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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

#71

Post by phkahler »

thatcat wrote: post #54
dmurray wrote: post #50

> With this suit, the publishers are saying that in the digital world, we cannot buy books anymore, we can only license and on their terms; we can only preserve in ways for which they have granted explicit permission, and for only as long as they grant permission; and we cannot lend what we have paid for because we do not own it. This is not a rule of law, this is the rule by license. This does not make sense. If tha…

The First Sale doctrine can be applied to the digital domain.

Is there precedent for that? DVDs sure - see Netflix. But that's still physical goods.

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

#72

Post by loeg »

jjcon wrote: post #39
loeg wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the idea is: the library has 5 physical copies. IA loans 5 digital copies while the physical ones are locked up. The number of library copies of the work in circulation is net zero.

HN: Pirating a movie isn’t the same as stealing it HN now: Digital lending should be treated the same as physical lending

Libraries lend movies, too. I'm not sure where that fits into your metaphor.

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

#73

Post by ghaff »

patrickhogan1 wrote: post #25

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…

>Teaching from the same books previously used in the physical classroom.

Yeah, the "but think of the children" card played around this seems mostly disingenuous. They already had their textbooks which they took home. Anything in the public domain is on Gutenberg and elsewhere. And I'm even willing to bet that anything more recent that's likely being taught in school can be fairly trivially found online (or will be simply shared in some form) or, worst case, for the cost of media mail on Amazon.

And, if you actually need to do research in a library, it's not clear to me how much this helps.

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

#74

Post by mjevans »

devwastaken wrote: post #66
dmurray wrote: post #50

> With this suit, the publishers are saying that in the digital world, we cannot buy books anymore, we can only license and on their terms; we can only preserve in ways for which they have granted explicit permission, and for only as long as they grant permission; and we cannot lend what we have paid for because we do not own it. This is not a rule of law, this is the rule by license. This does not make sense. If tha…

IA will lose because the precedent set by winning would mean that all online digital sales can just be distributed. Itd evaporate a trillion dollar market overnight. I disagree with book publishers and general copyright law, but judges can understand the difference between physical books and digital ones. Physical books cannot be outright copied atom for atom in 5 milliseconds and distributed to millions in hours. Th…

The First Sale doctrine SHOULD apply, As someone else replied in a sibling comment. A digital sale should be just that, a perpetual license that can be transferred, inherited, etc.

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

#75

Post by ghaff »

thatcat wrote: post #59
patrickhogan1 wrote: post #25

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…

>Library cards are limited to city residents. For example, think of a city with 1M residents. That puts a cap on the license cost. So you're saying that the amount libraries pay for a book is proportional to the number of residents in that city?

He said "license cost." And, yes, I'm pretty sure how much libraries pay for digital licenses is at least partly based on the size of the population that they're serving. I doubt my small town library pays the same for licenses as the Boston Public Library does.

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

#76

Post by threepio »

I love Brewster Kahle.

He doesn't get nearly enough credit for being one of the VERY few tech zillionaires who has dedicated his subsequent time and money to creating an enduring and necessary public-spirited resource.

(And that part of his career all happened after he & Hillis created the Connection Machine.)

He epitomizes the intellect and curiosity and good ethics that I associate with old-school hackerdom.

I don't know if he can win this dispute. I hope so.

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

#77

Post by loeg »

roblabla wrote: post #55
jjcon wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN: Pirating a movie isn’t the same as stealing it HN now: Digital lending should be treated the same as physical lending

Both can be correct at the same time. Pirating a movie is copyright infringement, not stealing. Digital lending is currently legally gray-zone, but the pragmatic end-game for lenders is to make it so a physical book can be digitally lent so long as the physical book is unused during the lending period. This is because it can easily be shown that the publisher doesn't incur damages, since the same amount of books are…

Digital lending is widely established and supported by publishers generally. It's not especially new at this time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OverDrive,_Inc.#Libraries_and_...

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

#78

Post by mrpopo »

aahhahahaaa wrote: post #61
dmurray wrote: post #50

> With this suit, the publishers are saying that in the digital world, we cannot buy books anymore, we can only license and on their terms; we can only preserve in ways for which they have granted explicit permission, and for only as long as they grant permission; and we cannot lend what we have paid for because we do not own it. This is not a rule of law, this is the rule by license. This does not make sense. If tha…

It's in their best interest to settle in a capitulating way that will hurt them but not kill them. This might have to include a public apology that admits they're in the wrong because publishers can be petty about this type of thing. It doesn't seem like they're willing to do that, and while I agree with their viewpoint and the troubling future with licensing... it may be the hill they die on and I'm not sure it's wo…

In the long term if they accept all kinds of trade offs I am afraid that they will become less and less relevant, and that's why they are taking a stance here.

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

#79

Post by gowld »

phkahler wrote: post #68
dmurray wrote: post #50

> With this suit, the publishers are saying that in the digital world, we cannot buy books anymore, we can only license and on their terms; we can only preserve in ways for which they have granted explicit permission, and for only as long as they grant permission; and we cannot lend what we have paid for because we do not own it. This is not a rule of law, this is the rule by license. This does not make sense. If tha…

>> It's reasonably well established that when it comes to intellectual property, you can refuse to sell it, and only grant a limited license. With some small carve outs like the First Sale doctrine. Maybe pedantic but there is no "intellectual property" law in play here. Just plain old copyright law, under which they do fully own the books - as opposed to licensing them. What copyright law allows is everything that l…

Copyright law is intellectual property law. It's the only kind explicitly mentioned in the US Constitution.

Regular copyright law says that if you _buy_ a book, digital or not, you can resell it. If you license a book, digital or not, you can't except as specified in the license.

IA's point is that digital books (which are many or most books nowadats) aren't sold; instead, they are licensed.

https://www.justice.gov/archives/jm/criminal-resource-manual...

> Further, the privileges created by the first sale principle do not "extend to any person who has acquired possession of the copy or phonorecord from the copyright owner, by rental, lease, loan, or otherwise, without acquiring ownership of it." See 17 U.S.C. § 109(d).

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

#80

Post by gowld »

phkahler wrote: post #71
thatcat wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The First Sale doctrine can be applied to the digital domain.

Is there precedent for that? DVDs sure - see Netflix. But that's still physical goods.

Precedent? It's the law.

https://www.justice.gov/archives/jm/criminal-resource-manual...

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