[HN Gopher] Tell HN: Internet Archive is facing a Big 4 Publishe...
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Tell HN: Internet Archive is facing a Big 4 Publishers lawsuit
Not sure why this isn't more prominently highlighted, but this is a
very culturally significant project and a custodian of a tremendous
amount of Internet and WWW-oriented history. I would imagine HN
would put this at the forefront of the discussions happening here.
I'm not affiliated, but I am a concerned netizen. All of us here
have benefited from The IA. Please help raise awareness as to what
is happening. Read more here, and elsewhere -
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/07/14/cucd-j14.html > In
June 2020, four major publishers--John Wiley & Sons and three of
the big five US publishers, Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins and
Penguin Random House--filed a lawsuit against the Internet Archive,
claiming the non-profit organization, "is engaged in willful mass
copyright infringement." > The lawsuit stems from the corporate
publishers response to an innovative temporary initiative launched
by the Internet Archive during the first months of the coronavirus
pandemic called the National Emergency Library. Given the impact of
the public health emergency, the Internet Archive decided to ease
its book lending restrictions and allow multiple people to check
out the same digital copy of a book at once. > Up to that point,
the Internet Archive had established a practice of purchasing
copies of printed books, digitizing them and lending them to
borrowers one at a time. When it kicked-off the emergency lending
program, the Internet Archive made it clear that this policy would
be in effect until the end of the pandemic. Furthermore, the
archive's publishers said that this program was in response to
library doors being closed to the public during the pandemic. Under
conditions where the Internet Archive was the only means of access
to titles for many people, the policy was justified and a creative
response to COVID-19.
Author : antiverse
Score : 532 points
Date : 2022-07-18 18:05 UTC (4 hours ago)
| TekMol wrote:
| I never understood how the IA can get away with copying all those
| websites and all their content as if copyright did not exist.
|
| Can anybody enlighten me how they have not been sued into
| oblivion and sit in prison already?
| is_true wrote:
| Google does the same and profits from it.
| sebastiansm wrote:
| I had listened and downloaded full music albums from the
| Archive. Don't know why is possible.
| Ekaros wrote:
| Or outright warez content... Yeah, I don't know why anyone
| would think that should pass...
| samwillis wrote:
| If you ask to have something removed, or to exclude your site,
| they do. They comply with robots.txt, I believe even
| retrospectively. I think they try hard NOT to be sued.
|
| They are also not making a profit from "copied" content, and so
| damages would be small. Particularly as they would immediately
| remove the problematic content.
| ghaff wrote:
| Basically (until now), they make themselves as reasonable and
| as little of a target as they can.
| perth wrote:
| They have a few special permissions from the US federal
| government which certainly doesn't hurt when it comes to
| archival efforts
| rwmj wrote:
| Browsers copy and store websites as part of their normal
| functioning. If you didn't want your website to be copied and
| stored then maybe it was better not to put it up in the first
| place? Anyway the IA will remove everything with a very simple,
| automated text file placed in the root directory.
| TekMol wrote:
| So you say copyright does not apply to websites?
| rwmj wrote:
| Where did I say that? By putting up the website you did,
| however, give implied permission to use it in ways which
| are fundamental to how the web works, otherwise why did you
| put the website up?
| BeetleB wrote:
| Browsers can copy and store, but republishing is a totally
| different matter.
| throwk8s wrote:
| > Anyway the IA will remove everything with a very simple,
| automated text file placed in the root directory.
|
| What if the site is simply gone, or now belongs to someone
| else who is not the owner of the archived content?
| yebyen wrote:
| Then you can follow these steps:
|
| https://www.joshualowcock.com/guide/how-to-delete-your-
| site-...
|
| You'll need to prove that you are the owner of the archived
| content, or were the owner of the domain.
| sbassi wrote:
| Copyright is not absolute, it has some exemptions like fair
| use, historic preservation and education. IANAL but I
| understand they work fall in at least one of these categories.
| Ekaros wrote:
| To me it seems pretty reasonable. That content is available on
| public internet. And they even give perfect citations. That is
| timestamp and address, plus all the information on the page.
|
| If people don't want their content in such place they can
| always place it behind login-wall.
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| There are special rules for archives that might help:
| https://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html#108
|
| Not sure if that's the specific part that lets them do what
| they do, or if that's from some other rule, just pointing out
| that this kind of rule exists.
| mgdlbp wrote:
| I read on HN an insightful rationalization of IA's heeding of
| requests to hide content: Making data unavailable without protest
| - while continuing to silently collect it - minimizes controversy
| and potential blocking or censorship, a short-term sacrifice for
| its mission of giving longevity to internet content.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21012643
|
| In that context, NEL was quite a foolish thing to do.
|
| But wait, that's _not_ its mission - https://archive.org/about
| explains how IA's mission of 'Universal Access to All Knowledge'
| and status as a library entail 'paying special attention to
| books'. That'd be the rationale for NEL, then?
| FpUser wrote:
| Time to change the law. It does not benefit people in this
| particular case.
| Gleaming5975 wrote:
| Personally, I'm thrilled to hear this. The Internet Archive has
| already made a choice to self censor material that they had
| previously made available. To be willing to censor some material,
| but playing "innocent" when it comes to being _required_ to
| censor themselves in other ways is hypocritical at best.
| bshanks wrote:
| Has there been any progress in software to allow individual
| unaffiliated volunteers to help make decentralized third-party
| backups of the Internet Archive's WWW Wayback machine data?
|
| My opinion is that it may be difficult to find enough volunteer
| storage to fit the entire Archive, but if we focus on
| prioritizing plaintext HTML, plus perhaps graphics included in
| web pages constrained to a size limit, we can do it.
| kup0 wrote:
| I agree with the Internet Archive on philosophical/ideological
| grounds and support their actions overall...
|
| _However_, they have to operate under the same BS everyone else
| does, so it seems naive for them to take reckless actions that
| could put them in this position
| Gleaming5975 wrote:
| I think you are mistaking blustering arrogance for naivety, but
| I otherwise agree with you.
| Tryk wrote:
| If everyone keeps operating under the "same BS" then things
| will never change.
