Internet Archive is a website that digitizes over 250,000 books per year and places them in the Open Library. However, most writers are not even aware that it exists and that their work is being shared without remuneration. Internet Archive claims that Open Library is “honouring the rights of creators”, defining their activity as “Controlled Digital Lending” to redistribute works without authorisation. IAF takes the view that Controlled Digital Lending does not honour the rights of creators as it attempts to bypass the rights of authorisation and remuneration that authors should expect. Authors are not asked for permission before their work appears on Open Library, and they do not receive any remuneration for their work being used.
IAF condemns the unauthorised lending of books scanned for the website Internet Archive. We support our members who have asked the owners of the site to take down the material or pay a fair rate to the authors for its usage.
For more information on CDL please see this FAQ the IAF joins members and partners in supporting
Support the Authors Guild campaign in the USA
Support the National Writers Union campaign in the USA