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Publishers File Suit Against Internet Archive

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Re: Publishers File Suit Against Internet Archive

#251

Post by coliveira »

mantap wrote: post #233
mardifoufs wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think his issue is with the IA unilaterally deciding that they can chose that they want to simply ignore the authors rights to get compensated for their work at any moment they want. And I totally understand his frustration. It's one thing to have pirating websites that have always distributed copyrighted material illegally. But for IA to decide that they only play by the rules when they want to is different imo. N…

Do authors have rights to be compensated? If I go to a library and take out a book, the author doesn't get compensated again. The book may be read by hundreds of people but it was only paid for once. If I lend a book I own to a friend, the author doesn't get compensated again. It's my book, not the authors, and I can let anybody I want read it. There has never been an expectation that authors get compensated for each…

This is a flawed comparison. Libraries exist because they can lend a book to only one person at a time. They don't try to provide full access to a book to an unlimited number of people around the world.

Re: Publishers File Suit Against Internet Archive

#252

Post by Zonulet »

zucker42 wrote: post #236
jawns wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's affecting sales of my book, but that's beside the point. Copyright is about more than sales. It's about the author having the right to determine who gets to distribute and profit from their creative works. That's why you'll hear about authors and their estates turning down seemingly lucrative deals, such as movie adaptations. If the copyright holder doesn't want their work to be used in that way, t…

> Copyright is about more than sales. It's about the author having the right to determine who gets to distribute and profit from their creative works. This is not sound justification for the existence of copyright. You're asserting that an author is deserved a special personal benefit even if that benefit hurts the general public . What other worker is afforded similar protection? In the case of the Internet Archive,…

Why are you making the assumption that giving our books away for free doesn't affect our sales?

Re: Publishers File Suit Against Internet Archive

#253

Post by jasode »

zozbot234 wrote: post #61
jasode wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I wonder how they feel about actual libraries, which make published works available for free to many people as well. If we're talking about "digital" lending instead of physical books, the traditional libraries "play nice" with publishers by buying DRM ebooks and lending out a limited number of copies. This is what they mean by traditional public libraries being "participants in lawful copyright marketplace" . IA sc…

IA's lending is not unlimited, even with the National Emergency Library. The books are still restricted by DRM, they do keep track of how many copies are out for each book, and they do monitor the system to prevent abuse. It's a real library lending system, nothing like what they do with actual public domain works.

>IA's lending is not unlimited, even with the National Emergency Library.

The Internet Archive's Chris Freeland is the Director of Open Libraries and wrote the IA blog post[1] announcing the NEL change and he acknowledges that it is "unlimited"[2] -- and yet you say it isn't. I don't understand why you contradict IA's own representative. Are you affiliated with IA in an official capacity?

- >Stephanie Willen Brown: So, librarian to librarian, is this unlimited simultaneous users?

- >chrisfreeland: Stephanie – Yes, for the duration of our waitlist suspension![2]

[1] https://blog.archive.org/2020/03/24/announcing-a-national-em...

[2] https://blog.archive.org/2020/03/24/announcing-a-national-em...

Re: Publishers File Suit Against Internet Archive

#254

Post by the_af »

bllguo wrote: post #243
the_af wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know that we have to stick with the old ways, but more importantly, it's depressing when technology is limited in this way. This isn't even morally arguable technology like genetic manipulation, this is simply a post-scarcity situation made, um, artificially scarce. It's never the right time for change; if some companies had their way a post-scarcity world would never arrive ("now is not the time! Think of th…

but this is _not_ just a distribution problem like you seem to be implying. Yes, digital solves distribution, so we are post-scarcity in that sense, but someone also needs to put in the intellectual labor to write a book in the first place. That has always been scarce. And if you don't incentivize it properly, people will have no reason to put in the effort to write books.

I assure you, writers will write books even if nobody paid them. This is not to say it's ok if they have to live under a bridge because they can't support themselves. But writers write, and for a lot of them money is not the primary motivation, just a welcome (and important) one.

Likewise, painters will paint even if nobody will buy their paintings.

That's art for you.

Re: Publishers File Suit Against Internet Archive

#255

Post by uryga »

coliveira wrote: post #251
mantap wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do authors have rights to be compensated? If I go to a library and take out a book, the author doesn't get compensated again. The book may be read by hundreds of people but it was only paid for once. If I lend a book I own to a friend, the author doesn't get compensated again. It's my book, not the authors, and I can let anybody I want read it. There has never been an expectation that authors get compensated for each…

This is a flawed comparison. Libraries exist because they can lend a book to only one person at a time. They don't try to provide full access to a book to an unlimited number of people around the world.