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| > they have to operate under the same BS everyone else does
|
| As a nonprofit and public archive/library they do have some
| special rights, which is why this isn't as clear cut as many
| think. These range from codified in law
| https://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html#108 to US
| Copyright Office decisions like
| https://www.copyright.gov/1201/2021/ and precedent.
|
| If _you_ did this you 'd be sued into the ground and 100% lose.
| Now, I'm not saying the Archive will get away with what they
| did or that it was a good idea, just that there might be some
| non-obvious avenues.
| Werewolf255 wrote:
| Lots of folks in the comments acting like lawful actions, by
| their very nature of being lawful, are correct actions. Internet
| Archive took extraordinary measures during extraordinary times
| when these same four publishers could have done something
| similar. They should be nationalized, dismantled, and have their
| archives released into the public domain, as punishment for
| trying to hoard our collective knowledge to themselves.
| nonbirithm wrote:
| The centralization of the IA should've got more attention sooner.
| I've worried that the Wayback Machine will only remain up for
| another couple of years as a result of the IA's actions. It has
| saved me countless times in the past, but it's sadly a one-of-a-
| kind, fragile trove of data in the hands of an organization that
| didn't keep their ideals separate from reality.
|
| I feel they should be taking steps immediately to ensure that at
| least the data of the Wayback Archive will outlive the whims of
| IA-the-organization in the coming decades/centuries, before it's
| too late. There's probably a lot of people willing to help out
| with such a replication task.
| tenpies wrote:
| Internet Archive lost all credibility when they decided to delete
| all archives of reporter Taylor Lorenz's Twitter. Her tweets are
| as toxic as you would expect from a WaPo "internet culture"
| reporter and deleting them has been part of a coordinated effort
| to hide her toxicity.
|
| I say let Internet Archive burn. They failed their mission when
| they decided to change their mission to "provide access to
| approved knowledge only".
| eropple wrote:
| Taylor Lorenz has a track record of some gross stuff.
|
| The Internet Archive regularly does not display archives of
| content that they've indexed (which also doesn't mean that it's
| been deleted!) when content creators ask them not to. A
| `robots.txt` file does for the Wayback Machine is asking the IA
| that, though in that case I don't know if it's indexed and not
| displayed; I would assume not, as it's a go-away to a crawler,
| but I also have seen Google crawl but not display robots'd
| content so I don't actually know.
|
| Both of these things can be true, and far-right media is doing
| its best to downplay the latter for culture-war points. I would
| say that I regret that you have fallen for the reactionary,
| conspiracist okeydoke--but I've looked at your comment history
| and I think you like it.
| 13amxn13 wrote:
| > Both of these things can be true, and far-right media is
| doing its best to downplay the latter for culture-war points.
| I would say that I regret that you have fallen for the
| reactionary, conspiracist okeydoke--but I've looked at your
| comment history and I think you like it.
|
| No. Looks like you're making excuses for her awful behavior.
| 999900000999 wrote:
| I still don't understand what compelled IA to blatantly violate
| copyright law like that.
|
| From what I can tell, even buying a book and then digitally
| lending it out, isn't exactly a human right. Regardless, IA was
| doing that without issue for years.
|
| IA then decided they were going to "lend out"as many books as
| they wanted. To
|
| What exactly is surprising here ?
| conradfr wrote:
| We were all a little crazy at the start of the pandemic.
| capableweb wrote:
| I love the Internet Archive and frequently donate to them (2
| times so far this year).
|
| What I'd love to see improved is the ability to be less
| "fragile". Currently it's all located in the US and they have a
| huge focus on the US, both technically and politically.
|
| But why not try to replicate it all over the world? There seems
| to have been some smaller efforts inside the Internet Archive to
| make it more decentralized, but it feels like it should be a much
| bigger focus on it.
| daniel_reetz wrote:
| It might not be widely known, but they have in the past had
| copies of the Archive in Alexandria and other locations. From
| my brief time there, I know that issues like these are of great
| concern to the Archive.
| hcs wrote:
| I recall they'd announced the intention to set up a mirror in
| Canada, did that ever materialize?
| https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/11/worried-about-
| us...
| capableweb wrote:
| They opened a new headquarters in Vancouver recently:
|
| - https://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/the-internet-
| archiv... (Jun 16, 2022)
|
| - On HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31774608 (219
| points | 64 comments)
|
| But it seems like a strange location. Why not really branch
| out and meet the world instead of just sticking around
| North America?
| [deleted]
| lwswl wrote:
| It would be harder to focus all the blame, and the hand of the
| law, on a single institution.
|
| Currently, only the IA will fall, and anyone who benefited from
| their seeming folly will have no issues.
| Animats wrote:
| They tried. There's a duplicate in Egypt.[1] But it hasn't been
| updated much since 2007.
|
| [1]
| https://www.bibalex.org/isis/frontend/archive/archive_web.as...
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| is there any group lobbying for the abolishment of all
| copyright? I'd like to donate to them.
| jacquesm wrote:
| They did a pretty dumb thing and that's me being a supporter. I
| _really_ wished they had thought a little longer before pulling
| that particular stunt.
| gjs278 wrote:
| samwillis wrote:
| Exactly, they should have reached out to the closed public
| libraries and come to an agreement where they lent out digital
| copies 1:1 of copies owned by closed libraries. It would have
| been an incredible initiative that could have become
| sustainable well past the pandemic.
| wmf wrote:
| _they lent out digital copies 1:1 of copies owned by closed
| libraries_
|
| That would probably have triggered the same lawsuit. You
| cannot rent digital copies of physical works no matter how
| much sense it makes.
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| IIRC, IA had already been doing that for years. This
| lawsuit is happening because they _stopped_ limiting
| digital loans to the number of physical copies IA and their
| partners had on hand
| daniel_reetz wrote:
| This is not as legally clear cut as you make it seem.
| There's plenty of legal discussion around the issue of
| format shifting books.
| Beldin wrote:
| It possibly could have, but the circumstances would be
| significantly different. They did not impose any
| restrictions this time. If they hadc dinner it as GP
| suggests, they could easily argue that they made a fair and
| honest effort to not let closures in the physical world
| affect library availability. This probably still runs
| counter to copyright law. Were thr IA to lose such a case,
| the reasonableness of the approach in the face of such
| extraordinary circumstances would provide ample impetus to
| revaluate copyright legislation. Unlike the current
| situation.
|
| Basically: No one likes throwing the book at the heroes; if
| the bad guys force that, society may start rewriting the
| book.
| [deleted]
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| That would have delayed the project by months though when it
| was most needed.
| annoyingnoob wrote:
| > they should have reached out to the closed public libraries
|
| How exactly?
| corrral wrote:
| Email? I expect managers of library systems were still
| checking their email even when their buildings were closed.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| Telephone, email, paper letter, door-knocking, carrier
| pigeon, paper airplane through a window, SMS, IP based
| messaging systems, linkedin, facebook messenger, verbally.
|
| The same way you get in touch with any other institution
| composed of people.
| gojomo wrote:
| Some people here say they like the Internet Archive, and resent
| copyright maximalism, but wish IA would be more legally
| conservative around copyright law: "follow the law!" "ask
| permission!" "work through other libraries!"
|
| They may not understand that none of what they like about the
| Internet Archive would've been possible without a bold
| willingness to probe the boundaries of copyright law.
