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Internet Archive responds: Why we released the National Emergency Library

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Re: Internet Archive responds: Why we released the National Emergency Library

#81

Post by silverreads »

geofft wrote: post #75
silverreads wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comment hardly adds anything productive here and makes a heck of an accusation. What damage has sharing books freely during a national emergency ever done to anyone? The authors lose nothing and gain readers.

It seems quite clear to me - the authors lose their livelihood. Authors can (and generally do) write at home, and they can (and generally do) sell e-books. Their livelihoods are not inherently at risk because of a quarantine. This action puts their livelihoods at risk. You can certainly argue that they shouldn't have such a livelihood for whatever reason, but the fact remains that they do . You may as well ask, what…

Why must you twist everything to make victims where you are the theoretical aggressor while comparing your desired outcome against what could conceivably happen should your proposed solutions be ignored? Is this a trick of some sort? A legalese technique? I am legitimately confused.

Re: Internet Archive responds: Why we released the National Emergency Library

#82

Post by supernova87a »

I think the virus situation is exposing the difference in what rules or behavior people / companies think society will put up with, and what people will really put up with / want when push comes to shove. (And, by the way, in so many things, not just this story.)

Re: Internet Archive responds: Why we released the National Emergency Library

#84

Post by geofft »

bsanr2 wrote: post #77
geofft wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm not sure how Youtube et al.'s situation is different in these regards. In both cases, the takedown process is covered under the DMCA, no? The DMCA (specifically OCILLA / section 512) is about the liability of YouTube as an intermediary who hosts other people's videos. If I decide to post a YouTube video where I do a dramatic reading of the Windows source code, I am still breaking the law - the DMCA merely prote…

Understood. Since you're knowledgeable: this goes back to some other portion of copyright law, yes? Are copyright holders required to sue in order to force the alleged infringer to cease infringement? In the process of the suit, when might an alleged infringer be forced to take down the material in question? And under what circumstances would they claim damages versus a simple takedown (if, for example, the work in q…

I think the mechanics of how to actually take down content is getting pretty far past my knowledge but I suspect this falls in the general category of "people still have the free will to break the law" and isn't about copyright law particularly. The takedown process is specific to the DMCA's concept of online service providers - YouTube keeps its safe harbor as long as it promptly responds to takedown notices (and counternotices). But if you want some content off my personal blog, there isn't a specific "takedown" procedure - you just tell me that every time someone downloads it, I'm making yet another illegal copy, so it's probably a good idea for me to get rid of the page. If I refuse, I think your legal process is roughly the same as if I were defaming you or whatever on my blog.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/504 has some details on damages (but also note https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/412 , that you need to register copyright to get the option of statutory damages). I think (but I am a bit unsure about this) that if I posted some copyrighted content on a blog without permission, I'd be liable for the $750 in damages if the copyright holder had registered it and found it worthwhile to go to court to get it.

Re: Internet Archive responds: Why we released the National Emergency Library

#85

Post by geofft »

silverreads wrote: post #78
silverreads wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What's preventing a library It's a huge waste of taxpayer money?

You know exactly how much an SRE makes. That's not what a library should be spending money on. Simply making a copy is thousands of man hours simpler than making a consumer facing online asset tracking system. You wildly misrepresent my obvious intent.

Oh, that wasn't obvious to me at all - I thought you knew that plenty of libraries already have a consumer-facing online asset tracking system already, powered by the Internet Archive, which is why these books got scanned in the first place.

Re: Internet Archive responds: Why we released the National Emergency Library

#86

Post by geofft »

silverreads wrote: post #81
geofft wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems quite clear to me - the authors lose their livelihood. Authors can (and generally do) write at home, and they can (and generally do) sell e-books. Their livelihoods are not inherently at risk because of a quarantine. This action puts their livelihoods at risk. You can certainly argue that they shouldn't have such a livelihood for whatever reason, but the fact remains that they do . You may as well ask, what…

Why must you twist everything to make victims where you are the theoretical aggressor while comparing your desired outcome against what could conceivably happen should your proposed solutions be ignored? Is this a trick of some sort? A legalese technique? I am legitimately confused.

I dunno, I genuinely care about the well-being of people who make a living by writing books. Maybe that's weird and confusing?

Re: Internet Archive responds: Why we released the National Emergency Library

#87

Post by brianpan »

ooobit wrote: post #43
fenwick67 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fun fact, there is a service called Console Classix that does this with classic game ROMs (NES, SNES etc). The cartridges sit around on shelves, then if you play a game they basically reserve that copy for you, which they say clears them of any copyright issues. It sounds sketchy but they've been in business renting ROMs for over 10 years and they're still around.

So, they're renting games that aren't widely available for purchase anymore? At what point do we sit back and agree that it makes no sense to extend protections to IP that isn't being sold anymore? Forgive my possible naivety here, but we grant patents/copyrights/trademarks to mitigate opportunity costs in markets, not to stop someone else from taking credit for an idea. So, if there's no continuous market, the risk…

Devil's advocate- if I fall on hard times and stop distributing my game do I lose my right to it? How do I reserve my right to sell it again in the future or sell my rights to it to someone else to distribute?

Re: Internet Archive responds: Why we released the National Emergency Library

#88

Post by ineedasername »

Traster wrote: post #21

You know you're doing well when your uptime beats physical libraries . IA are taking a risk by doing this, but it's very clearly pursuing their charitable mandate.

Wouldn't the uptime of any website beat that of physical libraries which (mostly) shutdown for about 1/3 of the day?

Re: Internet Archive responds: Why we released the National Emergency Library

#89

Post by geofft »

sp332 wrote: post #79
sp332 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Copyright infringement is generally a civil matter. That means someone has to bother to sue you before there are legal consequences. They're betting that publishers won't take the PR hit of suing a non-profit providing a public service during an emergency. And since the opt-out is so easy, the amount of damages someone could claim are probably pretty darn small.

Late edit: they're really going out of their way to remove authors who don't want to be included. https://twitter.com/textfiles/status/1244793574073524229

I'm a little worried that "I'd like to work with them" isn't "I'd like to remove them proactively." This reads to me like a request for crowd-sourced snitch-tagging.

Re: Internet Archive responds: Why we released the National Emergency Library

#90

Post by tgsovlerkhgsel »

Still not answering my most burning question: How does this work with copyright etc.?

Do they just ignore it, assuming that doing the right thing in an emergency situation will be made legal later?

I'd be really interested in their legal argument/analysis and decision-making (whether it's "the emergency changes what represent fair use", "there are laws that allow extraordinary measures in case of emergencies and we claim it's that", or "screw this paper-pushing bullshit and do what's right").

And regardless of this, I fully support this decision of course.

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