201–210 of 242 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The EFF is taking up the legal defense in this suit, so your donation would be ending up at the same place anyway.
I knew that! And I have no problem with it, since EFF are upfront about what the money is for (and are probably better/more rational about the battles they pick)
Honestly, you may be able to split it between them and ultimately do more good than the sum of the halves.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 somethibg, you decide what happens to it. In the case of IP, this should mean you decide whether or not you want to release it/tell others about it. But an idea is not a physical object. Once you tell somebody else your idea, they can tell somebody else with no loss to yourself. It's like lighting a candle. If you create one, you do not have to share it with anybody. But once you do light somebody else'…
IP law exists so people share ideas, because they can do so while still being compensated. Otherwise they might keep them secret, not devote a lot of time and resources into developing them etc.
"You spent a billion dollars to develop a medication for this type of cancer. Now everybody can manufacture it and you're down a billion dollars. Thanks for your generosity!"
How often do you believe that will be said before people stop investing money into development?
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…
So this might be a weird question: Do students in the US not normally take their textbooks home? The way you phrased it sounds like they are normally locked up in the school.
I have a monthly reoccurring donation in the amount of $10. If you haven’t donated please do. https://archive.org/donate/
But once that is clear, definitely going to continue throwing money at IA (or whatever successor may form). They're an absolutely invaluable asset for all of humanity.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think in a way there is a cultural failing. This feels like a problem some countries don't have. It's not uniquely US, but how big of a problem are large donors in the Netherlands, New Zealand, or Denmark?
Frankly I’m not especially familiar with politics outside of the US, but I think the US has two distinct disadvantages compared to a lot of other countries: 1. Being one of the first lintel democracies implemented, it got some things wrong. The electoral collage and that there’s a local optima in a two party system are the first two problems that come to mind and were avoided by many western democracies. 2. The US is…
> electoral collage
I'd disagree that the US got this wrong; it made a lot of sense historically. These days it arguably introduces some unnecessary inefficiency into the process but I don't think that really matters in practice. The primary objection seems to be that it doesn't reflect the popular vote, but that's entirely by design and arguably the right thing to do.
> two party system
I agree with this but want to clarify that it's specifically first past the post due to winner takes all voting that causes this. It badly needs to be fixed but why would party politicians directly vote against their own career interests like that?
Separately, political parties themselves were argued against when the country was founded but sadly they were allowed. I'd note that most (all?) western countries also got this part wrong (IMO).
> The large population makes it hard to get enough consensus to make fundamental structural improvements
This is intentional. AFAIU, the US political system was specifically designed to be resistant to change in order to avoid the failures of previous republics.
> reduces the influence of an individual vote for any national office
Things were hypothetically (AFAIU) supposed to be done at the state level (think EU) but the interstate commerce clause ended up doing wonders for that.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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.
A lot of couples out there would very much disagree that everyone should have access to the image files they created for each other.
If they posted their photo collection online for all to see, they can't expect people not to make a copy of some of the photos.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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."
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Should you also bully self-published authors? With knowledge of how hard it is to become a full time author already.
Have any self-published authors complained about their book's presence on IA? Has anyone shown (or seems likely to show) material harm? AFAIK IA has legal, physical copies which they scan for digital lending. If that is not the case, and they will serve any random ebook, I would like to know because it would definitely shift my opinion.
Note that many other libraries across the nation engage in exactly the same practice. Of course the legal problem is that digital goods are "licensed" instead of "owned" ...
> 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…
> If that's the main argument of IA, they'll have a tough time in court. As a non-profit library the plaintiffs effectively have to show that the Internet Archive acted in bad faith[1] in order to receive statutory damages. § 504 (c)(2) says, > The court shall remit statutory damages in any case where an infringer believed and had reasonable grounds for believing that his or her use of the copyrighted work was a fair…
https://kylecourtney.com/2020/03/11/covid-19-copyright-libra...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> As a non-profit library the plaintiffs effectively have to show that the Internet Archive acted in bad faith[1] in order to receive statutory damages. >> The court shall remit statutory damages in any case where an infringer believed and had reasonable grounds for believing that his or her use of the copyrighted work was a fair use under section 107 Specifically, the plaintiffs have to show that uncontrolled digita…
IA clearly believed this was fair use and I’m sure can demonstrate reasonable grounds for that belief. Even if the plaintiff’s lawyers can make a stronger argument for it not being fair use (they probably can), that doesn’t negate the existence of IA’s grounds. Here’s a story about weak but reasonable grounds: Say I think it rained last night because I glanced out the window in the morning and saw the street was wet.…