The Open Library project, run by the Internet Archive, has suddenly become considerably smaller, at least in terms of the number of e-books it's able to lend to people around the world. After a US district judge ruled in favour of publishing companies suing the Internet Archive for breach of copyright, the organization had no choice but to remove access to over 500,000 books for the vast majority of its users.in order to return access to all users.
However, in 2020, four of the largest publishers—Hachette, HarperCollins, Wiley, and Penguin Random House—sued Internet Archive, claiming that the organization's actions were impacting the publishers' e-book licencing revenue and that the Internet Archive was breaching copyright law., Maria Pallante, president and CEO of the Association of American Publishers, said that CDL is"a baseless justification for infringement and antithetical to both copyright law and common sense.