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Publishers File Suit Against Internet Archive

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Re: Publishers File Suit Against Internet Archive

#301

Post by freshhawk »

AdrianB1 wrote: post #274
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? The output of my work is finally money and more than half is taken away from me; most people agree with this and quite a lot think I should be left with even less. It is called taxes and please don't tell me it's not the same because it is the output of my work and it is taken a…

From that perspective (and it is a good one to take) that tax half is taken away after your employer takes a much larger percentage of the value away from the profit generated by your work. You get way more in exchange for the taxes at least. How come that much bigger chunk is mentioned so much less often?

Re: Publishers File Suit Against Internet Archive

#302

Post by bsder »

solveit wrote: post #290
bsder wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Someone earlier asked the question, "Why can't the publishing industry just hurry up and die?" I have a problem with copyright being transferable. The purpose of copyright is to encourage the creators . If you transfer a copyright or license it out, its term should get shortened dramatically. "Congratulations--you got a payout. Now make something new." I have a problem with copyright outliving the author by very mu…

> I have a problem with copyright being transferable. The purpose of copyright is to encourage the creators. If you transfer a copyright or license it out, its term should get shortened dramatically. "Congratulations--you got a payout. Now make something new." That would devalue the copyright and creators would get compensated less. This also applies to a lesser extent to your other problems. Copyright outliving the…

> That would devalue the copyright and creators would get compensated less. This also applies to a lesser extent to your other problems. Copyright outliving the author increases the value of the copyright even when the author still lives.

Um, tough?

The point of copyright isn't to create a perpetual rent ... it's to incentivize new creation.

For example, George R. R. Martin might actually finish his books rather than dragging them out as a meal ticket if the copyright only lasted 10 years past transfer (the moment where the TV show got posted). Or perhaps he might start a new series that might be better.

I'm not seeing the downside to society from giving creators incentive to produce rather than rent seek.

Re: Publishers File Suit Against Internet Archive

#303

Post by HeadsUpHigh »

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…

You are a middle man. They are makers. You need to change your business model, limiting the potential of some technology just because it doesn't suit your business model is absurd and it just keeps happening in multiple markets( e.g. CD drivers being slower as a copyright protection measure).

I can't wait until your market deflates enough that even the big guns don't have the money to push for this bullshit.

Re: Publishers File Suit Against Internet Archive

#304

Post by voiper1 »

fernly wrote: post #288

Just for some needed context, here's what IA says about "borrowing a book"[1]. The critical point, > Click on the book you would like to borrow. You will be taken to the item page and will be given the option to Borrow This book. Click on Borrow this Book. (If the book is on loan, you will be given an option to Join Waitlist) So, at least before "quarantime", they only propogated one copy at a time of any title. [1]…

Yes, before the Emergency Library, they maintained a reserve of physical copies of book they bought or owned. Once that limit is reached, you can't borrow it. Sounds possibly legal.

But this is new: unlimited borrowing. That's the opening for this lawsuit.

Re: Publishers File Suit Against Internet Archive

#305

Post by DarkmSparks »

freshhawk wrote: post #301
AdrianB1 wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>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? The output of my work is finally money and more than half is taken away from me; most people agree with this and quite a lot think I should be left with even less. It is called taxes and please don't tell me it's not the same because it is the output of my work and it is taken a…

From that perspective (and it is a good one to take) that tax half is taken away after your employer takes a much larger percentage of the value away from the profit generated by your work. You get way more in exchange for the taxes at least. How come that much bigger chunk is mentioned so much less often?

>How come that much bigger chunk is mentioned so much less often?

Capitalism.

Re: Publishers File Suit Against Internet Archive

#306

Post by _0w8t »

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…

Recently I was able to read a book from 1850 because somebody bothered to go to a library, scan it and publish as ebook for 1USD. And the book itself was a new print for a work that was published 50 years before so it was published after the copyrights expired.

Re: Publishers File Suit Against Internet Archive

#307

Post by SpelingBeeChamp »

RNCTX wrote: post #275
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…

> I'd like to put the question to those HN members who work in tech: 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? How would you feel if people cheered this on, or called for your demise, suggesting that the world would be a better place without your work? As someone with a humanities education (literature specifically) I fee…

How is that relevant to what Internet Archive is doing? As I understand it, the Internet Archive has decided that it will freely distribute even self-published authorship.

Re: Publishers File Suit Against Internet Archive

#308

Post by SpelingBeeChamp »

RNCTX wrote: post #279
k__ wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. I made five figures by selling my book via a small publisher. I know authors who sold their books via big publishers and they made magnitudes less money than me while selling magnitudes more copies than me. To me this sounds like a broken system.

A more valid hypothetical would be the expectation that developers working for Google and Microsoft would be expected to work for free, creating entire codebases for no money, with the only contribution from the publisher (Google and Microsoft) being an editor to glance at and reject ideas they thought unprofitable after the developers had spent countless hours / months / years creating them. If the occasional develo…

Okay, but this is not about whether publishers should exist...

Re: Publishers File Suit Against Internet Archive

#309

Post by SpelingBeeChamp »

EvanAnderson wrote: post #229
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…

I was being hyperbolic in that question, to be sure. It's probably better asked as: When will the publishing industry finally accept that it exists in a world where counting copies made doesn't work as a business model anymore? Technology isn't going away. The business models will have to change. Some businesses will fail. Some creators will have tragic outcomes. Some works will never be created. Entire classes of wo…

"I also have deep moral concerns with the idea that a creator should somehow be entitled to be paid again and again for work done once."

You would do away with the ability of developers to license their software?

Re: Publishers File Suit Against Internet Archive

#310

Post by SpelingBeeChamp »

VonGuard wrote: post #131
ghaff wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are free to give away whatever you want so long as it's yours to give away. For example, the ACM has opened up their pubs during this health emergency which is a nice move on their part. Do I think it would have been preferable for the publishers and IA to reach some sort of agreement? Of course. But, much as I'm a fan of the IA, they shouldn't IMO be doing this unilaterally.

Again, libraries are closed. Libraries do this every day. People are locked in their homes with nothing to do, so they opened their archives as a gesture of goodwill and generocity to a nation of people who cannot get books from libraries. While this may not be legal, it is humane. The problem with this country is that the humane thing is often illegal. We cannot give this food to the hungry, we could be liable. It's…

" Who gives a flying fuck about copyright law when there are 100,000 dead people and riots in the streets?"

Plenty of people. Perhaps you haven't heard the news, but it's possible to care about two things at once.

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