--- title: Music labels vs. the Internet Archive - The Hustle description: The Internet Archive is being sued again, this time by music publishers. image: https://hs-sbup.thehustle.co/hubfs/The%20Hustle%20News/Assets/Images/1388547258-httpsthdaily.s3.us-west-1.amazonaws.comfinal_size-great78project_20230814231109.webp --- # Music labels vs. the Internet Archive ![Juliet Bennett Rylah](https://53.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.net/hubfs/53/assets/hubspot.com/web-team/WBZ/HubSpot%20Media/Blog%202021/Images/Nav/Optimized/TheHustle_Icon_Dark.svg) [Juliet Bennett Rylah](https://hs-sbup.thehustle.co/author/juliet-bennett-rylah) [Juliet Bennett Rylah Twitter profile ](https://twitter.com/JBRylah) Published: August 23, 2023 Updated: October 11, 2023 Did you know shellac is a resin secreted by lac insects? I didn’t — nor did I know that in the early 20th century, 78 rpm records were made out of shellac. ![records](https://hs-sbup.thehustle.co/hs-fs/hubfs/The%20Hustle%20News/Assets/Images/1388547258-httpsthdaily.s3.us-west-1.amazonaws.comfinal_size-great78project_20230814231109.webp?width=595&height=400&name=1388547258-httpsthdaily.s3.us-west-1.amazonaws.comfinal_size-great78project_20230814231109.webp) The sound quality isn’t great — hisses, pops, cracks — and the records themselves are brittle. But they’re at the center of [a lawsuit](https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/legaldocs/jnpwwwejopw/INTERNET%20ARCHVIE%20RECORD%20LABELS%20LAWSUIT%20complaint.pdf) pitting music publishers including Universal Music Group Recordings, Sony Music Entertainment, and Capitol Records against the Internet Archive, [per](https://www.reuters.com/legal/music-labels-sue-internet-archive-over-digitized-record-collection-2023-08-12/) *Reuters*. #### **The Great 78 Project…** … is a collection of [400k+ such records](https://great78.archive.org/). IA uses George Blood LP, a Philadelphia-based digital archiving company, to digitize the recordings, then uploads them to its website, [per](https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/internet-archive-78-records-phonograph) *Atlas Obscura*. Many recordings have already been restored or remastered on other media formats, but the project asserts: - Digitization allows people to do research without harming the physical records - The collection provides a reference to lesser-known music #### **But it’s not the unknowns…** … to which the lawsuit — which names IA, its founder Brewster Kahle, and George Blood — objects. It objects to 2,749 copyrighted recordings from the likes of Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, and Duke Ellington that it alleges IA has digitized, uploaded, and distributed without permission, resulting in ~$412m (or $150k per song) in damages from copyright infringement. It also argues: - Making the recordings freely available exceeds the purposes of preservation and research - These songs are available to stream or download elsewhere and “face no danger of being lost, forgotten, or destroyed” #### **This isn’t IA’s first rodeo** IA sees itself as a nonprofit library that makes culture and knowledge freely available to anyone with internet access; this often pits it against corporations that want to make money off said culture. - **Case in point: **IA’s [ongoing litigation](https://thehustle.co/book-publishers-vs-the-internet-archive/) with book publishers over its attempt to distribute free ebooks, sans waitlist, amid the pandemic. Free access vs. copyright law is likely to be an ongoing factor in these cases, but also in the numerous AI claims popping up in which copyright holders allege AI used their work to train. **Not fun fact: **In 2008, the fire on Universal Studios Hollywood’s backlot did [destroy](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/11/magazine/universal-fire-master-recordings.html) a collection of UMG-owned, one-of-a-kind masters. Topics: [Music](https://hs-sbup.thehustle.co/tag/music) ## Follow us on social media prev next - ![Not your mom’s jingles: Ad music is getting an