|
| If you'd asked any mainstream copyright law authority in the
| 1990s, they'd have likely said the entire Wayback Machine was
| illegal under the letter-of-the-law, and advised against even
| trying it. "Reckless!"
|
| Only by IA actually doing it - & demonstrating the
| indispensibility of such a historical record to academics,
| policymakers, culture, & the courts - were people's mental models
| gradually upgraded. Now, even with little change to statutory
| law, most see that the _best_ interpretation of the various
| traditional categories, exceptions, & affordances of copyright
| law is the one that finds legal space for a Wayback Machine.
|
| Bulk-scanning books-still-in-copyright, even for private
| preservation/use? Was legally iffy when Google & IA started doing
| it; now better recognized as legitimate.
|
| Accepting user/collector uploads of live concerts? Storing,
| serving, & providing emulated environments for old still-in-
| copyright retail PC/game/arcade software? Bulk-archiving &
| replaying TV news broadcasts? All iffy when IA started doing
| them, becoming accepted as reasonable over time by the
| demonstration-of-utility.
|
| An Internet Archive that waited for legal clarity before starting
| such projects would still be waiting today - and we'd have
| neither the valuable projects, nor the accumulated
| experience/clarity, from the actual doing, about what is
| reasonable & beneficial.
| randomhodler84 wrote:
| Uber and AirBnB didn't get to where they are today without
| breaking a few laws and regulations. Archiving the digital
| legacy of our planet is far more important than imaginary
| property fantasies.
| kodah wrote:
| One of the things I dislike the most about Internet Archive is
| their relatively open attitude of flaunting privacy on purpose:
| http://blog.archive.org/2017/04/17/robots-txt-meant-for-sear...
|
| Do you know what system they replaced robots.txt with? Email,
| one that is filed as a DMCA request:
| https://medium.com/wednesday-genius/how-to-remove-your-websi...
| https://jonathanwthomas.net/how-to-get-your-website-out-of-t...
|
| Sometimes, it's probably good to not push the envelope without
| trying to establish consensus in good faith first.
| rasz wrote:
| Isnt that a response to companies buying old unused domains,
| slapping robots on it and thus killing whole archive of this
| domain going back 20 years?
| wmf wrote:
| It's been discussed extensively:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23379775
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23998115
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23691297
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23485182
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23391662
| dang wrote:
| Thanks! Macroexpanded:
|
| _Activists rally to save Internet Archive as lawsuit threatens
| site (2020)_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31703394 -
| June 2022 (32 comments)
|
| _Help preserve the internet with Archiveteam 's warrior_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30524842 - March 2022 (51
| comments)
|
| _Internet Archive responds to publishers' lawsuit_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23998115 - July 2020 (348
| comments)
|
| _My thoughts in response to the lawsuit against the Internet
| Archive_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23931183 - July
| 2020 (232 comments)
|
| _EFF and heavyweight legal team will defend Internet Archive
| against publishers_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23691297 - June 2020 (263
| comments)
|
| _Activists rally to save Internet Archive as lawsuit threatens
| site_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23485182 - June
| 2020 (393 comments)
|
| _Lawsuit over online book lending could bankrupt Internet
| Archive_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23391662 - June
| 2020 (260 comments)
|
| _Publishers File Suit Against Internet Archive_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23379775 - June 2020 (346
| comments)
|
| _Internet Archive responds: Why we released the National
| Emergency Library_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22731472 - March 2020 (145
| comments)
|
| _Internet Archive's National Emergency Library Harms Authors_
| - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22716923 - March 2020
| (48 comments)
| solarkraft wrote:
| I'm torn about this. I don't want my donation money going to
| silly lawsuits, I want it to go towards archiving important
| cultural goods.
|
| Copyright infringement is exactly what makes it possible to
| provide me with that collection of Windows 7 UI sounds and
| similar things, but I don't know about books. There are already
| people archiving books and providing them to people for free, so
| I think this is not a role the Internet Archive needs to fill.
|
| Save the money and fight battles that matter more ...
| COGlory wrote:
| So...they didn't think the law should apply so they just decided
| to ignore it?
|
| What were they expecting? How can they possibly expect to win
| this lawsuit? I hate copyright with all my soul but this is just
| stupid. You can't just decide to take the law into your own hand.
| This is just a waste of money and effort.
| ASalazarMX wrote:
| > So...they didn't think the law should apply so they just
| decided to ignore it?
|
| Of course not! The IA lacks enough money or donations to
| crooked politicians to get away with that. Strict adherence to
| the laws is for common folks, so they should have complied.
| mherdeg wrote:
| > So...they didn't think the law should apply so they just
| decided to ignore it?
|
| > What were they expecting?
|
| This concisely describes how I felt about Sci-Hub the first few
| times I read about the project. There are some differences,
| e.g. the Internet Archive chooses to operate within US
| jurisdiction.
| molticrystal wrote:
| They didn't ignore it, they are very familiar with the terms.
| What they can do depends on if the government ends up
| classifying them as a warez site or a library/archive. And, if
| they are a library/archive, if their actions can be considered
| part of the copyright exceptions.
|
| The publishers lawyers will argue they are just a warez site,
| and use everything in their power to do such, jurisdiction,
| case law, confusing terms and obfuscation, etc.
| ghaff wrote:
| >if they are a library/archive, if their actions can be
| considered part of the copyright exceptions.
|
| Libraries/archives actually have fairly limited exceptions.
| And the category isn't even especially clearly defined. It's
| definitely not an anything goes get out of jail free card.
| nemacol wrote:
| I have it in my head that playing fast and loose with the law
| is just how things are done. I think the problem here is
| Internet Archive is not making heaps of money for shareholders
| and (arguably) causing these publishes to lose money.
|
| An example is Uber 'invents' smartphone taxi's and says the
| laws of employment and taxi's don't apply to them. They make a
| ton of money and here we are.
|
| Maybe I am being overly cynical.
| vegetablepotpie wrote:
| I think you're right.
|
| No one, who is anyone, got to where they're at because they
| followed the rules. At a certain point anyone who is
| successful took a risk in their past and it paid off.
|
| When you take a risk for profit, you can hire the lawyers you
| need to cover for the sins you committed. Most of the time
| it's cheaper for parties to settle out of court and this puts
| you at the negotiating table and integrates your success into
| the existing power structures. You live long enough to become
| the villain.
|
| When you take a risk and innovate for the greater good, you
| don't have the profit, you can't hire the expensive attorneys
| to cover you, and you get eaten alive by the parties you
| offended. You die the hero, which is why very few do this.
| coldpie wrote:
| Put yourself in their shoes at the beginning of the pandemic.
