Judge decides against Internet Archive • Hacker News Board

Re: Judge decides against Internet Archive

#591

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

misnome wrote: post #530

RedCondor wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a little amusing to compare the reactions here to Internet Archive breaking the law ("The law is the law…") to Uber/AirBnB breaking the law ("Newcomers challenging the system! Ambitious, bold disruption!").

I constantly see people still complaining about what Uber and AirBnB do/did. And, likewise, there are plenty of comments here saying the same positive things about IA. Are you just choosing to ignore those comments?

It's never a question of existence/nonexistence. One can always cite some minor example.

It's a question of proportion, and I'd go further say that it's quite disingenuous to pretend that this contradiction, in this website, isn't heavily tilted in favour of predatory corporations and against public good services (i.e. libertarian).

This of course makes sense. Innumerably more people here used Uber than IA, and what's more, many were literal employees of Uber, AirBnB, etc. and its competitors. It would be silly to expect anything else. But it's still amusing.

Re: Judge decides against Internet Archive

#592

Post by Eumenes » Sat, Mar 25, 2023, 1:50 PM UTC

eggburger wrote: post #524

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…

Who gave them the right to say it was legal or illegal in the first place? People in here pretending one party is better than the other because they give you back fundamental human rights they have no business controlling the legality of to begin with.

That's the Supreme Courts job?

Re: Judge decides against Internet Archive

#593

Post by johnnymorgan » Sat, Mar 25, 2023, 1:50 PM UTC

encomiast wrote: post #313

agalunar wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I have a physical object, you can't also have that physical object. That's natural in the sense that it follows from natural law (physics). If I have an idea, or a digital copy of something, you can also use that idea, or also get a digital copy, without depriving me of it. The only reason you can't use my idea or own a digital copy is because society decided that it would punish you for doing so – and that's unna…

Sure, and also I am bigger and stronger than you. Therefore I take your physical object and you can't stop me. That's natural in the sense that it follows from natural law (physics). Natural laws are brutish and don't support the kind of society that most of us want to live in.

You've misconstrued natural law with might is right, which is a concept not a law.

Re: Judge decides against Internet Archive

#594

Post by GolfPopper » Sat, Mar 25, 2023, 1:51 PM UTC

jenadine wrote: post #387

numpad0 wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s kind of true that idea of IP is entirely made-up, but it’s also important to recognize that it was made up to support and safeguard author’s living . IP allows authors to require values of content to be preserved, recognized, and financially rewarded(in one-time or recurring payments). In the absence of IP, printing companies can take manuscripts and contents to profit off of copies free-for-all style, bankrupti…

Disney and Electronic Arts employs hundreds of thousands of employees that gets to enjoy their salary. They are paid through the IP. How is that not IP working as intended?

Yeah, about that - Disney decided years ago it doesn't need to pay authors royalties it legally owes them.

https://www.writersmustbepaid.org/

Re: Judge decides against Internet Archive

#595

Post by GolfPopper » Sat, Mar 25, 2023, 1:53 PM UTC

ssalka wrote: post #306

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.

If a judge thinks THAT's illegal, wait till they hear about fractional reserve banking.

Pretty sure fractional reserve banking passes the "do rich people make money from this" test, and is therefore fine.

Re: Judge decides against Internet Archive

#596

Post by hyperman1 » Sat, Mar 25, 2023, 1:53 PM UTC

komali2 wrote: post #438

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…

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…

As an non-USA inhabitant, one thing I see is that you have a lot more voting chances than most countries. I heard e.g. you can vote for officials like sheriffs and stuff.

So don't only vote for a president, vote for everything you can. Become member of both parties, and vote for presidential candidates at both sides.

I think after that, you shouldn't be afraid to 'throw your vote away'. Gerrymandering and other stuff made most voters in the presidentials irrelevant. So the only voice left there is the signal function of 3rd part vote. Make it clear yo don't like the hobson's choice you've left. You did what you could in the previous round.

Don't succumb to nihilisms. The powers that be seem to have dividers in a dumber and smarter half. The dumber half gets very simplistic reasons to vote for some extremist side. The smarter half gets tamed by nihilistic passiveness. Both get all kinds of divisive news as a side dish. Don't fall into this trap. A big enough group of people aligned around a common cause is the biggest danger to any powerfull entity, and they fear them and do anything to break them up.

Re: Judge decides against Internet Archive

#597

Post by mdp2021 » Sat, Mar 25, 2023, 1:54 PM UTC

bdw5204 wrote: post #590

magicalist wrote: post #580

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 th…

> If ... digitizing and distribution of old ... is fair use

It's a library. A library does that.

Re: Judge decides against Internet Archive

#598

Post by hgsgm » Sat, Mar 25, 2023, 1:55 PM 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…

Zombie works are free to share if there truly is no rightsholder pressing claims.

Re: Judge decides against Internet Archive

#599

Post by Mezzie » Sat, Mar 25, 2023, 1:56 PM UTC

mmanfrin wrote: post #170

superkuh wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.techdirt.com/2023/03/22/book-publishers-wont-sto... is a good overview (from a day or two before the judgement). >Every part of that has been deemed legal. Copyright law already has first sale rights, written directly into the law and allow for the lending or reselling of copyright-covered works without a license or permission. Similarly libraries are given explicit rights to make copies, so long as those…

> that they don’t deteriorate the way that physical books do Wow, so they're arguing that the destruction of the sold good is implicit in the sale, and that preventing that is therefore illegal.

It's more pernicious than that because it's a lie.

Broadly speaking, physical books last much longer than ebooks have been proven to. With preservation measures, you can get 100s of years out of a single book copy, but even without most books will last for decades unless something catastrophic happens or someone destroys them on purpose. I have several books from the 1800s that weren't cared for at all (picked up at an estate sale) and they're perfectly serviceable and would be fine if I rebound them.

So I have books from the 1860s that are still usable. Given how the digital world has developed, the odds of someone's Kindle or ePub file being viable in 2180 is exceptionally low. In the same way that playing old video games can be a hassle, I'd be shocked if we're still using the same files and formats in 160 years. (Outside of us weirdo archivists of course).

Re: Judge decides against Internet Archive

#600

Post by forgotusername6 » Sat, Mar 25, 2023, 1:56 PM UTC

bachmeier wrote: post #490

forgotusername6 wrote: post #482

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Judges are there to enforce the law, not to make it. You can't hope that the judge takes your side because then the judge could just as easily take the other side. There is of course an element of interpretation which the judges can use to decide in different directions over the same thing, but that again is an example of a broken law.

> Judges are there to enforce the law, not to make it. That's not the right characterization of the argument. Judges are there to tell legislators that they can't make certain laws. The abortion dispute is not about judges making abortion legal, it's about judges telling politicians that they cannot make abortion illegal. Without that, politicians would literally have the ability to do anything they want.

I assume you are coming from the standpoint of the judges working out if a law is unconstitutional. My country, the UK, does not have a written constitution, so this kind of thing doesn't come up as often. However, a constitution is still just a bunch of legal principles, set by government. The judges are still making rulings based on a set of rules. If the rules need changing then the people should elect the right people to change them.