Famous record labels Companies have sued the Internet Archive for distributing old 78rpm discs on the grounds that they are copyrighted.
According to Reuters Some of the world's biggest record companies, including Sony and Universal Music Group, have filed a lawsuit against the Internet Archive over the Great 78 project, a community effort to preserve, research and discover 78-rpm records that are 70 to 120 years old.
Great 78 has been operating since 2006 to offer free public access to a largely forgotten but culturally significant music archive. Through the efforts of dedicated librarians, archivists and engineers sound, have digitized hundreds of thousands of recordings stored in shellac resin, an antiquated and fragile medium.
The resulting recordings contain even the scratches found on analog discs and have not removed any of the noise that modern remastering techniques usually discard.
The record companies' lawsuit said the project includes thousands of their copyrighted recordings, including Bing Crosby's "White Christmas" and Chuck Berry's "Roll Over Beethoven." The companies maintain that the recordings are all available to authorized services flow and "are not in danger of being lost, forgotten or destroyed".
Η μήνυση των δισκογραφικών που κατατέθηκε σε ομοσπονδιακό δικαστήριο στο Μανχάταν και ανέφερε ότι το "Great 78 Project" του Archive λειτουργεί ως "παράνομο δισκάδικο" για γνωστούς τραγουδιστές όπως οι Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Miles Davis και Billie Holiday.
They claimed their damages in the case could be as high as 412 millions dollars.
The Internet Archive is already facing another federal lawsuit in Manhattan from leading book publishers who said its pandemic-launched digital book lending program infringes on their copyrights. A judge ruled in March in favor of the publishers, in a decision that the Internet Archive plans to appeal.