| Libraries close, schools close, students have to stay home from
| classes, physical production and shipping slows down or stops,
| people are losing their livelihoods, and no one knows how this
| is going to shake out. Meanwhile you're sitting on a massive
| wealth of human knowledge, and you're also a bit of an idealist
| and you recognize the vast harm our 1970s-era infinite-
| copyright policy has had over the past 50 years on our
| collective education and culture. Maybe there will be
| consequences down the road, but today, right now, you can help
| make peoples' days and futures a little less shitty.
|
| I dunno, man. It's hard for me to imagine being in that
| position and _not_ pressing the button. I imagine the archive
| (and their lawyers) went into the decision with eyes fully
| open. I doubt they had zero contingency plans for the worst
| case.
| gojomo wrote:
| Lots of laws were ignored or creatively re-interpreted, by
| plenty of people & entities, during the unprecedented pandemic
| health emergency of early 2020. Many emergency actions taken by
| elected leaders have been later found illegal by courts.
|
| But if there was no malice or net harm from such technical
| violations - or indeed if the breaches effectively prevented
| greater harms - society and the courts will often find such
| "law-breaking" to be forgivable or even praise-worthy. For
| example, you _are_ allowed to break trespassing laws to save a
| life, and in other situations of private or public necessity.
|
| With regard to reading & education in early 2020, publicly-
| funded schools & libraries that were supposed to be operating
| were closed with little warning, for a potentially indefinite
| amount of time. Millions of purchased books that were supposed
| to be circulating sat idle in locked buildings. A crucial
| cultural & civilizational function was stopped dead in its
| tracks.
|
| Against that, the Internet Archive rapidly deployed a novel
| technological workaround to re-enable _some_ (but not all) of
| the pandemic-impaired booklending /reading activity. It did so
| in a way that had no more effect on the publishers' economic
| prospects than normal-times library operations, and was
| arguably within the 'fair use' & format-shifting rights well-
| established for book owners & libraries in the United States.
|
| So I think IA expects to "win" the lawsuit because they did a
| good deed for the world's readers, as a temporary & reasonable
| adaptation to an extraordinary emergency situation, that caused
| negligible harms to the publisher plaintiffs.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| _So...they didn 't think the law should apply so they just
| decided to ignore it?_
|
| (Shrug) That's why we're not stuck with a 55 MPH national
| highway speed limit, here in the US. When the law does not
| respect the people, the people will not respect the law.
| Sakos wrote:
| This is like arguing that Rosa Parks shouldn't have sat where
| she did. It's because of people like her that the laws could be
| overturned. I'm concerned that you're more willing to follow
| the law to the letter even if it's clearly immoral and
| catastrophic for our culture long-term.
| bencollier49 wrote:
| To be honest I love their computer games archive, but it
| boggles my mind that it's allowed to exist.
| hungryforcodes wrote:
| Which is where the thinking that lead to this lawsuit begins.
| Almost all those games are abandonware and or over 20 years
| old. Normal copyright should not apply there.
| [deleted]
| bencollier49 wrote:
| Well the law is written that way, and I don't think it's
| completely unreasonable (at least to the life of the
| originator). Just seems like the IA have been bold as brass
| here.
|
| Also, the term "abandonware" is hugely overused. There are
| tonnes of shareware premium versions on there where it's
| super easy to contact the creators. I've never failed to do
| so.
| Kye wrote:
| Law is what's written by lawyers who realized getting elected
| paid off law school faster _and_ by what 's decided in courts.
| Courts are there to decide who and what law should apply to.
| You don't get a robust fair use test[1] or libraries[2] without
| someone testing the law in court.
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use#U.S._fair_use_procedu...
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobbs-Merrill_Co._v._Straus
| metadat wrote:
| The mission of preserving human culture is _far more important_
| than respecting rent-seeking copyright holders. At the end of
| the day, The Internet Archive has good intentions and is
| morally in the right.
|
| The time has come to consider changing the laws to allow for
| truly fair use, especially for physical items scanned to
| digital (e.g. books), old video games, and more.
|
| It's about selecting for the common good over the extremely
| low-value proposition of helping rent-seekers preserve an
| infinite zero-effort stream of income.
|
| TIA is one of the best things to emerge from tech, all thanks
| to the tireless and complete dedication of the founder:
| Brewster Kahle.
|
| I don't know if they still do it, but pre-pandemic they offered
| tours of their HQ in San Francisco. It was really cool to meet
| the team and see their setup, and an amazing opportunity to
| meet Brewster and hear the conviction in his voice as he
| described his vision for The Internet Archive. It's a very
| special thing.. imagine if it didn't exist? I am feeling tears
| coming just considering such a possible reality.
| giobox wrote:
| Then we should seek to change the law? I completely agree
| with your sentiments for the most part, but the legal footing
| of the IA has always been shaky in places.
|
| I know I've taken advantage of getting software from the IA
| that is still commercially sold on places like gog.com, so
| while overall I regard the IA to be "morally in the right",
| there's little doubt to me personally there is a ton of
| content on there that shouldn't be.
| whatshisface wrote:
| Seeking to change a law by breaking it has worked before in
| American history, but only when the supreme court _wants_ to
| change the law, and a carefully arranged test case is
| constructed to bring before them. Even then, test cases
| arranged by well-meaning groups have failed and instead
| strengthened the precedents they were expected to contribute
| to overturning.
|
| Taking a copyright infringement case before one of the most
| textualist and conservative courts we have had in decades is
| not a good plan for people who want a right to whatever it is
| that the IA was doing read into the Constitution.
| pavon wrote:
| This wasn't about preserving archives, or distributing old
| works that should have been in the public domain by now, or
| even "lending" out digital copies backed by physical copies
| they owned. This was about distributing unlimited digital
| copies of current works (some published just the year
| before). Legally and morally I cannot see this as any
| different or better than blatant copyright piracy.
|
| The Internet Archive does a lot of good things, most clearly
| legal, others gray areas that I think should be legal. This
| stunt was different.
| ipaddr wrote:
| They are lending with limitations like a library.
|
| If the nation was founded today people would never build a
| single library and they would be deeded evil.
|
| Requiring libraries to buy books is an evil practice. As a
| function of copyright you should have to donate a book for
| every 10 numbers sold. Libraries create readers who are
| necessary for writers/publishers.
| gojomo wrote:
| Not truly "unlimited digital copies" - just extra time-
| limited checkouts, as a temporary expansion of the prior
| 1:1 lending, and only while most of the country's libraries
| were closed. Those limits & circumstances are relevant to
| the motivation for the act, and the available legal
| defenses.
| liquidise wrote:
| > _The mission of preserving human culture is far more
| important than respecting rent-seeking copyright holders_
|
| That genuinely may be so, but "this law i broke shouldn't
| exist" is not an advisable legal defense.
