Judge decides against Internet Archive • Hacker News Board

Re: Judge decides against Internet Archive

#141

Post by ipcress_file » Sat, Mar 25, 2023, 1:25 AM UTC

14 wrote: post #22

ipcress_file wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But breaking it before it has changed is risky and foolish, and does more harm than good. As I recall, this is precisely how British Columbia got Sunday shopping. Stores and shopping malls broke the law repeatedly. There were fines, but Sunday shopping was popular. Eventually, public pressure led governments to legalize Sunday opening. I didn't agree with it then and I don't fully agree with it now, but it can work…

I am from BC and the Sunday no shopping was a bit before my time but my dad talks about how stupid it was. If you had a problem and needed something in an emergency well too bad. Didn’t realize you were low on bread and forgot to get it Saturday oh well kids are not getting a sandwich in their lunches for Monday morning school. Like you say eventually people realized the fines were actually just the cost of doing bus…

Oh. There were a small number of corner stores that were allowed to be open. I don't know how they decided that. But you could always get the basics on a Sunday.

Gas stations were also allowed to be open although they rarely had convenience stores attached to them back then.

Re: Judge decides against Internet Archive

#142

Post by snapetom » Sat, Mar 25, 2023, 1:26 AM UTC

duxup wrote: post #98

I'm bummed IA chose to pick this fight by declaring this magical COVID emergency and lending more digital copies than they owned. The outcome seemed inevitable and IMO IA has been dishonest about what the lawsuit with its own statements. It makes me wonder if there are any adults at the helm at IA and I worry about its future. IA is an amazing resource... I don't understand why they chose this hill to fight on.

NEL opened in March 2020.

The first doc on this case was filed June 1, 2020.

NEL closed down almost immediately on June 16, 2020.

IA was definitely and stupidly playing with fire here. As others have said, publishers weren't happy with IA's one hardcopy, one digital loan rule, but lived with it because of the potential bad press. However, I'm willing to bet the NEL pushed them over the edge to go to war. Incredibly reckless and now we've taken a step backwards against IP abuse, IMO.

Re: Judge decides against Internet Archive

#143

Post by warent » Sat, Mar 25, 2023, 1:27 AM UTC

allturtles wrote: post #91

A lot of people in these comments still seem confused about what has happened here. This ruling is not about the emergency library at all. It's a ruling that controlled digital lending (one physical copy backing each digital copy lent out) is illegal.

That seems horrendous. Don't many community/government libraries do this? Seems like a huge blow to freedom of information and sharing.

Re: Judge decides against Internet Archive

#144

Post by nikau » Sat, Mar 25, 2023, 1:27 AM UTC

wmorgan wrote: post #129

nikau wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But breaking it before it has changed is risky and foolish, and does more harm than good. Exactly, that's only for companies like uber and airbnb who add real value to society, not some losers trying to make books accessible.

I don’t know about Airbnb. But you realize that before Uber existed, people ran businesses which were entirely, “you call us up, we’ll send you a car and take you where you want to go,” (And that driver was an independent contractor) I really don’t see the angle that Uber was doing something fundamentally new, except to the extent that they dramatically lowered the price and a lot more people used the service.

Yes my comment was very facetious.

Re: Judge decides against Internet Archive

#145

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Mar 25, 2023, 1:28 AM UTC

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #76

boomboomsubban wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Did the emergency policy lend more digital books than the number of physical books locked in libraries? We'll probably never know, but I think that was the logic. The most checked out book, The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe , had ~850 check outs. I think it's safe to assume they didn't come close to the amount of physical books locked in libraries. Not that it's very important, the pandemic policy is barely ment…

This is a justification that makes sense in theory, but the Internet Archive doesn't own those books and can't track them. If they had asked libraries to explicitly send parts of their collection to the IA for this, that might've held some weight.

