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Publishers File Suit Against Internet Archive

publishers.org

321–330 of 358 posts

Re: Publishers File Suit Against Internet Archive

#321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The third option, which works very well, is just by people donating to writers they want to. The maths works out pretty well if you look at it as a marketing funnel for the author. In the "traditional" model the author/publisher has to persuade a potential reader to part with money before reading the book, which has huge friction and costs lots of marketing money to persuade people that the book is good enough to buy…

I think your maths is off. A literary novel is a success if it sells 10,000 copies in hardback. I'm pretty sure that doesn't entail getting the book in front of a hundred million people.

no, the conversion funnel is "people see ad -> people click on ad/notice book -> people buy book". Getting the advert in front of 100mm people to sell 10K copies seems reasonable.

Re: Publishers File Suit Against Internet Archive

#322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They did it because the pandemic has closed libraries coast to coast, and it was a nice thing to do for people. Imagine that, making a decision not based on money or liability. You mean a stupid one that endangers everything else you do, yes? Robbing a bank and giving away the money is a decision not based on money or liability, but you shouldn't be very surprised you still get put in prison for it.

> Robbing a bank and giving away the money is a decision not based on money or liability, but you shouldn't be very surprised you still get put in prison for it. You've picked the one circumstance-- an unprecedented worldwide pandemic that is wreaking economic mayhem-- that could possibly weaken one of the indefatigable "pre-digital analogies for understanding digital ethics." I would not be surprised if the police w…

> You've picked the one circumstance-- an unprecedented worldwide pandemic that is wreaking economic mayhem-- that could possibly weaken one of the indefatigable "pre-digital analogies for understanding digital ethics."

No, not really. The police would very much track down such a culprit and they would go to prison.

Re: Publishers File Suit Against Internet Archive

#323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many countries pay copyright owners for library lending (the UK for example through the public lending right).

In the US, libraries buy the books, etc., they lend, or pay for license agreements for digital media.

UK libraries buy the books and pay additionally for every lend, as it should be.

Re: Publishers File Suit Against Internet Archive

#324
post #275

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…

> There are no more middle managers at toaster and television distributors in the developed world

This is a joke right?

There is absolutely a place for publishers, which is why they still exist fifteen years after anti-copyright campaigners said they'd be done in five.

If authors decide not to go to publishers and publish directly you'll have a point. Broadly, they don't.

Re: Publishers File Suit Against Internet Archive

#325

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…

The purpose of copyright is to provide a temporary monopoly to creators for their works to encourage them to create more and thus transfer more to the public domain.

Currently, it takes greater than 2 average lifetimes for a work to transfer into the public domain and copyrights have been extended something like 12 times due to Disney's lobbying; there is a strong argument that that current copyright law is forever.

What interest does the public have in copyright that transfers nothing into the public domain? The "mainstream media" is in fact a publishing oligopoly of 4 companies (Ref: Media Monopoly by Ben Bagdikian). Furthermore, a 20TB HDD can store enough movies you can watch 3 a night for 2 decades; in 20 years time it'll be possible to store every newspaper clipping, TV Broadcast, movie and song on a desktop computer and in 40 on a thumb drive.

Congress and Businesses have neglected the publics interest, and due to that the public is using technology to wipe their arse with the law and rightfully so. The "Legal and Business frameworks" are outdated, orwellian cultural astroturfing exercises supported that are counterproductive to the operation of a disciplined, free society. Go read Vietnam and Korean era Psychological warfare manuals and tell me they are not blueprints for how a modern news org works.

When Mickey Mouse is free, I'll respect what you are doing. Until then, don't come sobbing to me. Nobody cares.

Re: Publishers File Suit Against Internet Archive

#326
post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 tak…

>Sure, but that code is generally tied to a license That's a whataboutist tangent, but let's entertain it for a while. The copyright law is usually restrictive, in the form of "everything which is not explicitly allowed is forbidden", and some of the openings - like Fair Use - are somewhat contentious. Thus a specially crafted free license is used to make the work legally accessible & reusable in an unambiguous way i…

Oh wow, a real snarky and immature comment. Good job.

> That's a whataboutist tangent

Yeah, you brought it up. Not me. You can't talk about something and ignore the part of that element that is integral to the conversation. Putting code up on GitHub does not make it freely reusable without restrictions.

Regardless, nothing you said disputes what I said. The public domain issue can easily be overcome by assigning a license with no restrictions for those places that don't abide by public domain, and while companies can put that code behind a non-free license, it doesn't make the original code anything less than public domain.

> Thus a specially crafted free license is used to make the work legally accessible & reusable in an unambiguous way in such legal environment.

Most all still impose restrictions and requirements that when violated, people last out against. You can argue whatever you want. Reality wins.

And, the best part is this:

> ...it's also about preventing subsequent yanking of the code via machinations by a 3rd party... They aren't mentioned in the OP either.

> 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 mean, you haven't even addressed this concern. You just flat out ignore it. None of the shared code you have allows for someone taking your output and doing what hey will with it without your permission. And pretty much no one here on HN allows for that with their code.

> Ah yes, a challenge to prove a negative.

Or, you could simply release all your code into the public domain and a license that doesn't impose any restrictions or requirements. Not at all proving a negative. Back up what you are saying. That's all it would take to do what I asked.

> I'll rise to it right after solving the halting problem :^)

Would be more productive than your comment.

Re: Publishers File Suit Against Internet Archive

#327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"post-scarcity" There will be no more "scarcity" when the "value" of the time required to produce these works reaches "zero." Until then, there will be plenty of scarcity. By the way, I think we would all need "immortality" in order to reach that point. So, yeah. Not going to happen.

Well, no. That is not what scarcity means. If we had an economy where you could replicate cars, food, houses, spaceships and so on for free, that would be post-scarcity, even though it takes some work for it to be engineered at the beginning. Bits on a computer that can be reproduced forever are not scarce.

Your comment illustrated the problem quite well. Your list of things are physical objects.

Some people don't seem to value the effort required to create new ideas. Hence, they are seen as "free" and not worth anything.

Re: Publishers File Suit Against Internet Archive

#328
Now would be a good time to donate funds to the Internet Archive. While you visit to give them money, check out the awesome collection. http://archive.org/donate

It is also a good time to reflect upon the very idea of intellectual property. In this age, 15th century ideas about how to protect printers may not be ideal in the 21st century. Patents and copyright are constitutionally mandated: [The Congress shall have power] “To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.” It is not clear that our current laws are doing the job.

Re: Publishers File Suit Against Internet Archive

#329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the case of copyright, at least nominally, it's the more-restrictive (and European) Berne Convention (1886) terms which have been adopted elsewhere. To what extent this reflects European rather than US interests I'm uncertain, though the latter certainly exist. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne_Convention

I was in Morocco when we signed copyright restrictions, and I can assure you 95% of the pressure is from United States, and it is in the interests mainly of the US and it's allies. As far as it reflecting European interests, the Berne convention is against European interests as it pertains to US copyrighted work as it offers them less protection than US works and forces a higher standard for US copyright than domesti…

Understood and accurate so far as I'm aware. As my other response notes, the tradition of copyright maximalisation began in Europe in the 19th century before being adopted by US interests in the 20th. Nationalistic attribution of traits answers far less than monopolistic power expansion.

Re: Publishers File Suit Against Internet Archive

#330
post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honest questions - Who gets to define an entity as a "library" and is IA defined as such, legally speaking?

...the government?

Which government? There are 3 or 4 different layers of government.

Your snark is pretty unhelpful. And un-called for considering (based on the other comments below) you don't really seem to know the actual legalities involved.

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