|
| Also, what you call "rent seeking" others would call "return
| on investment". I do think there is a grey area here, "fair
| use" being one example, but i think summarily discounting
| distributors and publishers wholesale doesn't help your
| stance.
| eikenberry wrote:
| Maybe if the industry hadn't bribed the government over and
| over to extend copyright again and again we might not call
| it rent seeking. 12 years of copyright is almost
| reasonable. But current copyright durations are pure rent
| seeking.
| citizenkeen wrote:
| > That genuinely may be so, but "this law i broke shouldn't
| exist" is not an advisable legal defense.
|
| It actually happens more often than you might think.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_nullification
| plonk wrote:
| Is there a jury here? It's copyright, not a murder.
| [deleted]
| happyopossum wrote:
| That's not really relevant - someone accused of copyright
| violation has the right to a jury trial.
|
| [1] https://www.rcfp.org/court-finds-right-jury-trial-
| copyright-...
| yellowapple wrote:
| > Also, what you call "rent seeking" others would call
| "return on investment".
|
| Which they've largely already enjoyed many times over. I
| have precisely zero sympathy for the poor widdle publishing
| corporations.
| xhkkffbf wrote:
| Just remember that there are thousands of authors who are
| only paid because the publishing company is able to
| charge for books. The same goes for software firms that
| also depend upon copyright. So if you're a programmer,
| ask your boss if he or she would be willing to put all of
| your work into the public domain.
| orev wrote:
| Using your same logic, I will single-handedly decide that
| all software companies (and the developers working there)
| have received enough compensation for their efforts, and
| demand all their services and code be made available for
| free. As long as you got one paycheck from those months
| of work, now I want it for free.
|
| /s
| plebianRube wrote:
| This is infact what companies currently do.
|
| Your argument would make sense if developers got paid per
| run of their code, instead of only for new code they
| write.
| orev wrote:
| Every company is different, but the vast majority are
| moving to a subscription model where users are charged
| monthly to use the same code over and over. For licensed
| (non-subscription) software, code can live through many
| major revisions where the customer pays over and over for
| the same code to renew their license.
|
| If you think it would be nice to get paid per run, then
| you should have gone into mainframe programming, because
| that is (more or less) how it works (licensing fee based
| on how many units the code could process, which would go
| up if you upgraded the CPU). Moving away from that was
| one of the innovations of UNIX and PC style licensing.
| yellowapple wrote:
| My code is already free. The service I provide is
| creating new code, not selling existing code.
|
| Contrast with publishers, where it's the other way
| around.
| orev wrote:
| Not knowing anything about you, I'm going to assume you
| mean code that you created and chose to release as OSS.
| That's your choice, and publishers have the same right to
| release their works under different terms (through
| agreements with the authors they have signed, etc). You
| don't have any say over what other creators choose to do
| with their works, and if they choose terms you don't
| like, you can't just ignore them.
|
| Without strong copyright laws, the choice you make is
| just as enforceable as the choice they make.
| somenameforme wrote:
| It's interesting to consider that there are books, _still
| in copyright_ , that were published before any digital
| computers, let alone software companies, existed.
|
| It puts the extreme absurdity of modern copyright law in
| context. 20 years is extreme. The modern "standard" is
| the entire life of the author + 70 years on top. This is
| indefensible.
| orev wrote:
| I agree and not going to argue that here. But that's the
| way the rules are right now, and publishers have the full
| weight of the law to enforce their rights as that's what
| the current state of things allows.
| elefantastisch wrote:
| Maybe not "this law I broke shouldn't exist" on its own,
| but "this law I broke shouldn't exist according to the
| constitution of our country" or "this law I broke shouldn't
| exist because it conflicts with this other guaranteed legal
| protection" is a perfectly ordinary defense. It's one of
| the core functions of a functioning judicial system.
| metadat wrote:
| I'd be completely sympathetic if the commercial entities
| were willing to work with (or had tried) and strike a
| reasonable compromise with TIA. Instead, they've chosen to
| go for blood and sue a valuable, well-intentioned
| organization who tried to help folks have access to
| information during the pandemic.
|
| There is no end to the greed. Fuck 'em.
| vegetablepotpie wrote:
| There are two ways to change the laws in America, through
| legislatures and with the courts.
|
| The courts are the most efficient way to repeal something
| you don't like. There are hundreds of legislators, you need
| teams of lobbyists to influence them, and there's no
| guarantee that they will take up your issue in their
| agenda. Furthermore, if you want to change one thing,
| everything gets thrown on the table as being liable to
| change. You may win in one area but lose in a lot of
| others, and sometimes you will lose in non-obvious ways.
|
| The judges don't want to rock the boat as much as
| politicians do. If they make a decision that makes
| precedent, it will be very focused and very specific. But,
| if you want to take an issue up in the courts, you need to
| sue, or be sued. Courts are not hypothetical in the way
| that legislatures are.
|
| I think fair use is a perfectly valid legal defense. Grey
| area is one way to put it, another way to put it is a legal
| area lacking precedent. If it were not for fair use,
| copyright law would violate your right to free speech. Fair
| use let's you use copyrighted material for criticism,
| parody, and education. Covid created a situation where
| people's access to works was restricted, with the only
| reason being legal limitations (copyright law). IA sought
| to educate people irrespective of the limitation. I don't
| know how IAs legal team is planning to defend their client,
| but fair use would provide a defense. This case could end
| up with a precedent that says that under exceptional
| circumstances, the scope of what activities are covered
| under fair is expanded.
| dbingham wrote:
| "This law I broke shouldn't exist" is the basis of civil
| disobedience and is how many of the freedoms we enjoy were
| won and the oppressive laws of recent history were struck
| down.
|
| It may or may not succeed in courts, because our "justice"
| system is anything but. Even if it doesn't succeed in
| court, it's still a worthwhile stance and it may succeed in
| other ways. Especially if enough people who recognize where
| justice actually lies stand up to support those taking the
| risk to point it out.
|
| The line between "rent seeking" and "return on investment"
| lies at the spot past which those who produced a work have
| been fairly compensated for their time and effort, past
| that, it's rent seeking. If you want a good metric, break
| the return down to an hourly wage for each participant in
| producing the work. Does it seem obscene? That's because it
| is.
| xhkkffbf wrote:
| Rent is the basis for all forms of savings through
| investment. It allows people to work hard for a time and
| then take some time off. Yes, some will be rent seeking
| while drinking rum at the beach bar, but so will the sick
| people and the retired people. Rent makes it possible for
| society to offer disability insurance and retirement
| savings.
| lucideer wrote:
| > _" this law i broke shouldn't exist" is not an advisable
| legal defense._
|
| That depends entirely on the level of support for the
| defense, and is precisely the _only_ way unjust laws ever
| change.
