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Judge decides against Internet Archive

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Re: Judge decides against Internet Archive

#291

Post by thebooktocome »

hackernewds wrote: post #275
allturtles wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

What happened to Google Books? I would argue the artist still deserves to retain value, regardless of the size of it unless they give it up. If it expires, sure it's public domain.

But does the artist deserve to retain the value of their work seventy years after their death?

Given the very large proportion of orphaned works, a very large proportion of living authors don't think their existing corpus has any residual value to them.

Re: Judge decides against Internet Archive

#292

Post by gaganyaan »

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.

[flagged]

Re: Judge decides against Internet Archive

#293

Post by alwayslikethis »

endisneigh wrote: post #260
friend_and_foe wrote: post #255

I don't understand why users would voluntarily move away from piracy. I prefer "you can't do anything about it" to "please let us." Why the norm, base line expectation of the end user is not identity obfuscation and free access to information without hindrance I just don't get.

You could say the same about stealing physical books.

Stealing physical books deprives the owner their right to the book. Copying a digital book only "deprives" the "owner" a right to control its distribution. It's not nearly the same thing. Whereas ownership of physical items is permanent to ensure society would function, the right to control distribution is a concession we make to authors to allow them to make a profit. In our era, this is so ridiculously abused that it is fine to take back some of it. For example, the author should be entitled to the right of controlling copying if he action intends to distribute copies. If book is out of print because the author decides it is not profitable, then the right should go back to us.

Re: Judge decides against Internet Archive

#294

Post by encomiast »

cat_plus_plus wrote: post #285

Intellectual property is an unnatural, made up construct that will one day be seen as ridiculous as absolute monarchy is today. If we are going to allow it and penalize people who are doing natural human things like sharing with friends, there has to be a specific benefit to society in every instance. For example, pay taxes on copyrights and patents, increasing every year to reflect disturbance caused to society.

"Intellectual property is an unnatural, made up construct"

So, what laws and constructs of civilized life are not an unnatural made up constructs? You seem to be suggesting there is some natural law that excludes things like intellectual property. Which natural laws, specifically, are you talking about?

Re: Judge decides against Internet Archive

#295

Post by cat_plus_plus »

PKop wrote: post #288
cat_plus_plus wrote: post #285

Intellectual property is an unnatural, made up construct that will one day be seen as ridiculous as absolute monarchy is today. If we are going to allow it and penalize people who are doing natural human things like sharing with friends, there has to be a specific benefit to society in every instance. For example, pay taxes on copyrights and patents, increasing every year to reflect disturbance caused to society.

Democracy will one day be seen as ridiculous as absolute monarchy is today.

Quite possibly, society doesn't sit still, but it's still an improvement from before in modern constitutional republic context. Beats going to war to change rulers.

Re: Judge decides against Internet Archive

#296

Post by alwayslikethis »

A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: post #183
Algemarin wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Try Library Genesis: https://libgen.is/

This was going to be my next question with basic assumption that the entire gathered information will either vanish, get moved to torrents or splintered across various believers of the cause.

I hope they would come up with a way to publish the information for backing up or give it over to libgen.

Re: Judge decides against Internet Archive

#297

Post by thebooktocome »

baryphonic wrote: post #287

I saw this coming. A few days ago, I read that IA's lawyers argued fair use in part based on "transforming" the content by making copies at scale. I was surprised & astonished that they'd try such sophistry, since a verbatim copy isn't transformative at all. I felt IA's lawyers were grasping at straws if they were making that fair use argument. Everyone would do better to lobby Congress to change the law to allow for…

> since a verbatim copy isn't transformative at all

It's not a verbatim copy; the argument specifically involved converting content from one format (physical book) to another (ebook).

> Everyone would do better to lobby Congress

Good luck outspending the big publishers. How many people who work for a living does it take to match Disney's capacity to bribe Congresscritters?

Re: Judge decides against Internet Archive

#299

Post by wilsonnb3 »

endisneigh wrote: post #260
friend_and_foe wrote: post #255

I don't understand why users would voluntarily move away from piracy. I prefer "you can't do anything about it" to "please let us." Why the norm, base line expectation of the end user is not identity obfuscation and free access to information without hindrance I just don't get.

You could say the same about stealing physical books.

How many times must we have the discussion about the differences between stealing a physical item and copying a digital one?

Re: Judge decides against Internet Archive

#300

Post by thebooktocome »

LeoPanthera wrote: post #19
sva_ wrote: post #5

This sucks, big time.

It does suck, but it was self-inflicted. I love the IA, I've even done volunteer work for the Physical Archive, but the "emergency library" was mad. I can't imagine how they justified it.

The National Emergency Library is barely relevant to the current ruling, which is primarily about Controlled Digital Lending.
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