This is an absurdly strained & non-factual summary of the history.
>one man's seemingly fanatical conviction against the law
Reviewing the large number of amicus briefs on the Archive's side, from the get-go through appeals, refutes the idea this was a solitary crusade: https://blog.archive.org/2023/12/29/friend-of-the-court-brie...
Those supporting IA's position range from the American Library Association (the world's oldest & largest library advocacy group), to individual libraries of all kinds, to expert IP law academics, to public-interest advocates like the Center for Democracy & Technology or Public Knowledge, to fellow open-culture organizations like Wikipedia, Creative Commons, & Project Gutenberg. Also: lots of book authors, including those with commercial success & titles inside the IA's lending program.
The IA was in the leading position, sure – but taking the arrows for a very large group of like-minded organizations sharing a stance against copyright maximalism. Personalizing it as one man's radical crusade is odd.
>asked to stop… tried to open a dialogue
Saying no to the copyright maximalists, even through their claims of absolute control & threatened or actual lawsuits, has been essential in establishing the actual settled law around copyright.
What sort of 'dialogue' can be had when the sides have incompatible views of the law: one believing in a permissionless right to do an exact something (supported by reasoning & precedent) and another asserting an absolute right to prohibit that exact same thing (supported by other reasoning & precedent)? Each side needs to enact their beliefs then resolve it in the courts.
HathiTrust - a major consortium of university libraries – was the named defendent in an earlier lawsuit by some of the same copyrightholder interests with regard to Google Books scanning. (It's also an ally of the Internet Archive in this fight.) Should HathiTrust have rolled over when "asked to stop" scanning by rightsholders? Absolutely not: they won in court & on appeal.
If Sony hadn't appealed the Betamax decision to the Supreme Court, VCRs & everything since that let people record their own copies of TV programs could've been "illegal". A mere 'dialogue' with TV broadcasters or moviemaker trade associations couldn't have done anything: the issues had to be ruled on by legal authorities.
>In addition, there has been real collateral damage to the many noble aspects of the Internet Archive. Legal fees and judgements have diverted resources away from the Wayback Machine, the library of public domain works, and other IA programs that provide real value to society. I truly hope the organization can survive.
I agree that the overheated rhetoric from both the plaintiffs (about giant but never-proven sdamages) and defendants (about how central these principles are to IA) may have created that impression in some coverage – but the idea this was ever existential for IA, in legal costs or potential damages, is pure paranoid fantasy.
As a non-profit, the IA files detailed form 990s with the IRS showing income & expenses. I challenge you to find any hint of legal costs changing other operations in the years since the lawsuit was filed (2020) and appeals launched.
I suspect, but have no inside info, that much of the costs were borne by other advocacy & legal organizations/donors that wanted to pursue a ruling on these particular essential issues. That is: this battle was fought with resources targeted for this program and these legal principles, not resources diverted from other programs.
As part of private settlement with the plaintiffs in 2023 – not any court monetary judgment against it – the IA agreed to make some undisclosed payment but ALSO had permission from the plaintiffs for IA to continue to pursue appeals (like the one just ruled-upon) on the issues important to IA, at no risk of further damages.
That's hardly the "scorched earth" plaintiff behavior implied by some hyped coverage imagining an IA bankruptcy, or other threats to its ability "to survive".
This was always a dispute on some copyright principles; it will be a loss to the public if IA's vision of format-shifted digital lending is ultimately ruled illegal, but no impact to IA's other long-established programs.
Finally: this may not be the final chapter & ruling on these issues. Sony had to appeal all the way to the Supreme Court before getting the Betamax ruling in 1984. Google had to appeal all the way to the Supreme Court before getting a ruling that API reimplementation could be fair use in 2021. I don't know if IA will judge it as worthwhile to appeal. But they might! And before those other historic final appeals, the preceding judgements seemed pretty definitive and bleak for the ultimate victors.