upgrade](https://hs-sbup.thehustle.co/hubfs/The%20Hustle%20News/Assets/Images/1888583416-httpsthdaily.s3.us-west-1.amazonaws.comfinal_size-HeavyDuty_20230904195918.webp) ### Not your mom’s jingles: Ad music is getting an upgrade - ![Music you can really feel — no, really](https://hs-sbup.thehustle.co/hubfs/The%20Hustle%20News/Assets/Images/644993849-httpsthdaily.s3.us-west-1.amazonaws.comfinal_size-music-headphones_20230821235106.webp) ### Music you can really feel — no, really - ![Cassettes are back](https://hs-sbup.thehustle.co/hubfs/The%20Hustle%20News/Assets/Images/1940561690-HS-News-Brief_2022-12-13T011502.264Z.webp) ### Cassettes are back - ![Hell hath no fury like angry Swifties](https://hs-sbup.thehustle.co/hubfs/The%20Hustle%20News/Assets/Images/1861388291-HS-News-Brief_2022-11-22T032431.391Z.webp) ### Hell hath no fury like angry Swifties - ![TikTok vs. record labels](https://hs-sbup.thehustle.co/hubfs/The%20Hustle%20News/Assets/Images/685371275-HS-News-Brief_2022-11-09T014607.616Z.webp) ### TikTok vs. record labels - ![Taylor Swift’s record week](https://hs-sbup.thehustle.co/hubfs/The%20Hustle%20News/Assets/Images/1189449884-HS-News-Brief_2022-11-04T001109.110Z.webp) ### Taylor Swift’s record week - ![Is Apple blocking Spotify’s growth plan?](https://hs-sbup.thehustle.co/hubfs/The%20Hustle%20News/Assets/Images/611425115-HS-News-Brief_2022-10-26T230532.403Z.webp) ### Is Apple blocking Spotify’s growth plan? - ![TikTok’s grand plans to take over our ears](https://hs-sbup.thehustle.co/hubfs/The%20Hustle%20News/Assets/Images/1943084371-HS-News-Brief_2022-08-04T005014.455Z.webp) ### TikTok’s grand plans to take over our ears - ![Are virtual concerts here to stay?](https://hs-sbup.thehustle.co/hubfs/The%20Hustle%20News/Assets/Images/1443919082-HS-News-Brief_2022-07-31T230255.157Z-scaled.webp) ### Are virtual concerts here to stay? - ![The big business of Margaritaville](https://hs-sbup.thehustle.co/hubfs/The%20Hustle%20News/Assets/Images/1714570193-HS-News-Brief_2022-07-17T230640.018Z.webp) ### The big business of Margaritaville Pop up for Subscribe to The Hustle Daily Newsletter Subscribe to The Hustle Daily Newsletter Get the 5-minute news brief keeping 2.5M+ innovators in the loop. Always free. 100% fresh. No bullsh*t. JOIN FREE ### 100% Free CRM Nurture and grow your business with customer relationship management software. Signup for a free account Close modal ```json { "@context" : "https://schema.org", "@type" : "BlogPosting", "author" : { "@type" : "Person", "name" : "Juliet Bennett Rylah", "url" : "https://hs-sbup.thehustle.co/news/author/juliet-bennett-rylah" }, "datePublished" : "2023-08-23T23:18:48.000Z", "headline" : "Music labels vs. the Internet Archive", "image" : [ "https://hs-sbup.thehustle.co/hubfs/The%20Hustle%20News/Assets/Images/1388547258-httpsthdaily.s3.us-west-1.amazonaws.comfinal_size-great78project_20230814231109.webp" ], "mainEntityOfPage" : { "@id" : "https://hs-sbup.thehustle.co/news/music-labels-vs-the-internet-archive", "@type" : "WebPage" }, "publisher" : { "@type" : "Organization", "logo" : { "@type" : "ImageObject" } } } ``` ```json { "@context" : "https://schema.org", "@id" : "#article", "@type" : "NewsArticle", "author" : { "@type" : "Person", "name" : "Juliet Bennett Rylah", "url" : "https://hs-sbup.thehustle.co/author/juliet-bennett-rylah" }, "dateModified" : "2023-10-11T19:13:59+0000", "datePublished" : "2023-08-23T23:18:48+0000", "headline" : "Music labels vs. the Internet Archive", "image" : [ "https://7355427.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.net/hubfs/7355427/The%20Hustle%20News/Assets/Images/1388547258-httpsthdaily.s3.us-west-1.amazonaws.comfinal_size-great78project_20230814231109.webp" ], "publisher" : { "@type" : "Organization", "logo" : { "@type" : "ImageObject", "height" : 112, "url" : "https://fs.hubspotusercontent00.net/hubfs/53/assets/hubspot.com/web-team/WBZ/Blog%202021/Images/Logos/HubSpot%20Logo%20112X112.svg", "width" : 112 }, "name" : "HubSpot", "sameAs" : [ "https://www.facebook.com/hubspot", "https://twitter.com/hubspot" ], "url" : "https://www.hubspot.com" }, "speakable" : { "@type" : "SpeakableSpecification", "xPath" : [ "//title", "/html/head/meta[@name='description']/@content" ] } } ```