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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

#91

Post by geofft »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #72
thr0waw4y5555 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> I’d blame publishers for paying so poorly That's exactly what you should do. You should have been adequately compensated for the time and effort required to write your book. Instead, your publisher decided to require you to put the work in first and then offer you the chance to get compensated afterwards based on how well your book sold. The expected results didn't materialize because the market conditions that ena…

> The world has changed. We're living in the 21st century. It costs $0 to make and distribute copies of information. Only the costs associated with creating the first copy must be paid for.

That's not really a change. Previously, the physical costs of copying were higher (paper, ink, labor, etc.), but none of that was a royalty to the author.

For an expensive textbook, it was always cheaper to print a pirated copy of the book than to pay for a legal one, because most of the cost of that expensive textbook was profit/royalties, not the physical cost of production.

It's true that it's now very easy to produce copies of e-books for $0, but there was no technical reason in the past why a bookstore with a printing press couldn't have sold $100 books for $10 - only copyright. I'm not sure why the ability to sell $100 books for $0 (or even $10 books for $0) is a qualitative change and not merely a quantitative one.

Re: Temporary National Emergency Library to close 2 weeks early

#92

Post by matheusmoreira »

geofft wrote: post #87
matheusmoreira wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They expect it for free after it was created . The only possible solution is to charge them money before creating it . Perhaps crowdfunding and patronage will be the answer. If not, I guess we'll just have to live with less creators in general. That is fine.

> If not, I guess we'll just have to live with less creators in general. That is fine. I was wondering if someone was going to make this argument. 1. Why is it fine? 2. How is "Actually, it's okay if there are fewer books in the world" a defense of "Internet Archive was in the right to give people access to books, because it's very important that people have access to books"? If the world doesn't actually need people…

My original comments were not directly related to the Internet Archive situation. I replied to an author who blamed consumers for the lack of profits when in reality it is the business model itself that is failing.

> Why is it fine?

> And why abolish copyright?

Because these days a world without copyright is how things are in practice. Copyright infringement is trivial. People do it even unintentionally. Might as well stop pretending and just accept the consequences. We just can't go back to how things were before computers and the internet. If the result is less creation overall, then we must accept that.

Enforcing copyright in the 21st century requires sacrificing computing freedom as we know it today. Computers would only execute approved "lawful" software. Subversive programs which do things like play movies without consulting the rights holders first would be banned. That would surely mean the end of playful hacking and the free and open source software community. I don't think anyone here wants that outcome. I certainly don't. So I defend the end of copyright.

I've been warned before about ideological discussion on HN so I will refrain from elaborating further. I apologize.

Re: Temporary National Emergency Library to close 2 weeks early

#93

Post by cirno »

DecoPerson wrote: post #17

The Internet Archive is so incredibly important. There’s a lot of different views about the purpose of life or lack thereof, but for all except a few beliefs, having access to past writings is very important. Humanity is only at the very beginning of its existence. The success or failure of projects like the Internet Archive will drastically change our future. If you think the loss of the Internet Archive won’t signi…

This won't be a popular statement, but archivers don't have a legal right to reproduce websites, either. I imagine archive.today is on even shakier ground via bypassing newspaper paywalls. archive.org operates under an opt-out policy which is not how copyright works, and archive.today operates under a "f### you" policy. It's just that website operators haven't chosen to take legal action against this practice.

I understand the innate desire of people to have a "better to ask forgiveness than permission" view of saving old web content (because we all enjoy finding out the thing we thought we lost forever by not backing up ourselves was in fact recoverable), but either copyright law exists or it doesn't. If you want a secure future, make archivers opt-in via a meta tag on pages to indicate the content is under a permissible share-alike license.

Re: Temporary National Emergency Library to close 2 weeks early

#94

Post by geofft »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #90
geofft wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Makes sense, at a high level. Should we cancel copyright before this system is well-established and stable? It seems like there could be arguments for it, if copyright is indeed a great abuse, but if it's not, it seems like it would be systematically better to establish the new system in parallel with copyright, and then we could argue not only that copyright is bad but it's no longer necessary. Is copyright in fact…

I've been warned about repetitive ideological discussion on HN so I should probably not elaborate on the matter. I do agree with you though. These are all important points that should be addressed. I do not know the answers to these questions. I sincerely hope someone smarter than me will be able to come up with really good answers. I just think that we can't go on like this. Copyright is based on a lie: artificial s…

> In order to enforce copyright in the 21st century, computing freedom must be sacrificed.

I'm not sure this is true. The publishers aren't demanding that Internet Archive add DRM to their e-books - they're demanding that Internet Archive stop distributing them entirely. I can certainly imagine a world where DRM-free e-books are the norm and unlicensed distribution is limited only by legal threat and not by technical means. Yes, the fact that information can now be copied instantly for free (it could previously be copied with some time and effort with a photocopier, or with typewriters samizdat-style, or with pen and paper monk-style) means the publishers are less confident that legal threat will be enough... but we did mostly end up in a world where DRM-free music is easily available.

But also, physical books aren't going away. As long as you can buy physical books, you can participate in a world of copyrighted books without running DRM agents on your computer. You miss out on some potential 21st-century gains like having the text of the book in electronic format and being able to share it without spending some time at a scanner, but you haven't lost anything you had in the 20th century.

(Also on the topic of computing freedom, how do we get the benefits of the GPL - especially receiving things like source code - if we no longer have copyright?)

