Is there potentially room here for the Librarian of Congress to bless CDL? Or would that require an act of Congress?
Judge decides against Internet Archive
671–680 of 835 posts
Re: Judge decides against Internet Archive
#672Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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.
But the judges should only overrule legislators when their laws violated higher level legislative authority or constitutions, right? Do you think a judge should be able to legislate what the law is independent of elected officials? Why would you trust them, especially since they are appointed by politicians or elected themselves?
...There's a reason the judiciary scared the bajeezus out of Thomas Jefferson.
Look at how the 2nd Amendment basically does not exist for some of the most populous states because SCOTUS refuses to reign in the more egregious examples of judicial/legislative reacharound like Wickett v. Filburn, or the vast majority of firearms legislation in places like NY and California.
Roe v. Wade is a shining example of how legalism can get turned on it's head just by changing out the authoritative judge who has the last word, or a new case coming up and being heard that threatens a change in viewpoint of SCOTUS.
The Writ of Certiorari is in my opinion the most overpowered political lever in the entire U.S. in the negative sense in that it's not being granted robs millions of an opportunity for redress of real harms, and in a positive sense in that when it is granted it can completely alter the judicial landscape for decades without legislative action.
Re: Judge decides against Internet Archive
#673Initially 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…
> The current law is broken I think many agree that copyright needs to be shortened, but what does “broken” mean, exactly? I have good feelings for the Internet Archive, but in this case it’s about a handful of books that are being copied and distributed a mere 5 years after initial publication, which I think a lot of people who want copyright shortened would still agree is quite a bit too short. Books frequently get…
Really the main (even only?) thing "broken" about copyright is the terms. (ADDED: I generally favor orphan works legislation but I also get the argument that this is also more likely to favor corporations than individuals.)
And basically all the schemes to make copyright more expensive, difficult, requiring jumping through hoops and paying increasing amounts of money to renew? That just basically screws individual creators (who already don't make much money for the most part) to the benefit of the major content rights holders who are not going to forget or be unable to pay for copyright renewal. Which is probably not the objective of most of the people dreaming these up.
The US actually took a pretty big step towards benefitting more small-time creatives when it aligned with the Berne Convention and did away with explicit notices being required.
Re: Judge decides against Internet Archive
#674I’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 wh…
Copyright law already forces copyright holders to give up their rights after a certain amount of time. And if you're OK with that, all that's left is to argue the duration. :)
Re: Judge decides against Internet Archive
#675Earlier quoted context omitted.
I said it before on this very forum. Wikipedia does not really need your donations these days. IA just might.
Unfortunately IA lost all credibility in my eyes, when they decided that one journalist in particular gets to decide that none of their (awful) tweets should be archived[1]. I understand not allowing certain things to be archived, but the tweets of a public person, especially one who works as a news-maker, should certainly be in the allowed list. E: And just to be clear, this was before said writer set their tweets t…
The demand for ideological purity and that the revolution be perfect is the reason that progressive causes lose so goddamn always.
Your opponent doesn’t play by these rules.
Re: Judge decides against Internet Archive
#676Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's giving everyone in the country the same amount of voting power. That's not defying the will of anyone. Stop focusing in on exactly how individual electors would supposedly defy things, because the point of the compact is to make electors irrelevant, and the overall outcome follows people's will perfectly fine. Consider this: If states traded pairs of electors with each other your logic would call that defying th…
You are neglecting to understand that the States are separate from each other, with a right to decide their affairs themselves. The nationwide popular vote is meaningless because the United States of America does not operate on nationwide popular votes, it operates on Statewide Popular Votes which are represented at the Federal level of politics by the States' respective Governors, Congressmen, and Electors. Consider…
What are you thoughts on the idea of disproportionate voter power as described here? https://medium.com/practical-coding/whats-my-vote-worth-3ca2...
Re: Judge decides against Internet Archive
#677Earlier quoted context omitted.
It also can be argued that overturning Woe v. Wade was good, because it put it into the hands of legislators. It was shitty law because it instituted a right where none was. Thus, it kept legislators from legislating on an evolving issue.
There are many who argue that no specific law is necessary, that the Constitution gives the right of privacy and bodily autonomy, and that Roe v Wade correctly asserts that constitutional right. Do you need a specific law protecting the right to throw a barbecue, own a dog, or read books on dangerous topics? No, because the Constitution is a framework which broadly allows actions by people, and carves out specific th…
Except SCOTUS will not smack down things based on the 10th Amendment like they should be.
They'll sure warp the bounds of Federal Government jurisdiction through the interstate commerce clause though.
Re: Judge decides against Internet Archive
#678Earlier quoted context omitted.
Isn't this answerable by destroying the physical copy? (not saying that IA took this action, just saying that it removes the complaint of dual use)
No, because if they destroyed the original then they would have no way of saying they have the original and that’s what’s being lent. Then truly they would be lending only a copy, which was never legal to begin with.
In the industry the title page is often considered to be proof of ownership. E.g. when a book doesn't sell, and book stores want it off the shelves, they may be asked to destroy the books except return the title pages to the publisher, as proof.
Re: Judge decides against Internet Archive
#679Earlier quoted context omitted.
The article doesn't seem to understand the issue. Whether a copy of a work is fair use turns on, amongst other things, the effect of the copy on the potential market for the original. The article acknowledges this. Controlled Digital Lending competes directly with the licensing scheme publishers have for library ebooks. The fair use argument was always doomed to fail. The article then completely ignores the copyright…
Do you believe that libraries should be barred from archiving material to microfiche? How is that significantly different from format-shifting a book to electronic form, as long as they use DRM to limiy concurrent viewing?
Honest question: Are libraries special cased in US law? (They are in many other places, and have rights beyond consumers or businesses.)
Re: Judge decides against Internet Archive
#680I don't understand the outrage here. It sounds like a clear case of copyright infringement with IA profiting from the works of others. Can someone explain the issue?
For me, the outrage is really about the fact that the greater good is clearly (IMHO) served by IA operating like they do (one simultaneous lend per held copy). So copyright law is wrong.
And I know it's not the judge's place to say that.
If they drop copyright to 15 years and IA stops lending books younger than that, I'd be 100% OK with that outcome, as well. But copyright terms are in the "lifetimes" range, so lending books out that are still under copyright serves the greater good.
But since the odds of the US switching to the metric system are about 1000x greater than the odds of us decreasing copyright terms, I'm not holding my breath.