|
| > _i think summarily discounting distributors and
| publishers wholesale doesn 't help your stance_
|
| I don't think anyone's discounting anyone here: there's a
| big difference between discounting and challenging.
| mypalmike wrote:
| "Rent seeking" requires a lack of created value.
|
| If you want access to these works, which you seem to be
| arguing for, then you are saying these works do have value.
|
| I suspect you are just misusing the term.
| freedomben wrote:
| I've noticed this happening a lot lately.
|
| I think what happened is the term "rent seeking" entered
| the zeitgeist, and a lot of people didn't bother to look it
| up but rather just tried to infer the meaning through
| context, and arrived at "somebody who rents things out"
| which can easily morph into "the software company that
| makes you have a subscription rather than just purchase it"
| or something like that.
|
| People come by it honestly as for most people that's how
| they learn the words, and certainly the vast majority of
| human history language and meaning has been transmitted
| that way.
| root_axis wrote:
| > _The mission of preserving human culture is far more
| important than respecting rent-seeking copyright holders_
|
| Based on what? Rights-holders are able to make a living
| because of copyright protections, it makes no sense that your
| rhetoric raises up these cultural works as vital for
| preservation but simultaneously dismisses the creators as
| unworthy of being paid.
| eslaught wrote:
| Disclosures: I've written a book I'm currently trying to get
| published. Also, almost all of my professionally-written (as
| well as personal) code is open source. And I have used the
| Wayback Machine extensively.
|
| To be honest, I'm having a hard time getting upset over this
| lawsuit. As best I can tell, IA isn't getting sued over
| having scanned the books. They're not even getting sued over
| lending them out. Instead, they're getting sued over lending
| out more digital copies than the number of physical copies
| they had purchased.
|
| The books would be no less well preserved if IA had not
| decided to do this. Access would have gone down, temporarily.
| The pandemic would have sucked that one little bit more
| (though honestly, a drop in the bucket for what the people
| most impacted were already experiencing). And... that's it.
| It really has no long-term ramifications, aside from whatever
| legal precedent it sets (if any).
|
| I really like being able to write open source code in my day
| job, and I appreciate information freedom. But I don't think
| those principles apply here. I really do think this is just a
| straightforward case of an organization overstepping their
| bounds and getting slapped down for it.
| xhkkffbf wrote:
| The thing the publishers fear is that there is one and only
| one sale of the book to someone who then turns around and
| makes infinite digital copies to anyone who wants to read
| it.
|
| This just doesn't work, even if there's a rich person who
| is willing to pay quite a bit for the first copy. The rest
| of the people get excluded from the decision making and the
| rich person is the only one who decides which books are
| worthy of being rewarded.
| FrenchDevRemote wrote:
| Or maybe the law is crap?
|
| >And... that's it. It really has no long-term
| ramifications, aside from whatever legal precedent it sets
| (if any).
|
| No that's not it.
|
| The amount of books some people can afford is zero.
| Lawsuits like this are making the general population
| dumber, more ignorant, poorer, it accomplish nothing
| besides increasing inequalities and making society worse
| for everyone. Libraries can be good if you're into very
| mainstream topics, and you're fine with brushing the
| surface of the subjects you're interested in or if learning
| outdated stuff is ok to you, and of course you still need
| to live somewhere where libraries are decently funded and
| where book banning isn't a thing. All books should be
| accessible freely, to anyone, at anytime, anywhere.
| ghaff wrote:
| The thing is that (probably because they didn't want to
| force the issue), the publishers seem to have been OK with
| lending out digital copies so long as the archive had a
| corresponding physical copy. Which AFAIK is not clearly
| covered by first sale doctrine but there's an argument to
| be made.
|
| OK, well enough.
|
| But TIA then does something that clearly violates
| copyright. And the fig leaf that is "But COVID" really
| doesn't make a difference.
|
| And, yes, copyright terms are too long etc. but I'd
| actually be willing to bet that most extra lending TIA did
| was for recent works.
| kmeisthax wrote:
| Digital lending has no legal basis in either the
| controlled or uncontrolled format. In fact, the
| argumentation is suspiciously similar to the ReDigi case.
| Courts generally have upheld that first sale ends when
| copying begins, even if the end result is the moral
| equivalent of a sale rather than a copy[0]. And, indeed,
| the publishers were grumbling about controlled digital
| lending (CDL) _before_ IA pulled the National Emergency
| Library (NEL) stunt.
|
| The lack of legal foundation for CDL is not entirely an
| accident, however. First sale and similar copyright
| exhaustion doctrines are hard-fought and won rights of
| the reader. But these rights rely on the fact that no
| actual copying is taken place. When you interact with any
| copyrighted work using a computer, there is an almost
| gratuitous amount of copying going on. If you so much as
| cough on the work, you are breaching copyright.
| Publishers know this, and they have been very successful
| ramming "licensed and not sold" language through the
| court system.
|
| The funny thing is, while pirates have been stereotyped
| as waving their hands in the air and shouting
| "technology" to opt out of the law, publishers have been
| way more successful at doing the same, even though they
| fought tooth and nail _against_ digital distribution.
|
| [0] In the ReDigi case the "digital resale" software was
| even specifically engineered to erase parts of the file
| as they were sent to the new owner so that the number of
| duplicate bits floating around would be negligible at any
| particular time.
| ghaff wrote:
| The history of software licensing is sort of interesting.
| I had occasion to dive into it a year or so ago for a
| book and it seems to have been institutionalized with the
| IBM/360 because 1.) IBM was feeling pressure to sell
| software independent of hardware for antitrust reasons
| and 2.) All of the existing IP protection mechanisms
| seemed pretty iffy at the time.
| xhkkffbf wrote:
| I'm an author but I'm not rich. Therefore the only way I can
| afford to write books is because people pay the publishers
| who, in turn, then have money to pay me.
|
| If you want to preserve human culture, you want to make it
| possible for the non-rich to help create it.
|
| If you want to write books for free, go to it. But what the
| IA did was just plain wrong. Plenty of bookstores like
| Powells were operating remotely during the pandemic. Many
| libraries had curbside pick up. Amazon was still delivering.
| There was no reason to run up the pirate flag.
| SkyBelow wrote:
| What about what libraries do in general. By buying some
| number of copies and then letting many people read those
| copies, it leads to fewer people buying books overall
| leading to less pay, meaning those who depend upon income
| from writing books to be less able to afford continuing to
| write books.
|
| And any arguments along the lines that libraries actually
| lead to increased numbers of readers and thus overall
| increase book sales could also apply to this instance as
| well (I've even seen such arguments made about piracy in
| general, though I've never seen any conclusive research
| indicating if the argument is realistic or not).
| thomascgalvin wrote:
| You're not wrong, but being morally right has nothing to do
| with winning a lawsuit.
