Internet Archive — Anti-Piracy Litigation

Background

Internet Archive is a US-based non-profit organisation and one of the world’s largest digital libraries. It operates the Wayback Machine and plays a central role in the preservation of online content, working alongside national libraries and international institutions as part of the International Internet Preservation Consortium.

The organisation faced a series of legal claims seeking the permanent blocking of archive.org under Russian anti-piracy legislation. The claims were brought by a copyright association representing major publishers and were based on alleged unlawful distribution of audiobooks via the Wayback Machine.

The proceedings raised complex issues of cross-border copyright enforcement, intermediary liability, and the interaction between national blocking mechanisms and international notice-and-takedown standards.

Legal issues

The case involved several key legal questions:

• whether an information intermediary could be subject to permanent blocking without evidence of direct infringement
• whether the claimant had established valid exclusive rights to the disputed content
• whether the procedural requirements for permanent access restriction had been met
• how national anti-piracy measures interact with internationally recognised intermediary liability frameworks.

Our role

The case involved several key legal questions:

• whether an information intermediary could be subject to permanent blocking without evidence of direct infringement;
• whether the claimant had established valid exclusive rights to the disputed content;
• whether the procedural requirements for permanent access restriction had been met;
• how national anti-piracy measures interact with internationally recognised intermediary liability frameworks.

Key challenges

The case highlighted significant differences between national approaches to copyright enforcement and established international standards. In particular:

• the claimant sought to impose proactive monitoring obligations inconsistent with notice-and-takedown principles;
• the evidence submitted failed to establish both the existence and infringement of exclusive rights;
• the timing of alleged uploads did not correspond to the period during which rights were held;
• These issues required careful factual analysis and precise procedural argumentation.

Outcome

The court accepted the defence position that the claimant had failed to substantiate its claims and had relied on inadmissible or inconsistent evidence. The proceedings were terminated, and the request for permanent blocking was rejected.

As a result, Internet Archive avoided permanent access restrictions and remained accessible to users, becoming one of the first major online resources to successfully challenge permanent blocking under the applicable anti-piracy framework.