Re: Temporary National Emergency Library to close 2 weeks early

#95

Post by ThrowawayR2 »

WalterBright wrote: post #77
jawns wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you propose that the authors of creative works be paid for their efforts, outside of copyright?

One way (an old way) is for, say a newspaper or magazine, to publish a novel as a serial. The newspaper pays the author for a few pages at a time, and the newspaper gets subscription fees and ad revenue.

Serialized novels have perverse incentives in the form of puffing up word count and frequent cliffhangers to keep readers coming back. I cannot find it at the moment but there was a fascinating article comparing excerpts from a serialized novel versus a standalone novel to illustrate these effects.

Re: Temporary National Emergency Library to close 2 weeks early

#96

Post by WalterBright »

WalterBright wrote: post #77
jawns wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you propose that the authors of creative works be paid for their efforts, outside of copyright?

One way (an old way) is for, say a newspaper or magazine, to publish a novel as a serial. The newspaper pays the author for a few pages at a time, and the newspaper gets subscription fees and ad revenue.

Another way is to simply limit copyright terms to 20 years. Or charge a fee to enable copyright, and copyrights must be registered.

Re: Temporary National Emergency Library to close 2 weeks early

#97

Post by ghaff »

Aeolun wrote: post #61
thr0waw4y5555 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What I think I deserve for free is the ability to decide whether a book is worth the price or not. This is simple in a bookstore, but when I’m online the default seems to be that I have to shell out to even take a look.

Many ebooks have some degree of preview. In some cases, it's imperfect, but it seems overall at least roughly equivalent to a bookstore.

Re: Temporary National Emergency Library to close 2 weeks early

#98

Post by ghaff »

cirno wrote: post #93
DecoPerson wrote: post #17

The Internet Archive is so incredibly important. There’s a lot of different views about the purpose of life or lack thereof, but for all except a few beliefs, having access to past writings is very important. Humanity is only at the very beginning of its existence. The success or failure of projects like the Internet Archive will drastically change our future. If you think the loss of the Internet Archive won’t signi…

This won't be a popular statement, but archivers don't have a legal right to reproduce websites, either. I imagine archive.today is on even shakier ground via bypassing newspaper paywalls. archive.org operates under an opt-out policy which is not how copyright works, and archive.today operates under a "f### you" policy. It's just that website operators haven't chosen to take legal action against this practice. I unde…

The problem is that it basically doesn't work on an opt-in basis. So archive.org has worked by making it easier to opt-out than actually taking legal action.

Re: Temporary National Emergency Library to close 2 weeks early

#99

Post by matheusmoreira »

geofft wrote: post #91
matheusmoreira wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I’d blame publishers for paying so poorly That's exactly what you should do. You should have been adequately compensated for the time and effort required to write your book. Instead, your publisher decided to require you to put the work in first and then offer you the chance to get compensated afterwards based on how well your book sold. The expected results didn't materialize because the market conditions that ena…

> The world has changed. We're living in the 21st century. It costs $0 to make and distribute copies of information. Only the costs associated with creating the first copy must be paid for. That's not really a change. Previously, the physical costs of copying were higher (paper, ink, labor, etc.), but none of that was a royalty to the author. For an expensive textbook, it was always cheaper to print a pirated copy of…

> I'm not sure why the ability to sell $100 books for $0 (or even $10 books for $0) is a qualitative change and not merely a quantitative one.

The difference is the sheer scale of it.

Printing presses are expensive, purpose built hardware. People who had access to one were part of the industry. Enforcing copyright is much easier when infringement is centralized like this. So copyright infringement at scale wasn't that common. Also, since the books were physical copies there are natural limits to how many can be made and their widespread distribution is a hard logistical problem.

Compare that to the 21st century. Almost everyone has a computer which can create a virtually unbounded number of copies of any file. These computers are also connected to a global network which makes it trivial to distribute these copies to anyone who wants them. In the 21st century, anyone can easily infringe copyright at massive scales and it's impossible to enforce copyright in any meaningful way because infringement is decentralized among the general world population.

Re: Temporary National Emergency Library to close 2 weeks early

#100

Post by matheusmoreira »

geofft wrote: post #94
matheusmoreira wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been warned about repetitive ideological discussion on HN so I should probably not elaborate on the matter. I do agree with you though. These are all important points that should be addressed. I do not know the answers to these questions. I sincerely hope someone smarter than me will be able to come up with really good answers. I just think that we can't go on like this. Copyright is based on a lie: artificial s…

> In order to enforce copyright in the 21st century, computing freedom must be sacrificed. I'm not sure this is true. The publishers aren't demanding that Internet Archive add DRM to their e-books - they're demanding that Internet Archive stop distributing them entirely. I can certainly imagine a world where DRM-free e-books are the norm and unlicensed distribution is limited only by legal threat and not by technical…

> I can certainly imagine a world where DRM-free e-books are the norm and unlicensed distribution is limited only by legal threat and not by technical means.

The state of YouTube proves that the copyright industry will not accept such a world. They want the technology industry to prevent copyright infringement from happening. They don't want to have to sue anyone after it has happened. Copyright infringement is widespread, decentralized and international so legal threats simply don't work. Prevention is the only option.

Copyright infringement prevention is only possible if they seize control of our computers. That is morally objectionable and cannot be allowed to happen even if it destroys the copyright industry.

> how do we get the benefits of the GPL - especially receiving things like source code - if we no longer have copyright?

We don't. The GPL was created by Stallman in reaction to copyright protection being extended towards source code. Without copyright, the software development world might revert to what it was like before that event. I don't fully understand what it was like in those days but there are descriptions in his books.

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