[deleted]

Re: Judge decides against Internet Archive

#146

Post by SideQuark » Sat, Mar 25, 2023, 1:28 AM UTC

ipcress_file wrote: post #18

Thorentis wrote: post #2

I think most people here saw this coming. Unfortunately this isn't a question of whether the law is good, it's a question of whether IA broke the current laws we have. IA can and should lobby for copyright law to change. But breaking it before it has changed is risky and foolish, and does more harm than good.

> But breaking it before it has changed is risky and foolish, and does more harm than good. As I recall, this is precisely how British Columbia got Sunday shopping. Stores and shopping malls broke the law repeatedly. There were fines, but Sunday shopping was popular. Eventually, public pressure led governments to legalize Sunday opening. I didn't agree with it then and I don't fully agree with it now, but it can work…

Listing a place a law was broken to advocate for repeating it is not good advice. The proper metric is to see how many times laws are broken and how often that works out for the lawbreaker.

IA is learning the difference, unfortunately.

Re: Judge decides against Internet Archive

#147

Post by alexander-wilms » Sat, Mar 25, 2023, 1:31 AM UTC

jodrellblank wrote: post #81

dgacmu wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not everyone cares about working Sunday. Why is it Sunday? Why not Saturday? Right - one set of religious beliefs that aren't universal. Why should the state be mandating this? Isn't it better to use state power to prevent employers from being able to coerce employees into working excessively or being unable to negotiate the days off that are important to them?

> " Why should the state be mandating this? Isn't it better to use state power to prevent employers from being able to coerce employees into working " Remember when Arkansas rolled back some child labour laws? Hopefully you do, it was last week[1]. The reason why not "just do something good for workers instead" is because companies want cheaper employees with fewer options to leave, not better protections for workers…

[flagged]

Re: Judge decides against Internet Archive

#148

Post by thewildginger » Sat, Mar 25, 2023, 1:34 AM UTC

bentley wrote: post #79

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a less than zero percent chance this Supreme Court decides in favor of the Internet Archive, if they ever even cared to hear the case.

“This” Supreme Court? As opposed to any other Supreme Court? Which Supreme Courts have been friendly to fair use and opposed copyright expansionist arguments?

While this was the southern district of new York, the 9th circuit court of appeals ruled on a similar issue with Vidangel on 2016. They would buy DVDs and let people pay to watch a censored version, even going so far as to purchase a physical version for every one that was streamed for censorship, and they claimed fair use. They were ruled against and filed for chapter 11.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disney_v._VidAngel#:~:text=J...

I'm sure someone will reply to tell us how it's not really that similar but I thought there were some parallels

Re: Judge decides against Internet Archive

#149

Post by SL61 » Sat, Mar 25, 2023, 1:34 AM UTC

Sunspark wrote: post #72

14 wrote: post #33

Meanwhile I can go to any torrent site and download a couple hundred thousand books with ease.

You can always get something, but most people don't have the knowledge of how to go about it without asking someone for guidance first.

I would agree with this if the issue were movies or games, but most people know that you can Google "[book title] pdf" and get a free copy. The small file sizes mean that piracy sites don't need to rely on torrents and can just offer a direct download. I frequently see piracy sites in search results just from searching the title of a book. The barrier to pirating a book is extremely low.

Re: Judge decides against Internet Archive

#150

Post by dmix » Sat, Mar 25, 2023, 1:36 AM UTC

warent wrote: post #143

allturtles wrote: post #91

A lot of people in these comments still seem confused about what has happened here. This ruling is not about the emergency library at all. It's a ruling that controlled digital lending (one physical copy backing each digital copy lent out) is illegal.

That seems horrendous. Don't many community/government libraries do this? Seems like a huge blow to freedom of information and sharing.

Is this just ebook lending? Is that popular among local libraries?

I thought Kindle/Nook/Apple books/etc completely dominated that market. Reading PDFs on computers/tablets for long form stuff never made much sense to me. I'm curious if local libraries get much traction from their digital libraries.

I could see audiobooks getting locked down being a big hit though. Audible has a monopoly on that harder than ebooks ever experienced.