meet the need in society of ensuring some kind of continuity of memory and having a public record. Especially with the government being very partisan these days, I think there’s value in the Internet Archive being an independent, not-for-profit that operates in the public interest.”
Mann added: “Without the Archive, we would lose decades of information about our society at a crucial turning point in its development, eroding trust in online systems and requiring educators, students and researchers to reconsider the way we do our work and share it with others.”
On Monday the Internet Archive joined thousands of others in submitting comments to the US Copyright Office as part of its study on Copyright and Artificial Intelligence.
Our high level view is that copyright law has been adapting to disruptive technologies since its earliest days and our existing copyright law is adequate to meet the disruptions of today. In particular, copyright’s flexible fair use provision deals well with the fact-specific nature of new technologies, and has already addressed earlier innovations in machine learning and text-and-data mining. So while Generative AI presents a host of policy challenges that may prompt different kinds of legislative reform, we do not see that new copyright laws are needed to respond to Generative AI today.
Our comments are guided by three core principles.
First, regulation of Artificial Intelligence should be considered holistically–not solely through the isolated lens of copyright law. As explained in the Library Copyright Alliance Principles for Artificial Intelligence and Copyright, “AI has the potential to disrupt many professions, not just individual creators. The response to this disruption (e.g., support for worker retraining through institutions such as community colleges and public libraries) should be developed on an economy-wide basis, and copyright law should not be treated as a means for addressing these broader societal challenges.” Going down a typical copyright path of creating new rights and licensing markets could, for AI, serve to worsen social problems like inequality, surveillance and monopolistic behavior of Big Tech and Big Media.
Second, any new copyright regulation of AI should not negatively impact the public’s right and ability to access information, knowledge, and culture. A primary purpose of copyright is to expand access to knowledge. See Authors Guild v. Google, 804 F.3d 202, 212 (2d Cir. 2015) (“Thus, while authors are undoubtedly important intended beneficiaries of copyright, the ultimate, primary intended beneficiary is the public, whose access to knowledge copyright seeks to advance . . . .”). Proposals to amend the Copyright Act to address AI should be evaluated by the impact such new regulations would have on the public’s access to information, knowledge, and culture. In cases where proposals would have the effect of reducing public access, they should be rejected or balanced out with appropriate exceptions and limitations.
Third, universities, libraries, and other publicly-oriented institutions must be able to continue to ensure the public’s access to high quality, verifiable sources of news, scientific research and other information essential to their participation in our democratic society. Strong libraries and educational institutions can help mitigate some of the challenges to our information ecosystem, including those posed by AI. Libraries should be empowered to provide access to educational resources of all sorts– including the powerful Generative AI tools now being developed.
