121–130 of 409 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That’s a fairly inaccurate understanding of the Library of Alexandria that most historians disagree with. See https://www.ancientworldmagazine.com/articles/making-myth-li... for example.
My comment is consistent with the more nuanced understanding of what Alexandria really was.
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, // That's not at all self-evident, indeed quite likely false. We had a similar discussion here a few times and content/program creators have said they made more money when their product was also available free - people tried it and bought it. That probably only works for content creators who's stuff is good - publishers sti…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're clueless, it is directly relevant, you said "copyright laws are neither moral or immorral" which is a bs statement because every rule (which it is) has political consequences, you need a giant state to declare "some ideas are not sharable". AKA copyright is a cultural construct that evolved in one particular society at a particular point in history, not a natural law. So no, you don't get the idea of owning id…
> You're clueless, it is directly relevant, you said "copyright laws are neither moral or immorral" I actually said that copyright itself is neither moral nor immoral, which is a completely different statement. Any particularly copyright law can be as immoral as you want it to be, but the idea that somebody can retain rights over content they create is not immoral. You could easily create a society that didn’t have s…
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.
Also it would a balance of what was free / what was purchased that would determine the net impact.
> 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.
Books should be in a digital format that has at least all of the the properties of a physical good. I agree that if one has a physical (or digital copy) of a work, that there is no-issue renting or temporarily transferring it for as many ownership tokens as you possess.
If the publishers want copy right protection from the government, they must use open formats, unencrypted, non-executable, bits I can copy/sell/rent/etc. If they want to use DRM, they get no copy right protection.
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?
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…
Publishers repeatedly asked the IA to stop obviously breaking the law before filing the lawsuit, and were ignored.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
For me, I can't help but place blame on the actual agents of its potential demise: the plaintiffs of this lawsuit
Yes, I think that perspective is actually more relevant, even if the IA might have made a mistake. But I see only victims in this conflict. Most authors today don't really eat with golden spoons and to have an organisation that helps them get their fair share of the work they put into the books is certainly necessary in the internet age. On the other hand the internet archive is an extremely valuable service. I hope…
I'm sure that some authors lost some dollars to this program, but is it really all that much? The coverage on the lawsuit doesn't mention how much injury the publishers (and, to a much lesser degree, their authors) have suffered.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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.
You make it sound like this is the tech version of "too big too fail".