Activists rally to save Internet Archive as lawsuit threatens site • Hacker News Board

Re: Activists rally to save Internet Archive as lawsuit threatens site

#31

Post by themodelplumber » Thu, Jun 11, 2020, 6:59 AM UTC

ascorbic wrote: post #10

The publishers should stop now that they've taken them down, but this was grossly irresponsible of the Internet Archive to do this, and they brought it on themselves. Releasing all of these copyrighted books for free hurt authors who rely on royalties to live, and it was inevitable that publishers would sue. I honestly don't understand why they did it. They have a responsibility as custodians of the archive to not pu…

I commented elsewhere but I find this a terrific example of a bold prospective move in this space. They took a risk for which the patron reward ratio was potentially huge. Also, publishers should have anticipated this sort of thing and prepared bridges so they didn't have to go on the attack and waste 10 different types of capital. That they are shutting down a public benefit with relevant impact (IA release gives an example) during a pandemic is a dick move in more than one way. This part among others will come back to bite them.

IA didn't release copyrighted books for free; at the very least this depends on your definition of "release" and personally after checking out a book I find that I no longer have access after ~2 weeks. This kind of timeline is much more like a library than a bookstore.

I think any smart author who cares about their craft, and knowledge in general, would much rather their publishing representative find a way to moderate and proactively track this new approach than turn the whole thing into a war, making a library--of all things--into the enemy.

Re: Activists rally to save Internet Archive as lawsuit threatens site

#32

Post by ascorbic » Thu, Jun 11, 2020, 7:02 AM UTC

Beldin wrote: post #28

ascorbic wrote: post #10

The publishers should stop now that they've taken them down, but this was grossly irresponsible of the Internet Archive to do this, and they brought it on themselves. Releasing all of these copyrighted books for free hurt authors who rely on royalties to live, and it was inevitable that publishers would sue. I honestly don't understand why they did it. They have a responsibility as custodians of the archive to not pu…

> Releasing all of these copyrighted books for free hurt authors who rely on royalties to live Do you have any data on that?

Unless you think there were no people at all who downloaded for free rather than paying, then it cost authors royalty payments.

Re: Activists rally to save Internet Archive as lawsuit threatens site

#33

Post by sergeykish » Thu, Jun 11, 2020, 7:04 AM UTC

> Libraries pay three-to-five times more than retail price for eBook access. If an individual is charged $15 for an eBook license, a library often pays $50 or even $84 for one license.

Why? I should be able to donate book to the library. Is it possible with eBook?

Re: Activists rally to save Internet Archive as lawsuit threatens site

#34

Post by ascorbic » Thu, Jun 11, 2020, 7:10 AM UTC

MrStonedOne wrote: post #26

ascorbic wrote: post #10

The publishers should stop now that they've taken them down, but this was grossly irresponsible of the Internet Archive to do this, and they brought it on themselves. Releasing all of these copyrighted books for free hurt authors who rely on royalties to live, and it was inevitable that publishers would sue. I honestly don't understand why they did it. They have a responsibility as custodians of the archive to not pu…

>I honestly don't understand why they did it. Its right there in the article. >In March, as the COVID-19 pandemic led to the shutdown of public libraries , the Internet Archive created the National Emergency Library and temporarily suspended book waitlists Public libraries got shut down, they opened a replacement. Makes perfect sense to me.

Most public libraries have ebook lending, and there are lots of free sources that don't pose an existential threat to the archive

Re: Activists rally to save Internet Archive as lawsuit threatens site

#35

Post by zozbot234 » Thu, Jun 11, 2020, 7:10 AM UTC

sergeykish wrote: post #33

> Libraries pay three-to-five times more than retail price for eBook access. If an individual is charged $15 for an eBook license, a library often pays $50 or even $84 for one license. Why? I should be able to donate book to the library. Is it possible with eBook?

Because an eBook is not at all like a physical book. It's more like a service that interacts with DRM to provide an illusion of physicality. Libraries should be enabled to digitally lend their physical holdings and not have to rely on these eBook licenses, and CDL is a great model to that effect.

