Opponents, including the Author’s Guild and Rowling herself, argue that authors depend on sales and licensing. The Harry Potter brand is a multi-billion-dollar ecosystem of books, films, and merchandise. When a digital copy is borrowed for free from the Archive instead of purchased or borrowed from a licensed library (which pays for its ebooks), they argue it devalues the work. Moreover, they contend that the Archive is not a traditional library—it does not pay publishers for ebook licenses, which are a major revenue stream.

Supporters of the Archive argue that access to culture should not be gatekept by price. They point out that many of the physical books the Archive owns are older editions, donated or purchased secondhand, and that lending them digitally serves the public good, especially for low-income readers or those in areas without robust library systems. For Harry Potter , a series that taught a generation to love reading, making it freely available feels, to some, like spreading a gift.

The Internet Archive, a sprawling digital library founded by Brewster Kahle, stands as one of the most significant—and controversial—repositories of human knowledge. Its mission, "Universal Access to All Knowledge," often collides with the modern legal frameworks of copyright and intellectual property. Nowhere is this collision more visible, and more passionately debated, than in the case of the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling.