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My thoughts in response to the lawsuit against the Internet Archive

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Re: My thoughts in response to the lawsuit against the Internet Archive

#21

Post by ApolloFortyNine »

joshuahaglund wrote: post #19
theferalrobot wrote: post #9

> In total, 650 million books were locked up just in public libraries alone. Because of that, we felt we could, and should, and needed to make the digitized versions of those books available to students Libraries also have movies and music... should they have put those out for free too? I love wayback machine but I’m not sure I follow the logic on this one. I’m no legal expert but that seems like pretty iffy reasonin…

Using controlled digital lending, yes. Why not? The libraries hold licenses to lend this media in physical format but were temporarily shifting to lending using controlled digital lending. They didn't just give away unencrypted copies to be pirated. They did what libraries do, lend media.

They lent unlimited copies. The limit is very very key to being covered under CDL.

Re: My thoughts in response to the lawsuit against the Internet Archive

#23

Post by pwinnski »

bmarquez wrote: post #20

I'm confused by this article. As I remember Archive.org created a "National Emergency Library" basically breaking the 1:1 ratio of physical to digital books in Controlled Digital Lending, and allowing unrestricted use. The lawsuits were brought on June 1st, while the NEL was active. Are these lawsuits based on the CDL (which I personally support) or based on the NEL (which could be considered piracy)?

According to this post, they did not break the 1:1 ratio of physical to digital books, but expanded the pool of physical books to include those unlent at libraries across the country. That is certainly a debatable point, though.

More to the point, the lawsuits are in effect and moving forward now, long after the NEL has ceased operations. They are directed at the CDL now.

Re: My thoughts in response to the lawsuit against the Internet Archive

#24

Post by duxup »

I thought Internet Archive started loaning books ebooks beyond their usual 1 ebook to 1 digital copy system?

The paragraph that addresses this isn't clear to me as it seems to indicate it was 1:1 (although at the time everyone seemed to think it wasn't) and then that paragraph seems to note all the books stuck in other libraries... did they feel they were loaning out ebooks associated with all the libraries that were closed too? Was there some sort of legal arrangement there?

This letter seems very non specific on a critical points....

Re: My thoughts in response to the lawsuit against the Internet Archive

#25

Post by patrickhogan1 »

I love the IA. But it is so clear the argument made is written by a lawyer after the fact. Reading between the lines of the lawyer speak:

1. The books were not locked up and out of the reach of students. Students were able to take their books home. Yes class was over Zoom. Teaching from the same books previously used in the physical classroom. College classes have done this for decades using physical books for online courses.

2. Public libraries throughout the country ramped up digital online access at the start of COVID-19. Students were able to get online library access. It's possible that some obscure books were non-digital (650 million books seems like a stretch). But, obscure books are mostly unused in the classroom. Schools usually assign students classics like "The Giver” which are digitized.

3. The argument is made that IA has a right to lend the books digitally, because it owns a copy of the books. Because any rational person can understand the quantity of books IA digitized casts doubt on if they own a copy. The argument shifts quickly to saying it had a right to digitize because of its 130 “endorsing” libraries.

4. Some of these 130 libraries did not "endorse" IA until after the lawsuit was filed. By the point of the lawsuit the service had been active for some time. Meaning the copyright infringement had already occurred.

5. IA has lawyers on payroll to advise IA on their main product. Which is archiving of copyrighted web content. Meaning that a lawyer likely advised IA before the service started that a library "endorsing" support for a cause !== to a licensing agreement allowing the endorsed cause to use the endorsing libraries’ licensed content.

It should be noted that libraries pay for books. Libraries are a public good and funded by methods such as government funding and donations. Yet they have real expenses.

Imagine a city library. Library cards are limited to city residents. For example, think of a city with 1M residents. That puts a cap on the license costs they will pay for content. Imagine IA serving the world 7B or even just the US 365M. Whoever sells content to the library that is co-sharing content with IA would be charged such exorbitant prices either:

1) the library is unable to license content 2) the library shuts down. 3) the library stops working with IA

IA can be a library. But they have to act like one. Pay for your content like public libraries do.