| samtho wrote:
| Laws are only as meaningful as we allow them to be. If our
| elected representatives no longer represent the will of the
| people, they must be removed to preserve the integrity of
| our society. Often they are not, which is unfortunate.
|
| Just look at the body of unelected officials that, as a
| whole, are hell-bent at dismantling precedents in the name
| of constitutionalism, allowing for states to pass inane
| laws restricting rights under the guise of morals.
|
| There is cancer in our society and it begins with our swill
| laws that are selectively enforced, are never revisited,
| and likely do not reflect the will of the people, and ends
| with legislative incumbents that do not represent modern
| progressive values.
| ben_w wrote:
| I have a suspicion (shower-thought level, not held
| strongly) that "morality" is merely the set of rules that
| are beneficial for a culture. Laws are normally described
| like that; I would say the difference is that lawmakers
| are a subculture who make laws to encode what is
| beneficial for them, and therefore a nation's morality
| and laws only line up to the extent that the lawmakers
| represent the interests of the broader society.
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| If libraries hadn't already been in existence since
| antiquity, copyright holders would never have allowed them to
| exist.
| SkyBelow wrote:
| Libraries are government approved piracy.
|
| This can be taken as being positive about piracy or
| negative about libraries. I think the real question is not
| which way I mean it but why does the average user see one
| as positive and the other as a negative, thus causing the
| conflict when the two are linked by this statement.
| greycol wrote:
| You are implying that two people reading the same
| physical book is piracy with your statement. With that
| kind of logic someone reading the same book twice that
| they only paid for once would be piracy if the author
| wished that they could have the book burnt after one read
| through.
|
| The natural state of copyright is that it doesn't exist,
| it's only created because governments believe there is a
| benefit in enforcing it, be that benefit a greater
| production and distribution of works or more money in
| politicians pockets from lobbyists.
|
| Implying that there is any legal copyright piracy is
| ridiculous as by it's definition the copyright does not
| extend to that area so there is no piracy. The closest
| you can come to the concept of legal piracy would be
| copyright privateering across legal jurisdictions.
| xhkkffbf wrote:
| But why do you say that? Kindle unlimited is a pretty
| similar to a library and many publishers support it and
| include their books. Yes, it costs something per month, but
| it's much less than the overhead costs for librarians, heat
| and a building. Many municipalities could actually save
| money by closing their libraries and giving everyone with
| an active library card a subscription to Kindle unlimited.
|
| I'm not suggesting they do that. I like the old buildings.
| But it's important to note that copyright holders are
| coming up with many new and innovative ways to help readers
| get books and authors get paid.
| gentoo wrote:
| there is a massive difference between a company selling a
| subscription service and the government using public
| money to provide free access to everyone with no strings
| attached
| dmitriid wrote:
| > Kindle unlimited is a pretty similar to a library and
| many publishers support it and include their books. Yes,
| it costs something per month, but it's much less than the
| overhead costs for librarians, heat and a building.
|
| How much do you think you personally pay for libraries? 1
| cent a year? Half a cent a year?
|
| And it's not "many publishers support <a proprietary
| thing>", it's "libraries are obliged to have all books,
| and in many countries publishers are made by law to
| provide libraries with copies of their books".
|
| > But it's important to note that copyright holders are
| coming up with many new and innovative ways to help
| readers get books and authors get paid.
|
| None of those ways are innovative.
| xwdv wrote:
| Ask for forgiveness not permission if you want to innovate.
| hvs wrote:
| Or be sued into oblivion.
| twblalock wrote:
| > Ask for forgiveness not permission if you want to innovate.
|
| That only works if you are capable of handling the legal
| trouble that results.
| hash07e wrote:
| Like Uber..
|
| Right?
| twblalock wrote:
| Uber still exists and that is proof that their plan
| worked. They didn't just break laws (and a lot of what
| they broke were just regulations, not "real" laws, and
| those regulations were often corrupt anyway): they also
| lobbied to get the laws/regulations changed, including
| through the California ballot proposition process and by
| directly approaching politicians in the EU, and they have
| won numerous lawsuits.
|
| The Internet Archive appears to have simply decided they
| could break copyright law, which is a very well supported
| area of law unlike taxi regulations, and they made no
| efforts to protect themselves. Pretty stupid. I certainly
| would not donate to an organization that might waste my
| donations on stupid things like this.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| This is becoming one of the most abused sayings in the
| startup world.
|
| In this case "ask for forgiveness" could mean going out of
| business in the process. You can only afford to "ask for
| forgiveness" and break the law if you're willing to lose it
| all.
|
| Why the IA did this as part of their long established archive
| business instead of a separate venture is beyond me.
| misnome wrote:
| It seems an especially dumb move because being sued was
| absolutely inevitable from the first announcement of this.
|
| Presumably, even if they are hoping to change law with the case
| - it's putting up the rest of IA's (almost irreplaceably
| invaluable) mission as a gamble on whatever chances they think
| they have here.
| COGlory wrote:
| I hadn't considered this angle, and would love to be wrong,
| but haven't digital books been exempt from first sale
| doctrine for quite some time now? I thought this case law was
| well established.
| ghaff wrote:
| I can't quote you law but my understanding is that first
| sale doctrine applies to physical things. So virtually
| lending a corresponding digital copy to a physical book
| seems a creative application of first sale doctrine--which
| may or may not be strictly legal but apparently the
| publishers weren't interested in pushing that.
| eikenberry wrote:
| I'm sure they expected it and have a plan. Copyright as a lot
| of flexibility in the wording around it's laws and this could
| be deemed fair use. Previously the flexibility has been used by
| the copyright industry to increase their rent seeking but it
| doesn't have to always go that way.
| fipar wrote:
| I agree with your "You can't just decide to take the law into
| your own hand" when doing so hurts or damages someone else. So
| I would agree with you not being able to hold someone detained
| in an unofficial jail just because they stole from you, or not
| being able to physically hurt someone that hurt you unless it's
| self defense (so you do that to stop them from hurting you as
| they're doing that). However, in cases like this, where you
| feel that the law is somehow unfair and needs to change, and
| you breaking it doesn't actually hurt anyone, it feels like
| civil disobedience to me. So sure, there are consequences and
| you need to be ready to face them, but one possible outcome is
| your case helping change the law after all. A lot of progress
| has been made in democracies with that method.
|
| Just think that if people would never take the law in their
| hands some countries would still have legal slaves, or legal
| segregation.
| dxuh wrote:
| I thought about this in the past and I think a reasonable
| expectation is for this to go to court some day and drive it
| all the way up to the respective supreme court and make a
| significant change in copyright law. It's practically the only
| way to execute on their given, important mission. Whether it's
| reasonable is a different matter, but now they have a real
| chance to make a even bigger impact than they already have.
| ProAm wrote:
| > You can't just decide to take the law into your own hand.
|
| See Uber, Lyft, AirBNB..... Just get big enough and buy enough
| politicians that it's not going to be a problem.
| inlined wrote:
| But the copyright holders own the politicians here, not the
| non profit.