Re: Activists rally to save Internet Archive as lawsuit threatens site

#36

Post by beebmam » Thu, Jun 11, 2020, 7:12 AM UTC

ComputerGuru wrote: post #27

I warned about this very outcome when they announced the initiative [0]. The Internet Archive is too big and too important to gamble on this short term of a win (giving everyone free and unlimited access to all books for a few months at most). Assuming the organization continues to exist after this ordeal, their entire board should step down for putting at risk one of the most invaluable archives in existence. I’m an…

For me, I can't help but place blame on the actual agents of its potential demise: the plaintiffs of this lawsuit

Re: Activists rally to save Internet Archive as lawsuit threatens site

#37

Post by cygx » Thu, Jun 11, 2020, 7:14 AM UTC

ascorbic wrote: post #32

Beldin wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Releasing all of these copyrighted books for free hurt authors who rely on royalties to live Do you have any data on that?

Unless you think there were no people at all who downloaded for free rather than paying, then it cost authors royalty payments.

It probably did, but note that the scope was limited: Books released too recently were excluded (if I remember correctly, the cut-off was 5 years?), and they are still DRM protected and have to be returned at the end of the 3 month period, when the waitlist will kick in again.

Also note that the publishers' problem is not just the 3 months of waitlist suspension (supposed to offset the closure of physical libraries during the pandemic), but the practice of controlled digital lending of books scanned from physical copies (ie handing out a digital copy for each physical copy you've got sitting on your shelf) without additional royalty payments.

Re: Activists rally to save Internet Archive as lawsuit threatens site

#38

Post by Scientificx » Thu, Jun 11, 2020, 7:19 AM UTC

mikequinlan wrote: post #16

I would love to support the Internet Archive but the people behind it deliberately took steps that were guaranteed to bankrupt them once the publishers filed their (inevitable) lawsuit. Why would I support an organization that is determined to commit suicide?

> I would love to support the Internet Archive but the people behind it deliberately took steps that were guaranteed to bankrupt them once the publishers filed their (inevitable) lawsuit. Why would I support an organization that is determined to commit suicide?

Because they hold a part of our digital history.

Re: Activists rally to save Internet Archive as lawsuit threatens site

#39

Post by Causality1 » Thu, Jun 11, 2020, 7:26 AM UTC

jonah-archive wrote: post #9

fouc wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very interesting discussion here. Apparently can get 16TB drives at $100 each on enterprise bulk pricing. An entire backup would be 3,125 drives for $312,500. But apparently the wayback machine itself is only about 2 Petabytes.. so if you don't need the collections perhaps only 125 drives needed, or $12,500.

Disclaimer: I run the infrastructure/ops team at the Internet Archive. Unfortunately none of those numbers are really even close to correct (the discussion is always fun, but the folks in r/datahoarder are often not correctly informed. textfiles has more patience for it than I do). It would probably cost around 1.5M in drives, even at reasonable current enterprise volume pricing, to back up the 60+ PB of unique data…

I'd love to know what the internal atmosphere was like when the IA did this. Who should I hold a grudge against for pulling possibly the stupidest move in the history of digital intellectual property?

This is the kind of radical demonstration I expect out of some fly-by-night startup, not a twenty-four year old nonprofit with less annual revenue than the lawyers who're suing them.

Re: Activists rally to save Internet Archive as lawsuit threatens site

#40

Post by wodenokoto » Thu, Jun 11, 2020, 7:28 AM UTC

ComputerGuru wrote: post #27

I warned about this very outcome when they announced the initiative [0]. The Internet Archive is too big and too important to gamble on this short term of a win (giving everyone free and unlimited access to all books for a few months at most). Assuming the organization continues to exist after this ordeal, their entire board should step down for putting at risk one of the most invaluable archives in existence. I’m an…

>Assuming the organization continues to exist after this ordeal, their entire board should step down for putting at risk one of the most invaluable archives in existence.

Wouldn't that kill the organisation?