Re: My thoughts in response to the lawsuit against the Internet Archive

#26

Post by an_opabinia »

wnevets wrote: post #14
eldaisfish wrote: post #3

Nothing makes me more angry than publishers who act like this. I regularly deal with the academic publishing industry and feel the pain of professors and students alike. The usual suspects are involved here - >I call on the executives at Hachette, HarperCollins, Wiley, and Penguin Random House to come together with us to help solve the pressing challenges to access to knowledge during this pandemic. The publishing in…

> Services like Steam, GOG, Epic et al have massively reduced game piracy. This has absolutely been the case for me. I went from pirating everything to having so many games that I've paid for but haven't played yet. I'm sure part of it is being older with more disposable income and less free time but its just so much easier to buy the game on steam.

You'd never know the difference between reducing game piracy and making games that cannot be pirated.

Re: My thoughts in response to the lawsuit against the Internet Archive

#27

Post by duxup »

pwinnski wrote: post #23
bmarquez wrote: post #20

I'm confused by this article. As I remember Archive.org created a "National Emergency Library" basically breaking the 1:1 ratio of physical to digital books in Controlled Digital Lending, and allowing unrestricted use. The lawsuits were brought on June 1st, while the NEL was active. Are these lawsuits based on the CDL (which I personally support) or based on the NEL (which could be considered piracy)?

According to this post, they did not break the 1:1 ratio of physical to digital books, but expanded the pool of physical books to include those unlent at libraries across the country. That is certainly a debatable point, though. More to the point, the lawsuits are in effect and moving forward now, long after the NEL has ceased operations. They are directed at the CDL now.

It seems strange to loan a digital copy of ... someone else's book.

As for the lawsuit going on after they stopped lending, well yeah the legal matter wasn't settled, so it can go on.

Re: My thoughts in response to the lawsuit against the Internet Archive

#28

Post by pwinnski »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #17
karlp wrote: post #5

Considering they were only lending to one person at a time, it does seem like the lawsuit is uncalled for.

I certainly appreciate what they did and I donate to the Internet Archive but what does lending to one person at a time mean here? It's on the internet, anyone could lend, as far as I know. If 1000 users come on a shopping portal and buy things they are all buying one at a time, but 1000 transactions are still done.

Not the person to whom you're replying, but I believe they meant that Archive.org only loans out as many copies of a book as they have access to physically.

Mr. Kahle is now claiming that they kept that up during the emergency period, but expanding the pool of physical books to include those being held my libraries around the country. That doesn't seem to quite line up with what I remember, which was the term "unlimited," but we'll see how that shakes out in court.

Re: My thoughts in response to the lawsuit against the Internet Archive

#29

Post by [deleted] »

ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #21
joshuahaglund wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using controlled digital lending, yes. Why not? The libraries hold licenses to lend this media in physical format but were temporarily shifting to lending using controlled digital lending. They didn't just give away unencrypted copies to be pirated. They did what libraries do, lend media.

They lent unlimited copies. The limit is very very key to being covered under CDL.

[deleted]

Re: My thoughts in response to the lawsuit against the Internet Archive

#30

Post by aSplash0fDerp »

Foundations matter, so legally this is a raw emotion debate and only changes the course of the IA (pivot while the forgiveness/permission quote still applies).

Maybe proposing an annual charity drive for "published" material to fill these new "shared resource" vacuums that you`ve uncovered will satisfy the hybrid-capitalism model that you desire.

Making teaching resources HC compatible (with permission windows or indefinitely) may make compromise-it-forward a movement that is uniquely yours.

Even though Nielsen and the music charts have not figured out how to accurately count digital figures, the tax deduction angle looks promising as part of a formal model.

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