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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

#131

Post by iso947 »

rocqua wrote: post #108
basch wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now I'm waiting for a Netflix of lending, where I declare what movies I physically own, and can lend them out for credits to watch other movies. The middle man distributes a digital copy. You agree to legal responsible for any movies they distribute, that you claimed you physically owned but don't.

I believe that old movie-rental-stores needed more of a license than just owning the movies in order to rent them out for money.

In the UK, copyright law does not allow your Holme bought vhs/dvd/etc to be used for public viewing in places like oil rigs and schools, nor lending for money. I don’t recall about lending for free.

Your local blockbuster had very different (In a legal sense) videos than your local Tesco - they cost more to buy.

This doesn’t apply to books.

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

#132

Post by wittyreference »

supermatt wrote: post #111
wittyreference wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see anything in IA's FAQ or elsewhere that they limited digital lending to physical copies. I read that they only lent ebooks they had physical possession /of/, but that there was no limit to how many such copies they lent out (i.e., they had one physical copy of Mark Twain, allowed an unlimited number of people to digitally borrow Mark Twain for up to two weeks). If I'm mistaken, I'd appreciate a link that e…

They say in the article that they used controlled digital lending, where they only circulate the EXACT number of copies they (and partner libraries) physically own and are not currently lent.

They only did controlled digital lending before (and after) they pulled the National Emergency Library stunt that got them sued.

Here's the link to their FAQ:

https://help.archive.org/hc/en-us/articles/360042654251-Nati...

To quote:

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

#133

Post by colonwqbang »

supermatt wrote: post #111
wittyreference wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see anything in IA's FAQ or elsewhere that they limited digital lending to physical copies. I read that they only lent ebooks they had physical possession /of/, but that there was no limit to how many such copies they lent out (i.e., they had one physical copy of Mark Twain, allowed an unlimited number of people to digitally borrow Mark Twain for up to two weeks). If I'm mistaken, I'd appreciate a link that e…

They say in the article that they used controlled digital lending, where they only circulate the EXACT number of copies they (and partner libraries) physically own and are not currently lent.

No, that is not true. But it is understandable that you would think that. IAs statement seems written to obscure exactly what they did.

Read this: http://blog.archive.org/national-emergency-library/

> The National Emergency Library launched on March 24, 2020, and closed on June 16, 2020.

> After June 16, books in the National Emergency Library are available to one borrower at a time using controlled digital lending.

This very strongly implies that between March 24 and June 16, they did not pracise controlled digital lending by lending each copy only once at a time.

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

#134

Post by grawprog »

mulmen wrote: post #129
grawprog wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It makes me sad we live in a society where profit is the first and foremost consideration for anything. Preserving history, human creativity, the progress of society, the betterment of future generations all comes second to profit. How many things will get or have been lost to time or just lost in general because they didn't make or cut into profit? The internet archive may have its faults, but its value to humanity…

I think that's an unfair take on the law. If you create something you decide what happens with it. That seems reasonable to me. Why are the rest of us entitled to your creation?

There's a good modern day example we could look at. Reggae music. Jamaica lacks (or did) copyright laws. Because of this, music was reused over and over again. From the 1950's onwards, kids, poor people, anyone with technical knowhow could build a soundsystem, cobbled together from spare parts, get some records and play music. Eventually, many of those people went on to form recording studios and such. Because there was no laws against it, music was widely taken and reused amongst different studios, to the point where these same songs are still being remade today. Because of this, many, many people were lifted from poverty and were able to make careers from this, to the point where reggae has become a global phenomenon, primarily outside north america, where people are still taking these songs and making new versions of them.

Over the years, because of this system, not just the original creators, but hundreds if not thousands of people have benefited, profited and bettered their lives because of music originally recorded in the 1950's and 60's by people, in many cases, long dead.

Under the north american system, the copyright owner would have made millions of dollars, and entire genres of music would.never have been created in their current form.

The value to humanity in that situation far outweighs the profit of the original creators.

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

#135

Post by [deleted] »

kbenson wrote: post #120
dfabulich wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Doesn't the article say that's not what they did, instead lending out copies that were sitting at partner libraries that weren't being lended out because they were closed? If that's the case, we're they not still lending out with each digital copy corresponding to a digital copy?

[deleted]

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

#136

Post by mulmen »

quazar wrote: post #115
nine_k wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 bi…

> The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge." First sentence of the Wikipedia article.

And how will they achieve that mission when someone makes the following edit:

> The Internet Archive was an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge."

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

#137

Post by einpoklum »

mulmen wrote: post #129
grawprog wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It makes me sad we live in a society where profit is the first and foremost consideration for anything. Preserving history, human creativity, the progress of society, the betterment of future generations all comes second to profit. How many things will get or have been lost to time or just lost in general because they didn't make or cut into profit? The internet archive may have its faults, but its value to humanity…

I think that's an unfair take on the law. If you create something you decide what happens with it. That seems reasonable to me. Why are the rest of us entitled to your creation?

> If you create something you decide what happens with it. That seems reasonable to me.

Yeah, with the original physical thing you created with your own two hands. Not with a copy of some text or image in a file.

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

#138

Post by icebraining »

kbenson wrote: post #120
dfabulich wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Doesn't the article say that's not what they did, instead lending out copies that were sitting at partner libraries that weren't being lended out because they were closed? If that's the case, we're they not still lending out with each digital copy corresponding to a digital copy?

The article is muddled, and I suspect that's on purpose, unfortunately.

Lending out one digital copy for each physical is what they usually do. During the Emergency, they removed those limits (euphemistically called "suspending the waitlists").

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

#139

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#140

Post by dgb23 »

mulmen wrote: post #129
grawprog wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It makes me sad we live in a society where profit is the first and foremost consideration for anything. Preserving history, human creativity, the progress of society, the betterment of future generations all comes second to profit. How many things will get or have been lost to time or just lost in general because they didn't make or cut into profit? The internet archive may have its faults, but its value to humanity…

I think that's an unfair take on the law. If you create something you decide what happens with it. That seems reasonable to me. Why are the rest of us entitled to your creation?

I think you make valid point and pose an interesting question. Your comment shouldn’t be downvoted.

There isn’t an easy answer to this. On one side there are many cases where people give away powerful things for free, which has huge positive implications and on the other hand there I sympathize with the notion of wanting to reap benefits of their work.

The underlying problem may be that you only profit if you demand or enforce it?

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