> During the COVID-19 pandemic, Kahle opened the library for free ebook borrowing via the Controlled Digital Lending (CDL) program. Publishing companies were not amused and the Internet Archive lost the resulting lawsuit, Hachette v. Internet Archive. The court rejected the Archive’s fair use defense, finding that its digital lending practices infringed on publishers’ copyrights.<p>> That’s a huge problem on its own. The Internet Archive is a 501(c)(3) non-profit with a gross revenue in its most recent 990 filing of only $30.5 million. For the size of the job it’s undertaken, it’s grossly underfinanced.<p>"The size of the job it's undertaken" is an interesting way to say "the size of the legal bills that it willfully racked up by intentionally violating copyright law in ways that everyone knew at the time had a snowball's chance in hell of surviving in court".<p>I believe that Intellectual Property is a terrible concept that shouldn't exist at all. I want copyright reform as badly as anyone. I want to want to support the Internet Archive. I want to want them to have enough resources to accomplish their mission. But man have I lost all faith in their leadership's judgement and ability to actually change anything—if they survive the judgement at all they'll be paying for it for years to come.<p>You don't win this kind of fight by sacrificing the ground you've won. When you've won as much ground as the Internet Archive did, you hold that ground and let <i>someone else</i> take the risk of winning new ground. If you absolutely can't sit still then you found a new organization to push further. But when you're the sole bastion holding the "we should be able to archive everything with no regard to copyright" space, it's irresponsible to try to move on to "we should be able to lend everything with no regard to copyright". They may very well lose both rights.