Source: Reuters

Internet Archive, an activist organization that promotes a free internet, is facing a new lawsuit over one of its most ambitious music preservation projects, the so-called Great 78 Project, which aims to preserve music recorded on 78rpm records.

For this reason, several record labels such as Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group, among others, have filed a lawsuit against the non-profit organization, accusing it of copyright infringement for digitalizing, distributing and streaming sound recordings without authorization.

The complaint, filed last Friday in Manhattan Federal Court, alleges infringement of 2,749 works recorded by deceased artists, including: Frank Sinatra, Billie Holiday, Louis Armstrong and Bing Crosby. In addition, the document emphasizes that this list is only a small fraction of the copyrighted material released without permission.

Thus, the record labels are seeking provisional injunctions to remove all copyrighted content, as well as damages of up to $150,000 for each infringed work, which would total up to $372 million for the organization’s total recordings.

It should be noted that this legal dispute is not Internet Archive’s first encounter with copyright-related lawsuits, as the organization is currently facing another lawsuit from major book publishers regarding its digital book lending programme, which they argue also infringes their copyrights. In that case, a federal judge ruled against the Internet Archive, a decision that the organization intends to appeal.

While the Internet Archive’s mission is based on the preservation of knowledge and culture, it remains to be seen how this lawsuit will affect its initiatives and the broader discussions around copyright protection and digital preservation.