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EFF and heavyweight legal team will defend Internet Archive against publishers

torrentfreak.com

61–70 of 275 posts

Re: EFF and heavyweight legal team will defend Internet Archive against publishers

#61
post #59
post #57

How do we back up the Internet Archive? If they lose this case then it will be like losing The Great Library of Alexandria. This is our culture. This is our heritage! Edited to add: when I say “back up”, I mean preserve the data and the archival mission (minus the legal quagmires). The technical challenges can be solved, and we should do this before it’s too late. It seems there was a previous effort, but it has lost…

This is abuse of copyright. IA did bad, and should not be rewarded for this behavior.

And (modern) copyright is abuse of a legal system.

Re: EFF and heavyweight legal team will defend Internet Archive against publishers

#62

For anybody interested in the IA's claimed ethical and legal justifications, they summarise and link to them at the following page: http://blog.archive.org/2020/03/30/internet-archive-responds...

Wow, that still seems rather weak and reckless.

First they describe what Controlled Digital Lending is - one physical copy == one lend. They cite legal experts that agree. That's fine, no one's disagreeing there.

Then they go on with this:

"Additionally, fair use ultimately asks, 'whether the copyright law’s goal of promoting the Progress of Science and useful Arts would be better served by allowing the use than by preventing it.' In this case we believe it would be. Controlled digital lending as we conceive it is..."

So basically they went off and created the National Emergency Library based on their own interpretation of Fair Use. You better be ready for a huge fight if you're going to that. I don't know how they couldn't have expected this.

Re: EFF and heavyweight legal team will defend Internet Archive against publishers

#63

For anybody interested in the IA's claimed ethical and legal justifications, they summarise and link to them at the following page: http://blog.archive.org/2020/03/30/internet-archive-responds...

> Yes, we’ve had authors opt out. We anticipated that would happen as well; in fact, we launched with clear instructions on how to opt out because we understand that authors and creators have been impacted by the same global pandemic that has shuttered libraries and left students without access to print books. Our takedowns are completed quickly and the submitter is notified via email.

Re: EFF and heavyweight legal team will defend Internet Archive against publishers

#64
post #61
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is abuse of copyright. IA did bad, and should not be rewarded for this behavior.

And (modern) copyright is abuse of a legal system.

Please elaborate on why people should be allowed to steal the work of others.

Re: EFF and heavyweight legal team will defend Internet Archive against publishers

#65
post #43
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the criminal in the above is absolutely on the wrong side of the law. That's the assumption after all. Lawyers are on the wrong side of the law when they break it themselves (see, e.g., Avenatti), but not when they represent people on the wrong side of the law. The latter is necessary for the common law court system to work at all.

> "No, the criminal in the above is absolutely on the wrong side of the law. That's the assumption after all." In America at least, the defendant is presumed innocent until proven guilty. So the assumption should be that the defendant is on the right side of the law. It's the prosecutor or complainant's job to prove the defendant is in fact on the wrong side of the law. To call a defendant 'the criminal' (and saying…

Read their argument in the context of legal proceedings after the defendant pleads guilty

The lawyer is still on the right side of the law after the plea

Re: EFF and heavyweight legal team will defend Internet Archive against publishers

#66
post #57

How do we back up the Internet Archive? If they lose this case then it will be like losing The Great Library of Alexandria. This is our culture. This is our heritage! Edited to add: when I say “back up”, I mean preserve the data and the archival mission (minus the legal quagmires). The technical challenges can be solved, and we should do this before it’s too late. It seems there was a previous effort, but it has lost…

This is how you backup the Internet Archive: https://www.archiveteam.org/index.php?title=INTERNETARCHIVE....

Re: EFF and heavyweight legal team will defend Internet Archive against publishers

#67

For anybody interested in the IA's claimed ethical and legal justifications, they summarise and link to them at the following page: http://blog.archive.org/2020/03/30/internet-archive-responds...

> Yes, we’ve had authors opt out. We anticipated that would happen as well; in fact, we launched with clear instructions on how to opt out because we understand that authors and creators have been impacted by the same global pandemic that has shuttered libraries and left students without access to print books. Our takedowns are completed quickly and the submitter is notified via email.

It's nice that they have an easy opt-out system. But this is kind of like spammers who have easy opt-out... better than nothing, but I shouldn't be getting spammed in the first place.

Re: EFF and heavyweight legal team will defend Internet Archive against publishers

#68
post #2

EFF is on the wrong side of both the law and common sense here and they will lose no matter how much they pay their legal team. Internet archive didn’t just steal from ‘publishers’ they are also stealing from authors big and small. You don’t get to give out free digital copies of books to people without permission and expect to get away with it. This exact digital/physical equivalence idea has already been through th…

> You don’t get to give out free digital copies of books to people without permission and expect to get away with it.

As hard as big content producers try to make copyright synonym to "property", it's not and it never was. Why? Because ideas can't be copyrighted and all ideas are remixed. Nothing is 100% original. NOTHING.

Not to mention copyright used to apply for only 14 years. But corporations, which have bought just about everything else in the government, have also bought copyright laws that now last life + 70 years. And they keep trying to extend it all the time.

Relevant: https://www.everythingisaremix.info/watch-the-series

Re: EFF and heavyweight legal team will defend Internet Archive against publishers

#69
post #57

How do we back up the Internet Archive? If they lose this case then it will be like losing The Great Library of Alexandria. This is our culture. This is our heritage! Edited to add: when I say “back up”, I mean preserve the data and the archival mission (minus the legal quagmires). The technical challenges can be solved, and we should do this before it’s too late. It seems there was a previous effort, but it has lost…

It's possible that over the long term it could be backed up via torrents. However, in the short term the only way to save the archive is for IA to sell it. I hope they swallow their pride and do so.

Re: EFF and heavyweight legal team will defend Internet Archive against publishers

#70

For anybody interested in the IA's claimed ethical and legal justifications, they summarise and link to them at the following page: http://blog.archive.org/2020/03/30/internet-archive-responds...

> Yes, we’ve had authors opt out. We anticipated that would happen as well; in fact, we launched with clear instructions on how to opt out because we understand that authors and creators have been impacted by the same global pandemic that has shuttered libraries and left students without access to print books. Our takedowns are completed quickly and the submitter is notified via email.

Numerous authors have said this was not their experience.

More importantly, it is not an author's job to "opt out" of someone illegally pirating their work.

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