Hey John,

On June 28,¹ the Internet Archive is headed back to court to fight for the rights of libraries, readers, and access to knowledge, including banned books. In one of the most under-rated evil lawsuits of our time, Big Publishing is suing them over their program that scans and loans books they own in a 1-to-1 ratio, just like any physical library might loan a paper book.²

If publishers win, they’ll cut off libraries’ last option to own digital books³ and offer them in surveillance-free ways that affirm the rights of readers not only to avoid Big Tech’s data dragnet,⁴ but also to read diverse books at all. In a time when some libraries are having to go adults-only,⁵ we need border-crossing digital libraries more than ever!

At Fight for the Future, we aren’t afraid to stand up to Big Publishing and say that what they’re doing is plain cruel—or that we love the Internet Archive and all it does for collective knowledge, access, and preservation.

So, in the leadup to the trial and the judge’s decision, we’re going to get LOUD. Can you pitch in to support some very ❤️Fight-flavored efforts to show our support?

DONATE TO OUR SHENANIGANS FUND

Here’s a preview of one thing we’re working on…

Whether you can give or not, stay tuned. This is going to be fun.

Lia and the team at ❤️Fight

PS: A special hello to any creeping Big Content lobbyists reading this, sorry we’re not telling you exactly what we’re doing in advance so you can stage a repeat of your sad sloppy smear campaign⁶ against our legit-as-hell human rights organization. 😈

Footnotes

[1] Court Listener https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/67801014/293/hachette-book-group-inc-v-internet-archive/

[2] Internet Archive TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@weareinternetarchive/video/7329355972428696874

[3] Library Journal https://www.libraryjournal.com/story/inside-the-anti-ownership-ebook-economy-peer-to-peer-review

[4] Fight for the Future https://www.fightforthefuture.org/news/2023-12-07-25-human-rights-organizations-call-on-2024-congress-to-investigate-big-tech-and-publishings-stranglehold-over-digital-books/

[5] Literary Activism Substack https://literaryactivism.substack.com/p/an-idaho-public-library-will-become

[6] TechDirt https://www.techdirt.com/2022/10/03/publishers-lose-their-shit-after-authors-push-back-on-their-attack-on-libraries/