I'm glad to see the names of the publishers involved in the lawsuit - "Hachette, HarperCollins, Wiley, and Penguin Random House" - out on the open. I will gladly avoid purchasing books by the companies that are threatening this remarkable digital institution in a time when hundreds of physical libraries are closed.
My thoughts in response to the lawsuit against the Internet Archive
91–100 of 242 posts
Re: My thoughts in response to the lawsuit against the Internet Archive
#92Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
> A digital sale should be just that, a perpetual license that can be transferred, inherited, etc.
Even if that was the case (which it isn't) then the IA would still lose this case.
Re: My thoughts in response to the lawsuit against the Internet Archive
#93Earlier quoted context omitted.
> but what did they expect would happen when they dropped their entire legal justification? Specifically what legal justification to you think they dropped that they followed previously?
They were doing controlled digital lending (CDL) with a strict owned-to-loaned ratio. Then, during the emergency, they waived all waitlists and limits, allowing an unlimited number of loans for a single owned copy. They no longer could claim that they were still engaged in CDL, so there was no legal justification to make all of those copies.
I wonder if perhaps they are sitting on data showing that no individual page of any book was ever being viewed by more than one person at a time, and therefore they were still effectively just redistributing the physical book pages they already owned.
If so, their legal basis looks much much stronger.
Re: My thoughts in response to the lawsuit against the Internet Archive
#94I'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.
> According to this post, they did not break the 1:1 ratio of physical to digital book...
I think the article implies that without explicitly saying it. Their own announcements and FAQs about the NEL certainly didn't say that.
Is this controlled digital lending?
No. It is close to controlled digital lending but is significantly different while waitlists are suspended. This library is being mobilized in response to a global pandemic and US national emergency. It shares aspects of controlled digital lending by controlling the physical book that was scanned and the redistribution of files through digital rights management software, but differs by having no waitlists for users borrowing books. Once the US national emergency is over and waitlists are back to their normal capacity, the service will return to full controlled digital lending.
Re: My thoughts in response to the lawsuit against the Internet Archive
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Why? A library lending someone a book belonging to a partner library because that library is not easily accessible to the lendee is common practice.
But usually a van physically transports the book to the lendee...
I think the debate will be if making a digital copy and locking the original book in a safe is equivalent, and if I were a judge, I would say "no", because to say otherwise significantly weakens copyright in so many other ways.
Re: My thoughts in response to the lawsuit against the Internet Archive
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, I don't think they're going to win this one, either. Their best bet is probably to shame the publishers into dropping the suit, since they won't actually win if it comes down to it. I assume that's what this is meant to do: shame the publishers.
Hopefully they can just settle it in a way that IA goes on, but maybe with some better guidance at the top of IA.
If I were them, I would be signing perpetual data-sharing agreements with other sister companies and archives, and prepare to protect as much of the archive as possible in bankruptcy...
Re: My thoughts in response to the lawsuit against the Internet Archive
#97It has been stated many times that if today's copyright laws had been in effect 200 years ago, US libraries would never have been allowed to exist. This situation looks to me like a fresh attempt by the beneficiaries of copyright law to destroy libraries in general; not just the IA. Between this fiasco and paywalls around scientific literature, it's becoming impossible for me to see publishers as anything other than…
And thats why i like libgen..
havnt paid for a book in some time, cause most/all ebooks are overpriced af imo.
And also how can i resell my ebooks? why would i pay the same price as a physical copy then..
Re: My thoughts in response to the lawsuit against the Internet Archive
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
I'm astonished and dismayed by all the comments calling for capitulation. It's very clear that the publishers in this case are bullies, plain and simple. You don't kneel to bullies if you want them to stop, you fight back. Not to do so leads to tyranny and feudalism, where the whims of the large become the law.
I think this does not mesh well with their mission.
They are the Internet Archive, the archive of freely (in the past) available stuff that can't be found anywhere else, in most cases. This is much more fragile than old books which likely exists in thousands of copies anyway.
I do not admire their stance, and am unhappy that they are recklessly jeopardizing their unique thing to make a case where they have a very big chance to lose, without any circumstances forcing them to do so.
This is not how you serve as a warden of a valuable archive. (I know, I know, it's their right and their choice.)
Re: My thoughts in response to the lawsuit against the Internet Archive
#99Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
First Sale doctrine evenly applied to digital books would allow you to freely resell the ebook you purchased. It probably wouldn't mean allowing you to make infinite copies and distribute them freely, abolishing the market for the actual book.
Yes, that's not the technical definition of FS doctrine, but that doctrine was written before this technological context existed.
Re: My thoughts in response to the lawsuit against the Internet Archive
#100> Controlled Digital Lending is a respectful and balanced way to bring our print collections to digital learners. A physical book, once digital, is available to only one reader at a time.
I never understood this "lending" practice. Can somebody explain? Sounds like obscurantism to me. So, if there is only one digitally scanned copy of an old book, only one person on planet Earth can borrow it? Because I remember a few times when I clicked on some document in IA and it said I couldn't read it "because it was borrowed".