Judge decides against Internet Archive • Hacker News Board

Re: Judge decides against Internet Archive

#241

Post by blululu » Sat, Mar 25, 2023, 3:05 AM UTC

bentley wrote: post #84

jodrellblank wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> " 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…

> Religion bad, Atheism good In the United States, blue laws have historically been used to oppress religious minorities like Jews and Sabbatarian Christians.

No. Those laws were made to curtail drunkenness and the numerous social woes that come with it. Same reason we passed total prohibition. Those religious minorities were negligible in the times and places where they passed blue laws and the only groups that were negatively associated with alcohol were Christian.

Re: Judge decides against Internet Archive

#242

Post by leeoniya » Sat, Mar 25, 2023, 3:06 AM UTC

eyelidlessness wrote: post #209

sparky_z wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can lend the book, they just can't make a copy of it and lend the copy instead.

Which might be legally sound (so says this court, we will presumably hear from others), but it’s logically balderdash. The copyright applies to the “intellectual property” content of the book, not its paper and binding. (I’m sure there are some esoteric exceptions to this because artists gonna art, but I feel confident that I’m representing the vast general case correctly.) If I rightly own a copy of a book, I don’t…

> a digital copy for myself

"myself" being the operative word here.

you can make 100 copies for yourself. what you can't do is make a copy that you give to someone else while simultaneously retaining access to the original (or another copy).

the way libraries work is by relinquishing posession, which replication would circumvent.

Re: Judge decides against Internet Archive

#243

Post by nighthawk454 » Sat, Mar 25, 2023, 3:07 AM UTC

jkdufair wrote: post #215

hedora wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s a terrible ruling. The first sale doctrine says the copy of the book you bought is yours. Lending the book is clearly not copying it. So, I guess you just don’t own anything you buy anymore? Like what if I want to lend a tool to someone, and the tool manufacturer wants to rent their tools out? Is that also illegal? What if the tool contains software? What if reasonable use of the tool requires accessing a prin…

I don’t disagree with the ruling. IA is not lending their copy that they purchased. They are lending a copy of their copy. While that copy is lent out, they are still free to, I.e. read the copy in their possession.

That’s technically true. But frankly it seems like such people have a giant stick up their ass. The digital version would be infinitely more accessible, while still maintaining effectively 1-1 access restrictions. I’m not even sure if they’re _is_ a physical IA library one could go to. For all I know they’re in a vault somewhere. Even the USD isn’t backed 1-1 with physical tokens. It seems patently ridiculous that books be held to this standard in this day and age.

Re: Judge decides against Internet Archive

#244

Post by hker999 » Sat, Mar 25, 2023, 3:07 AM UTC

benatkin wrote: post #233

jkdufair wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t disagree with the ruling. IA is not lending their copy that they purchased. They are lending a copy of their copy. While that copy is lent out, they are still free to, I.e. read the copy in their possession.

Unsurprising that not all of HN is pro-fair use. That's how you digitally send a copy of a book. You're saying something similar to "you wouldn't download a car".

Yet, we should proscute GPL violations when the original GPL code is untouched.

Re: Judge decides against Internet Archive

#245

Post by jmpman » Sat, Mar 25, 2023, 3:09 AM UTC

I’m of the view that the authors/publishers should have to have willingly given up their rights to allow this. When I put something down on paper and sell it, my intention isn’t to allow it to be traded every 35 seconds on the internet, it’s to have made a single copy. Now if the authors/publishers want to allow the physical copy to be lent digitally like IA is doing, I’m all for them having some lic they can sell which allows it. I expect this lic would be 100x more expensive than the simple physical copy.

Re: Judge decides against Internet Archive

#246

Post by ac29 » Sat, Mar 25, 2023, 3:14 AM UTC

grey413 wrote: post #224

musicale wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What IA is doing is removing the physical copy from circulation, making a digital copy, and lending out the digital copy. I don't see the argument that this is "distribution" any more than regular (obnoxious) ebook lending is.

If the IA is creating their own digital copies of physical books, it could be argued that that the IA is creating and distributing derivative works. I'm not certain, but my impression is that derivative works have little in the way of legal protection.

The court order discusses this, and says while the first sale doctrine means IA could resell or lend their physical books, that right does not extend to unauthorized reproductions (such as making an ebook by scanning in a print book).

Re: Judge decides against Internet Archive

#247

Post by crazygringo » Sat, Mar 25, 2023, 3:14 AM UTC

allturtles wrote: post #210

crazygringo wrote: post #80

Yikes. I borrow books constantly from the IA that are hard/impossible to find elsewhere because they've gone out of print. A lot of academic-ish non-fiction from the 1960s-1980s, stuff you can only otherwise get through inter-library loan that takes weeks rather than seconds. Any idea if this means IA has to shut down lending by when? Tomorrow? Next month? Any chances for appeal here? Or any chance they relocate the…

Yes, IA has followed a similar tragic arc as Google Books, another martyr to the dream of a truly 21st century library. What's most tragic about it to me is that that vast majority of works affected are "zombie" copyright works that have no actual commercial value. Someone, somewhere holds the copyright, but no one has sold a copy in years or decades. For the sake of protecting the tiny sliver of commercially valuabl…

Seriously.

Has there been any kind of movement towards a law that would automatically put zombie works into the public domain?

It really doesn't seem unreasonable that if a book, film, recording, or video game hasn't been generally available for sale over the past 5 or 10 years it becomes public domain. Use it or lose it, in other words.

Although it might really only apply to past works. Because while physical books go out of print, e-books will probably be available forever, no?

Re: Judge decides against Internet Archive

#248

Post by bawolff » Sat, Mar 25, 2023, 3:15 AM UTC

thewildginger wrote: post #148

bentley wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“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._Vi…

And honestly they probably have a better (albeit still terrible) case because it was transformative

Re: Judge decides against Internet Archive

#249

Post by Nowado » Sat, Mar 25, 2023, 3:16 AM UTC

opzz wrote: post #213

pdar4123 wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do u need a blockchain? Why not just torrents for sharing.

why not a blockchain? It's much less likely to go down with network issues because people are financially motivated to run the network.

They don't seem motivated to do so now, while torrents, Russian hostings and warez seem up for years. How come?

Re: Judge decides against Internet Archive

#250

Post by bawolff » Sat, Mar 25, 2023, 3:17 AM UTC

boomboomsubban wrote: post #38

jsheard wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The original idea was to only lend out digital copies that are backed by a physical copy, so if challenged the Internet Archive could reasonably argue that they're protected under the same laws that physical libraries are, but when the pandemic kicked off IA launched an "emergency library" which waived the lending limits so any number of copies could be lent out regardless of how many physical copies they have. My as…

The case dealt with the former. This article is the judge's ruling, the National Emergency Library is not mentioned.

Nonetheless, its still the sort of thing that can colour opinion. If you want to change things with a precedent, it is usually best to try and be a perfect angel in every other way possible.