Judge decides against Internet Archive • Hacker News Board

Re: Judge decides against Internet Archive

#581

Post by vinyl7 » Sat, Mar 25, 2023, 1:18 PM UTC

prox wrote: post #469

komali2 wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What actions can Americans possibly take given the captured two party system and drawing back of voting rights? Not to mention the wildly unrepresentative government, wherein for example more people can vote for Trump in California than Texas in 2020 yet each of those person's votes are functionally meaningless, or, republicans can fail for over two decades to win a popular vote and still elect three presidents in th…

Getting involved, grass roots style. The feeling of powerlessness is exactly the way you become inert to do anything. “What can I do.” Politics work from the local to the national, so getting involved locally is a good thing, or organizations that work to promote the ideals you want to see in the world.

Even if you do get involved, you're going to get tackled by the quarterback trying to enact the changes that you see are needed. What has been happening in politics over the last several years? Bickering about non-issues that don't really effect people.

What did the senate do this week? Interview the TikTok CEO. Meanwhile our economy is in shambles, inflation is out of control, housing and rent is unaffordable, the middle class is dying.

Why are they over there arguing about wokeness, screaming about communists and facists being on the precipice of taking over the country, and interviewing the tiktok CEO? Because that doesn't require any action. It distracts the public from real problems. The partisan inflammatory and meaningless screeching is enough to get them re-elected, so why do any hard work fixing problems?

And so people who do try to get involved in order to fix real issues like the economy or housing, end up getting blocked by pointless debates. It's system-wide filibustering.

Re: Judge decides against Internet Archive

#582

Post by Qahlel » Sat, Mar 25, 2023, 1:28 PM UTC

uda wrote: post #408

Initially I'm enraged against the publishers, the judge and the system in general as many of you, but they are not the issue, while I can't talk on behalf of IA, I don't see this as a fight against the publishers, but a fight against broken business models flourishing because and protected by broken laws meant to protect earlier broken business models The current law is broken, we know that, but most of us don't gras…

every monopoly is created by the government (read: state and laws).

Re: Judge decides against Internet Archive

#583

Post by shadowgovt » Sat, Mar 25, 2023, 1:32 PM UTC

punnerud wrote: post #529

politelemon wrote: post #461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and then we expect the judge to "save" us from the broken law instead of holding the legislators accountable Why can't it be both? All this does is keep us busy looking where the 'root cause' is and never actually solve anything because the mechanisms to fix those things don't exist... all the while others reap its benefits.

Could the law be nullified? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nullification_(U.S._Constitu...

No, because no jury was involved.

Re: Judge decides against Internet Archive

#584

Post by shadowgovt » Sat, Mar 25, 2023, 1:33 PM UTC

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 is a "right to life" in a world where nature is red in tooth and claw, but it is an extremely useful unnatural, made-up construct.

All laws are ideas had by people and backed by collective (or in some regimes, concentrated) force.

Re: Judge decides against Internet Archive

#585

Post by malborodog » Sat, Mar 25, 2023, 1:34 PM UTC

gcanyon wrote: post #392

bradrn wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is interesting, from that section: Nor does IA’s promise not to lend simultaneously its lawfully acquired print copies and its unauthorized reproductions help its case. As an initial matter, IA has not kept its promise. Although the Open Library’s print copies of the Works in Suit are non-circulating, IA concedes that it has no way of verifying whether Partner Libraries remove their physical copies from circulat…

Strange that this isn't easily dealt with by: 1. IA actually buying a physical copy (or as many copies as they plan on simultaneously making available to borrowers) of the book. 2. After scanning the physical copy, destroying it, and documenting same. Then as long as they guarantee that they only loan out as many copies as they physically had (before destroying them) there's no question of simultaneous usage.

Why isn't it easily dealt with by doing that??

Re: Judge decides against Internet Archive

#586

Post by cowsandmilk » Sat, Mar 25, 2023, 1:39 PM UTC

gcanyon wrote: post #392

bradrn wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is interesting, from that section: Nor does IA’s promise not to lend simultaneously its lawfully acquired print copies and its unauthorized reproductions help its case. As an initial matter, IA has not kept its promise. Although the Open Library’s print copies of the Works in Suit are non-circulating, IA concedes that it has no way of verifying whether Partner Libraries remove their physical copies from circulat…

Strange that this isn't easily dealt with by: 1. IA actually buying a physical copy (or as many copies as they plan on simultaneously making available to borrowers) of the book. 2. After scanning the physical copy, destroying it, and documenting same. Then as long as they guarantee that they only loan out as many copies as they physically had (before destroying them) there's no question of simultaneous usage.

The Internet Archive freely admitted in the case that the physical copies owned by partner libraries were not destroyed.

