Page:Hachette Book Group v. Internet Archive (2023).pdf/3

 This dispute concerns the way libraries lend ebooks. Public and academic libraries in the United States spend billions of dollars each year obtaining print books and ebooks for their patrons to borrow for free. Pls.' 56.1 ¶ 113. Libraries usually buy their print books from publishers or wholesalers. ¶ 114. Copies of ebooks, however, are typically not bought but licensed to libraries from publishers through distributors called "aggregators." ¶ 117. The Publishers task aggregators with ensuring that a library lends its ebooks only to the library's members. ¶¶ 123, 125. The Publishers also require aggregators to employ approved "digital rights management" ("DRM") software and other security measures to prevent unauthorized copying or distribution of ebook files. ¶ 126. Demand for library ebooks has increased over the past decade. In 2012, OverDrive, the largest aggregator, processed 70 million digital checkouts of ebooks and audiobooks; by 2020, that number had risen to 430 million. ¶¶ 119, 164.

The Publishers use several licensing models to profit from the distribution of ebooks to libraries. ¶¶ 120, 122. All four Publishers offer a "one-copy, one-user" model: Libraries pay a single fee for an ebook and patrons check out a copy of that ebook successively, subject to community-based and DRM restrictions. ¶ 127. Each Publisher offers academic libraries