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Temporary National Emergency Library to close 2 weeks early
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Re: Temporary National Emergency Library to close 2 weeks early
#52The internet archive was an interesting experiment, too bad they made such a reckless move. Hopefully they don’t get shutdown, but they risked their very existence on this silly move.
I don't think it was silly, but it was probably too rushed.
As I said when it was announced, there is a valid, IMO, line of reasoning: as a digital library you can lend one digital copy per one physical book you have in your inventory. Before the lock down people could choose if they want to go get a physical copy or a digital one, but now they don't have a choice: their local library is closed and there are only so many options to borrow digital. This is where IA steps in and says: we will act as a proxy between you, and the physical copy of the book that is locked in the library you lost access to. When I say it was rushed I mean they could have implemented a system where any closed library would be able to submit their physical book inventory asking IA to act as a proxy, extending the number of digital copies backed 1:1 by physical ones. But instead of that Interned Archive decided that the locked down supply is effectively limitless, so let's just lend as many as people demand.
Re: Temporary National Emergency Library to close 2 weeks early
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't disagree with you in principle, but it's the system we have. So, 1) What's a good way to ensure that authors continue to author books while not dying of exposure (or, more practically, that authors continue to author books instead of deciding to go work at a tech company or something)? 2) How do we implement that system?
> (or, more practically, that authors continue to author books instead of deciding to go work at a tech company or something) Have you done or read research to suggest this is something to worry about? There are other concerns certainly. But I have trouble understanding how someone who has ever visited Wikipedia or visited github could even ask this question. It sure sounds like a conceptual anachronism to me. (Thoug…
> Have you done or read research to suggest this is something to worry about?
Yes, I've heard many authors saying that they're unhappy with the emergency library in particular because they are concerned they won't be able to get paid to write books if this happens. And, based on my training and experience, if someone isn't paid to do their job anymore, they'll look for another job.
I'm aware of GitHub. I've published things to GitHub myself. Many of them I was paid to publish. There's a lot more I would publish to GitHub if I weren't writing proprietary code all day. You can go see all the pull requests I haven't responded to. I think it's absolutely true that if you gave people a way to put a roof over their heads and food on the table, they'd do work they love anyway, and I myself point to GitHub as an example of that. I think it's also true that if you don't give people a way to put a roof over their heads and food on the table, they'll find something else to do with their life that does.
I've also visited Wikipedia. Here's a quote from the first person to make one million edits: "Being suddenly and involuntarily unemployed will do that to you." I think that demonstrates that if he could do something else and get paid for it, he would have.
Re: Temporary National Emergency Library to close 2 weeks early
#54The internet archive was an interesting experiment, too bad they made such a reckless move. Hopefully they don’t get shutdown, but they risked their very existence on this silly move.
I don't think it was silly, but it was probably too rushed. As I said when it was announced, there is a valid, IMO, line of reasoning: as a digital library you can lend one digital copy per one physical book you have in your inventory. Before the lock down people could choose if they want to go get a physical copy or a digital one, but now they don't have a choice: their local library is closed and there are only so…
Massive public copyright infringement was silly, and it put their whole very important operation at risk. If they at least went through the motions, and signed up the libraries like in your example that’s at least defensible in court.
Re: Temporary National Emergency Library to close 2 weeks early
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't disagree with you in principle, but it's the system we have. So, 1) What's a good way to ensure that authors continue to author books while not dying of exposure (or, more practically, that authors continue to author books instead of deciding to go work at a tech company or something)? 2) How do we implement that system?
> (or, more practically, that authors continue to author books instead of deciding to go work at a tech company or something) Have you done or read research to suggest this is something to worry about? There are other concerns certainly. But I have trouble understanding how someone who has ever visited Wikipedia or visited github could even ask this question. It sure sounds like a conceptual anachronism to me. (Thoug…
> But I have trouble understanding how someone who has ever visited Wikipedia or visited github could even ask this question.
I can't decide whether that statement is autistic or pedantic, or both.
- neither are 200 page literary works, so your comparison is very strange. I don't know anybody who goes to github for entertainment.
