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The $621M Legal Battle by Record Labels Against Internet Archive


Major record labels have sued the Internet Archive for $621 million over thousands of old recordings, raising the question: Who owns the past?

A folk, blues, or country tune, a lost jazz gem or minor big-band hit, a Yiddish comedy bit, Hungarian opera, Argentine tango, polka, foxtrot, gospel, hymns, or even just the sound of a person laughing because that’s what people wanted to hear when it became possible to record a human voice. Most are by recognizable legacy acts whose music is still widely available: Billie Holiday, Louis Armstrong, Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, Hank Williams, Frank Sinatra, Benny Goodman, Ernest Tubb, and Peggy Lee. is evident in the actions of those aligned against him: long-frustrated rights holders and corporations who see little difference between the Internet Archive and illegal torrent sites like the Pirate Bay, and haven’t spent millions lobbying for a copyright system that favors their interests over the public domain for nothing.

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