> Libraries exist because they can lend a book to only one person at a time.

this phrasing confused me for a minute, so to clarify: do you mean that if libraries could magically create infinite copies of a book, they wouldn't be allowed to exist, and are only tolerated because their presumed impact on copies-sold is limited?

Re: Publishers File Suit Against Internet Archive

#256

Post by zucker42 »

Zonulet wrote: post #252
zucker42 wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Copyright is about more than sales. It's about the author having the right to determine who gets to distribute and profit from their creative works. This is not sound justification for the existence of copyright. You're asserting that an author is deserved a special personal benefit even if that benefit hurts the general public . What other worker is afforded similar protection? In the case of the Internet Archive,…

Why are you making the assumption that giving our books away for free doesn't affect our sales?

The person I replied to said they didn't affect his sales.

Re: Publishers File Suit Against Internet Archive

#257

Post by jasonlotito »

dexen wrote: post #223
ilamont wrote: post #179

Indie publisher here. My company publishes mostly how-to guides relating technology, personal finance, and health. In fact this afternoon I am reviewing proofs of a new title written by a surgeon meant to inform patients (and their family members) dealing with thyroid cancer and thyroid nodules. What I and my peers do for a living is nothing like building rocket ships or designing amazing software applications, but i…

>How would you feel if someone took your output without permission, whether it's designs or code or something else unique and hard to make? While I'm somewhat ambiguous about this IA matter, the example you bring up is rather unconvincing on HN. I, just like many other fellow users here, publish our code (both end product and tools) to public, and to organizational, Git repositories. We have structured our work and o…

> I, just like many other fellow users here, publish our code (both end product and tools) to public, and to organizational, Git repositories.

Sure, but that code is generally tied to a license. Very rarely are people releasing things into the public domain. All that code people are releasing are being released with the support of copyright. In fact, people here on HN and other communities very much oppose people taking things without permission. I challenge you to demonstrate otherwise with your own repositories.

Re: Publishers File Suit Against Internet Archive

#258

Post by Ckirby »

ilamont wrote: post #179

Indie publisher here. My company publishes mostly how-to guides relating technology, personal finance, and health. In fact this afternoon I am reviewing proofs of a new title written by a surgeon meant to inform patients (and their family members) dealing with thyroid cancer and thyroid nodules. What I and my peers do for a living is nothing like building rocket ships or designing amazing software applications, but i…

"How would you feel if someone took your output without permission[...].

that has happened to me all the damn time and quite frankly I've stopped caring so boo effin hoo.

we live in a postindustrial society.

People have value extracted from them without due compensation every single day.

Just be glad you're getting your slice of the pie as it is

Re: Publishers File Suit Against Internet Archive

#259

Post by lelandbatey »

ilamont wrote: post #179

Indie publisher here. My company publishes mostly how-to guides relating technology, personal finance, and health. In fact this afternoon I am reviewing proofs of a new title written by a surgeon meant to inform patients (and their family members) dealing with thyroid cancer and thyroid nodules. What I and my peers do for a living is nothing like building rocket ships or designing amazing software applications, but i…

> How would you feel if someone took your output without permission, whether it's designs or code or something else unique and hard to make?

I believe that being able to profit strictly from control of intellectual property is on the decline and will ultimately disappear. "Payment for access" to IP will be outcompeted by easy and ubiquitous technology for IP distribution (and thus infringement). I believe we'll move back to a world of primarily "payment for genesis".

You want to make money as an author? Then find a way to say "hey world, I'll write a great book about XYZ if I get PQR money." In the same way software developers say "hey, you want this piece of software? I'll write XYZ software if I'm paid PQR money."

It's a brutally huge change to the historical way publishing's done and the way artists earn a living. But it's already happening and I believe it'll only accelerate.

The future is "payment for genesis" not "payment for control".

Re: Publishers File Suit Against Internet Archive

#260

Post by mark_l_watson »

I love the Internet Archive and donate about once a year. That said, they should not be loaning out copyright material, even during the civil-19 problems.

As an aside, I enjoy writing a lot and have released all of my later books under a Creative Commons license, so I hope my books do show up in IA. People who happen on my books may end up buying a copy sometime. One thing that bothers me though is when I find out of date versions of my books on the web. I have found my stuff in the web that is two or three editions old.

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