Re: Judge decides against Internet Archive

#587

Post by ncphil » Sat, Mar 25, 2023, 1:42 PM UTC

maxwell wrote: post #575

komali2 wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What actions can Americans possibly take given the captured two party system and drawing back of voting rights? Not to mention the wildly unrepresentative government, wherein for example more people can vote for Trump in California than Texas in 2020 yet each of those person's votes are functionally meaningless, or, republicans can fail for over two decades to win a popular vote and still elect three presidents in th…

Odd to open asking what actions Americans can take, and then closing with a bizarre appeal to a noble wealth hoarder. What can we do? Uncap the House. Repeal the Reapportionment Act of 1929. The billionaires easily bribe 435 reps, several thousand would be harder. And in line with historical representation. https://www.reddit.com/r/uncapthehouse

Something many have advocated for decades. But keep in mind that there are tens of thousands of elected offices in the US, most of them nonpartisan, local positions that cost little to contest: yet it's incredibly hard to find people willing to run. Voter apathy is a huge problem here, in part due to historic voter suppression efforts baked into the system, but the dearth of candidates willing to participate in elections is even more serious. There again, legal discouragements, especially in the most significant races (state and federal legislature, executive), are endemic. Still, too many offices at the local level (town and city council, special district boards) go uncontested: leaving one or the other major party -- or venal representatives of the FIRE sector -- in control to mismanage and misappropriate power in areas directly impacting public life.

Re: Judge decides against Internet Archive

#588

Post by GolfPopper » Sat, Mar 25, 2023, 1:47 PM UTC

nmeagent wrote: post #426

alwayslikethis wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Make no mistake, the law is specific made to limit free access to information. Originally this was a reasonable concession to encourage creative work, but as the length extended and copyright starts to be controlled by massive corporations, they gradually became a way to protect profits.

Right. IMO copyright in general seriously conflicts with the very concepts of free expression and ownership. As corporations eat the world and are able to push to maximize copyright to protect their profits, our rights of expression and ownership are diminished. Fair use and the first sale doctrine will ultimately be meaninglessly minimized curiosities if we don't fight, tooth and nail, corporate IP holders and the b…

This.

When IP laws existed to make sure authors could be compensated people broadly supported them. The perception has changed (for many reasons), to where people broadly see IP laws as an enabler for corporate greed more than being about fair compensation for authors. (See Disney not paying owed royalties, for example.)

We can either have "good copyright" that the public sees as reasonable, or we can have rampant piracy and the consequences thereof. The villains of the piece are those who deliberately perpetuate an unsustainable system out of greed (and I am not talking about authors and publishers trying to get paid for the work they've done).

Re: Judge decides against Internet Archive

#589

Post by vasco » Sat, Mar 25, 2023, 1:47 PM UTC

encomiast wrote: post #382

vasco wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was created to allow the United States to make money printing books without paying for them but not allowing other countries to print their books. Later it was expanded to keep poor countries and people from affording medicine. All enforced by threat of economic sanctions with the full backing of the US armed forces. Reading on the history of copyright would be a good start before perpetuating misconceptions.

The idea of copyright predates the United States. The English ‘Statute of Anne’ of 1710 is typically cited as the first modern expression.

In the world of copyright and patents, there's a before and an after the USA. Anyone trying to make a different case must be trying to fool themselves.

Re: Judge decides against Internet Archive

#590

Post by bdw5204 » Sat, Mar 25, 2023, 1:48 PM UTC

magicalist wrote: post #580

colonwqbang wrote: post #495

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A system where judges ignore the law and just rule based on their general gut feeling, is much worse.

This was a fair use case. The judge ruling on a question of law is exactly how it works.

If the Internet Archive's digitizing and distribution of old books is fair use then so is a video game ROM site that distributes digital images of pre-PS360 era games that are no longer available to purchase legally. except at exorbitant rates on eBay. And there's also a strong case for the original Napster being fair use if IA is.

I don't think there was ever any serious doubt that the Internet Archive would lose their case as they are clearly in violation of copyright law. The issue in the case is that the copyright laws are bad laws that have become contrary to their purpose of "promoting the useful arts and sciences" due to the copyright terms being absurdly long (and the lack of any serious deterrent to fraudulent DMCA claims which has allowed for the proliferation of such claims as a censorship and/or doxxing technique) and need to be reformed. It was unwise for the Internet Archive to violate copyright law just as it was unwise for Bowser the ROM site owner[0] to violate copyright law because flagrantly violating copyright law is an effective way to get yourself bankrupted via lawsuits and an ineffective way to get bad intellectual property laws changed.

[0]: https://venturebeat.com/games/gary-bowser-has-to-pay-nintend...