Universal Music Group (UMG.AS), Sony Music Entertainment (6758.T), and other record labels filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against the nonprofit Internet Archive on Friday, citing its streaming collection of digitized music from vintage records.
According to the labels’ lawsuit, which was filed in federal court in Manhattan, the Archive’s ‘Great 78 Project’ serves as a ‘illegal record store’ for songs by artists such as Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Miles Davis, and Billie Holiday.
They named 2,749 sound-recording copyrights that they claim the Archive violated. According to the labels, their damages in the case could total $412 million, Reuters reported.
The Internet Archive’s representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the complaint.
The Internet Archive, based in San Francisco, digitally archives websites, books, audio recordings, and other materials. It compares itself to a library and says its mission is to “provide universal access to all knowledge.”
The Internet Archive is already facing another federal lawsuit in Manhattan from major book publishers, who claim that the pandemic’s digital-book lending program violates their copyrights. In March, a judge ruled in favor of the publishers, a decision that the Archive intends to appeal.
The Great 78 Project seeks donations of 78-rpm records (the dominant record format from the early 1900s to the 1950s) to digitize to “ensure the survival of these cultural materials for future generations to study and enjoy.” According to its website, the collection contains over 400,000 recordings.
The labels’ lawsuit said the project includes thousands of their copyright-protected recordings, including Bing Crosby’s ‘White Christmas’, Chuck Berry’s ‘Roll Over Beethoven’ and Duke Ellington’s ‘It Doesn’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing)’.
The lawsuit said the recordings are all available on authorized streaming services and “face no danger of being lost, forgotten, or destroyed.”