Major record labels including Universal Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment have reached a confidential settlement with the nonprofit Internet Archive, ending a two-year legal battle over its digitization and streaming of vintage vinyl recordings.
The parties filed a joint notice in California federal court on Monday (September 15), requesting that Judge Maxine Chesney pause all case deadlines while they complete the settlement terms.
They expect to formally dismiss the lawsuit within 45 days, according to the filing, which you can read in full here.
“The Parties request that the Court vacate any upcoming deadlines while the performance of certain settlement terms is pending,” the court document read.
It added: “Once performance of certain terms of the settlement is complete, the Parties shall file a Stipulation of Dismissal of the entire action with prejudice. The Parties expect to file the Stipulation of Dismissal within 45 days.”
In a blog post on Monday, Chris Freeland, Director of Library Services at Internet Archive, wrote: “[B]oth parties have advised the Court that the matter has been settled. The parties have reached a confidential resolution of all claims and will have no further public comment on this matter.”
The settlement concludes a dispute that began in 2023 when UMG Recordings, Capitol Records, Concord, Sony Music and Arista Music sued the San Francisco-based Internet Archive over its “Great 78 Project.”
The initiative encourages donations of 78-rpm records from the 1890s through 1950s, which the Archive then digitizes and makes available online.
“[B]oth parties have advised the Court that the matter has been settled. The parties have reached a confidential resolution of all claims.”
Chris Freeland, Internet Archive
As MBW previously noted, “78s” were the standard format for vinyl records until the 1950s, and according to George Blood, an audio engineer involved in the project, there are some 3 million of these recordings that could eventually make their way into the collection.
The project presents a problem for recording companies and music publishers, as much of the music remains under copyright and continues to be commercially exploited.
The record companies accused the Archive of operating an “illegal record store” that violated copyrights on “thousands of works” by artists including Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Miles Davis and Louis Armstrong, among others.
Specific recordings cited in the lawsuit included Crosby’s White Christmas, Benny Goodman’s Sing, Sing, Sing, Buddy Holly’s Peggy Sue, Chuck Berry’s Roll Over Beethoven, Sinatra’s I’ve Got the World on a String, Nat King Cole’s The Christmas Song and more.
The lawsuit listed 2,749 copyrighted tracks, which it describes as an “illustrative and non-exhaustive list of some of plaintiffs’ works infringed by defendants through the Great 78 Project.”
The Archive defended its actions under fair use doctrine, arguing the project aims to “ensure the survival of these cultural materials for future generations to study and enjoy.”
Judge Chesney had previously rejected the Archive’s argument that some copyright claims were time-barred, allowing the case to proceed toward trial before the settlement was reached.
Last year, the Internet Archive lost its appeal in a lawsuit against major book publishers — Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins Publishers, John Wiley & Sons and Penguin Random House — that accused it of illegally scanning copyrighted works and providing access to them to the public online for free.
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