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| This is pretty much why I stopped donating to them, not like
| they'll miss the sporadic $50 they'd get from me. Getting sued is
| a pretty obvious result of their decision to ignore copyright
| laws.
|
| If they _didn 't_ realize that they'd be sued then they're
| hopelessly shortsighted (there's no "emergency" exemption to
| copyright laws, even if you can make the argument that morally
| there should be). If they _did_ know that they 'd be sued, the
| message they're projecting is that they have enough leftover
| money to burn that they can branch out from their core
| competencies and try their hand at legal activism.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| It doesn't seem as cut and dry as you make it seem.
|
| Archival institutions are allowed to make digitized copies of
| legitimately owned works, and to allow access to that copy on
| their own "premises".
|
| In the case of an organization like the internet archive which
| does not have physical premises, would you accept the argument
| that their 'premises' is the internet?
|
| The question that they want answered is: where exactly is the
| line between looking at a scanned/microfiched/non-original
| archival copy of copyrighted material at the library, and
| viewing that same material over a network connection.
|
| They weren't just handing out unlimited copies of books. They
| were distributing owned copies of books for exclusive temporary
| use. The method of delivery is different, but the end result is
| the same as checking a book out and leaving the library.
|
| Just because public libraries signed shitty deals to get access
| to lending ebook licenses doesn't mean that the right to lend
| archival material over the network doesn't exist.
|
| I would love for the courts to establish a first-sale doctrine
| that applies to digitized books, or that allows shifting a
| books format (buying a physical copy of a book and converting
| it to digital)
| ghaff wrote:
| There is a perhaps novel, perhaps not, argument to be made
| that virtually time-limited lending of a digital copy of a
| physical book you own is covered by first sale. May be a
| reason the publishers never pushed it.
|
| There's also a whole other issue around scraping copyrighted
| public web pages in general but between being a non-profit
| archive, respecting robots.txt, and (at least mostly) taking
| pages down on request, TIA seems to have mostly skirted legal
| attention in that respect.
|
| (Though it's probably a bit legally iffy. If I create an
| online comics museum and start hosting all sorts of
| syndicated content, I'm probably going to get a letter from a
| lawyer.)
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| >They weren't just handing out unlimited copies of books.
|
| I don't think that's accurate. This lawsuit didn't happen
| until they stopped enforcing the constraint that (# of
| concurrent digital loans) <= (# of physical copies IA and
| their partner libraries have). Thats very different from a
| regular library, where the number of copies they loan out
| can't exceed the number of copies they physically posses (or
| ebook licenses they have, which is a whole nother
| rabbithole).
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| Ahh. Thanks for that context. I thought they were just
| format shifting.
| [deleted]
| themitigating wrote:
| There are exceptions to copyright law:
| https://www.copyright.gov/fair-use/more-info.html
|
| Maybe they're trying to set a legal precedent, which sounds
| great. I don't know why but I read your comment in such a
| negative tone.
|
| "Rebel"gecko indeed
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| I don't really see how the ongoing pandemic would change the
| results of the fair use 4 factors test. I think the moral
| arguments in favor of IA's unrestricted lending are much more
| compelling than the legal ones (ofc I'm not a copyright law
| expert so I could be totally wrong).
|
| Part of being a good rebel is to choose your battles wisely
| :) I think IA does a good job at that when they distribute
| abandonware or public domain materials. Trying to share
| unlimited copies of Harry Potter seems much more quixotic.
| capableweb wrote:
| > they can branch out from their core competencies
|
| Being a library is their core mission and fighting what they
| are fighting now is one of the reasons I keep donating to them.
| I want them to be able to offer a digital library all over the
| world, this for me is the Internet Archive.
| lwswl wrote:
| I believe there are certain large corporations(far larger then
| Harper Collins et al.) which would benefit from an enlarging of
| the domain of fair use around now.
|
| Those pockets are large, and the display of the dollar does more
| to sway Judges than any real interpretation of the law.
|
| It is safe to say that they will succeed in their (seemingly
| useless) endeavor.
| twblalock wrote:
| > I believe there are certain large corporations(far larger
| then Harper Collins et al.) which would benefit from an
| enlarging of the domain of fair use around now.
|
| Who are those corporations and how would they benefit?
| wmf wrote:
| Tech is far larger than publishing and there's potentially
| more money to be made organizing/consuming the world's
| information than in owning it. Some people have been pointing
| this out for 20 years.
| jl6 wrote:
| For example, Apple could buy News Corporation (the parent
| company of HarperCollins, one of the litigants) with a
| single quarter's profits. Not revenue, profit.
|
| News Corporation enterprise value: $11bn
|
| Apple quarterly profit: $25bn
| twblalock wrote:
| Yes but why should Apple do that? How would Apple benefit
| from doing that?
| jl6 wrote:
| They could use all the books as a loss leader for the
| Apple ecosystem, similar to how Google Maps spends
| billions on data that is made available for "free".
| antiverse wrote:
| It's disappointing to hear, with the number of people here
| claiming how IA has run afoul of the copyright law, that it's an
| open-and-shut case and there is nothing more to discuss. I feel
| like the air of the hacker spirit on the website is greatly
| diminished when we take an ice-cold approach to a difficult
| problem like this.
|
| I for one commend them for doing a noble thing in a very
| turbulent time. We didn't know how the pandemic was going to play
| out early on in 2020 and they went ahead to help out in any way
| they could. Perhaps the US Federal Government will give them some
| kind of an exemption (if such a thing exists). I'm sure they can
| find a case where their action is justified in the eyes of law.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| > I feel like the air of the hacker spirit on the website is
| greatly diminished when we take an ice-cold approach to a
| difficult problem like this.
|
| That "hacker spirit" has put years of extremely valuable
| internet archives at risk for an extremely insignificant gain,
| all due to a legal issue that anyone could see coming from a
| mile away.
|
| Hacker spirit and playing fast and loose with the rules might
| fly when you're a fresh startup with nothing to lose. It's just
| plain irresponsible when you start putting an established
| business at risk in ways that were trivially avoided.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Indeed. They could have easily isolated themselves from the
| fall out if they wanted to make a point about the law.
| wmf wrote:
| I don't consider it an open-and-shut case, but they're putting
| the archive at risk and they may not have enough money to win
| and I don't want to donate money to their lawyers. I wouldn't
| have a problem if they spun off a separate organization for
| this so it didn't threaten the archive.
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