According to Consequence.net, after a two-year legal battle, the Internet Archive and a group of major labels have settled a $621 million copyright infringement lawsuit. As reported by Rolling Stone, the decision came to light on Monday, September 15, after both parties filed a joint notice of settlement in a California district court.

As of now, the exact terms of the settlement remain undisclosed as both parties finalize the arrangements and any last-minute details. That whole process can take up to 45 days, at which point the terms and other details could be made available. Both sides have remained relatively tight-lipped following the announcement. Chris Freeland, the Archive’s Director of Library Services, took to the organization’s blog to write, “The parties have reached a confidential resolution of all claims and will have no further public comment on this matter.”

Meanwhile, the plaintiffs, led in part by Universal Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment, did not even release a statement, one from the Recording Industry Association of America was verbatim with that of the Archive. The multi-million-dollar lawsuit stems from the Internet Archive’s Great 78 Project, which is an initiative dating back to 2017 to digitize as many shellac discs as possible released between the 1890s and the 1950s, after which vinyl production ramped up considerably.

As Archive founder Brewster Kahle explained in September 2024, the project was meant to secure thousands of hours of music that might have been otherwise lost.