- a lot of Wikipedia "editors" are PR firms (ie. paid)
- the entire reason for copyright law was to allow authors and musicians to monetize their work, authorized by Congress. So there was an obvious need for that legislation.
- Amazon's first product was books, so obviously somebody appreciates them enough to pay for them.
Do github and Wikipedia replace movies in your world too?
Re: Temporary National Emergency Library to close 2 weeks early
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
I propose that they do it out of love, and not for money. There will be less trash on the market and more high quality work.
> There will be less trash on the market and more high quality work Actually, only those with lots of disposable time, or who can purchase others’ time, will produce content.
Incidentally, this is the reason why you should always pay your politicians a salary and why you shouldn't find "this politician refused their salary" to be meritorious - you don't want to artificially restrict your pool of politicians to the independently wealthy.
Re: Temporary National Emergency Library to close 2 weeks early
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
How do you propose that the authors of creative works be paid for their efforts, outside of copyright?
They aren’t?
We are, very poorly. With rampant piracy of books (e.g., ruslib), royalties have become quite reduced that would traditionally compensate for low up front payment from publishers. I’d blame publishers for paying so poorly, but the bulk of my irritation goes to entitled consumers who have decided that regardless of the time and effort required to create something, they deserve it for free.
Re: Temporary National Emergency Library to close 2 weeks early
#58A big part of the books in NEL are out of print and no electronic versions are available elsewhere, and never will, so had it not been for Internet Archive, it would have been impossible to read these books and many of them had been lost forever.
If it's impossible to buy the book, why is NEL a problem for the publishers? Would they rather have that no one ever read the book again?
Re: Temporary National Emergency Library to close 2 weeks early
#59> We moved up our schedule because, last Monday, four commercial publishers chose to sue Internet Archive during a global pandemic. Did this come as a surprise? Did Internet Archive not expect publishers to sue? The Archive launched the emergency library during a global pandemic. Lots of people, myself included, said that this was a risky move because they would obviously get sued and it would put not only the Archiv…
I'm an author, and from my perspective, CDL seems like a reasonable way (if not the most reasonable way) to apply the first sale doctrine in the digital age. Publishers would prefer to instead license ebooks and pretend first sale doesn't apply at all for digital books. I understand why that irritates a lot of people. The Internet Archive, on the flip side, is pretending that copyright infringement doesn't apply duri…
I can agree that uncontrolled digital lending for all future wouldn't be in the best interest of society under the current economic system, but while the letter of the law might not change during a chrisis, how it is interpreted very well might.
After all, the law is but a contract between us and ourselves throught a governing body, nothing is fixed, and nothing is entirely objective.
But, more importantly, the characterization of libraries as something that actually hurts publishers and writers, as implied by writing that CDL would hurt publishers "no more" than ordinary lending, is something I feel compelled to oppose.
Libraries, and lending of some form has been part of society since likely even before anything we would call a book were first written.
While it is true that some of the first libraries were not exactly public, and that you probably wouldn't be allowed to carry the book home from most, but this doesn't take away from the fact that libraries as part of society owes nothing to publishers. If anything, it's the other way around.
If the absurd idea that seems prevalent in digital publishing that one book would only be allowed one reader had been around when the first books were written, it's fairly likely almost no books would have been written.
While publishers might feel lending is inconvenient, if they continue trying to get rid of lending, they are no wiser than a runner in a headwind wishing for the air to go away.
I'm not saying authors shouldn't get paid, but I am saying that pinning any loss of income on libraries is devaluing libraries and lendings role in history - and society - immensely.
Re: Temporary National Emergency Library to close 2 weeks early
#60Are there any technologies today that would enable a distributed backup of IA? Something like BitTorrent, but where I can specify I want to host XXX GB of data, and all the nodes in the swarm would provide a redundant, distributed backup in aggregate? I realize things like IPFS exist, but as far as I'm aware those require manual file pinning. I want to just donate storage and bandwidth to back the files up, not have…
"Let's Say You Wanted to Back Up The Internet Archive" post by Jason Scott
https://old.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/comments/h02jl4/lets_sa...