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Judge decides against Internet Archive

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Re: Judge decides against Internet Archive

#761

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.

This sets back archival and human knowledge back 100 years. If you embargo a physical copy, an electronic copy should be lendable. I would start a webtorrent+ipfs+i2p site in Iceland just to get around this insane perpetual monopoly on difficult-to-find, old shit that doesn't have a market but publishers keep locked away.

> I would start a webtorrent+ipfs+i2p site

Libgen?

Re: Judge decides against Internet Archive

#762

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Entirely open (at best) question, which no smug hacker news commenter is going to answer. What does one do? (My current longshot hope? Digital democracy, on the backs of open source production economies running on the latest AI for highly-accessible/affordable data processing / labor. If we just start making online group decisions and scale it up, that's a power bloc that can run its own parties and strongarm existin…

> Digital democracy, on the backs of open source production economies running on the latest AI for highly-accessible/affordable data processing / labor. Politics is the set of activities associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals. Throwing technology at these human affairs isn’t an answer.

It also gives a fresh space to develop democratic systems that aren't dominated by previous parties to the extent that there is barely a functioning democracy. Existing systems are ridiculously compromised.

Re: Judge decides against Internet Archive

#763
post #747

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you can make a personal backup, but once you hand it to someone else it is no longer personal

Can you? The ruling seems to rake issue with the digitalization itself.

IANAL, but even if we assume the act of backing up a DVD to hard drive is legal, it's not clear to me how one could legally use the resulting copy without somehow circumventing CSS.

And with only narrow exceptions that probably don't apply here, this act of circumvention violates 17 U.S.C. 1201(a)(1)(A)[1] unless the copyright owner has authorized the process (as they do with licensed playback devices and software).

[1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/1201

Re: Judge decides against Internet Archive

#764

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Entirely open (at best) question, which no smug hacker news commenter is going to answer. What does one do? (My current longshot hope? Digital democracy, on the backs of open source production economies running on the latest AI for highly-accessible/affordable data processing / labor. If we just start making online group decisions and scale it up, that's a power bloc that can run its own parties and strongarm existin…

Way too much focus on the HOW and not the WHAT

[flagged]

Re: Judge decides against Internet Archive

#765

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A writer/artist/whatever can make some money off a work for two decades and then their work goes to the society that enabled its creation. -- Signed, Not an Artist. (Most artists are paid an absolute pittance for their work. Most work at least one other job. Almost none make even a basic income. I feel artists should have the benefit of the income from their work for their natural life, unless they waive their righ…

Why doesn't the plumber deserve a payment every time you shit then? Effective sewage systems prevent devastating diseases like cholera and typhus. Surely that's a higher social utility than a trashy Harlequin novel or any of the works of Kevin Federline? Also, fuck you for assuming I've never made any art. I'd be fine if anything I've drawn, painted, or written became public domain after twenty years. If I wanted to…

> Why doesn't the plumber deserve a payment every time you shit then?

Pretty sure the plumber is getting (very) decently paid for their work. Pretty sure the people who planned and installed the sewage system were well remunerated.

Pretty sure the person who wrote the trashy Harlequin novel in your example has to grind pretty hard to earn enough to buy their, let's say, diabetic medication.

> Also, fuck you for assuming I've never made any art.

And thank you for speaking up on behalf of all artists and kindly telling us all that we should expect 20 years worth of almost nothing out of efforts, instead of a lifetime.

> It would be ridiculous if twenty years from now some poor bastard got sued into destitution because they downloaded some dumb thing I wrote twenty years ago.

So licence it CC-0. Or release it to the Public Domain. Knock yourself out.

Re: Judge decides against Internet Archive

#766
post #429
post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you sure? It sounds vaguely convincing but unlikely in practice: Scotland - Largely Presbyterian ie rather more Catholic than us southern softies wot do Church of Eng. Your Catholic is rather more concerned about Sabbath behaviour than your Protestant except when they don't. Mind you we have some laughable nonsense available regardless of denomination - for example otters were once classed as fish hereabouts for…

In Central Scotland, during the 70s and 80s, lunch time closing was the norm. Half day Wednesday was also very popular in some trades (butchers, grocers etc.) as it allowed working on a Saturday morning. Back then, nothing was open on a Sunday. In some parts of Scotland (the Western Isles for example) doing any work, hanging your washing out, cutting your grass etc. on a Sunday, to be violating the Sabbath. No laws.…

Ta for the response.

Your final para describes rather more of little Britain than just bits of Scotland.

Re: Judge decides against Internet Archive

#767
post #581
post #469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 m…

Economic/systemic change has been off the table for quite a while. These poor politicians are just playing the only cards they have available - social tribal chanting - while filling their personal coffers as much as possible while the getting's good.

Re: Judge decides against Internet Archive

#768

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you thoughts on the idea of disproportionate voter power as described here? https://medium.com/practical-coding/whats-my-vote-worth-3ca2...

It is a politically convenient misrepresentation stemming from a lack of understanding regarding how the United States is structured politically. First and foremost, the Electoral College (and Congress, whose numbers are the basis for the College's numbers) are determined by a popular vote within the respective States. The ballots in a presidential election are asking the voters "Which candidate should your State vot…

Oh, I get it. You think that my disagreement stems from a lack of understanding and that if I disagree it is because I don't understand what you're saying.

Re: Judge decides against Internet Archive

#769

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not entirely sure what point you're making. That's not physical law in the same sense – nothing compels you to take something from me (or prevents you from taking something from me if you're sneaky or strong enough, as you said). On the other hand, you and I can't both have the same object even if we wanted; it has nothing to do with ability or circumstance. edit: I should clarify that you and I can share somethi…

My point is that you are picking and choosing which parts of nature you value. The idea of "having", of ownership, is not natural. Many people like Locke have tried to connect it nature, but with limited success — it's still a human construct. In the natural world ownership is defended purely by force or guile. So you are taking this idea of ownership, protected by human constructs of law, and then adding a caveat th…

> The idea of "having", of ownership, is not natural.

> In the natural world ownership is defended purely by force or guile

There is a third view which is that human law is a continuum ranging from things we are genetically predisposed to expect as members of a social species to constructs which are mostly cultural.

For example, almost every human civilization has some prohibition on killing and stealing from other members of the community. These are more foundational than laws about how to dress or speak. Even communities of non-human primates recognize stealing as a transgression and may collectively punish a thief. So the idea of personal property has deep roots and is not exclusively human.

"Property" which includes constructs like probhibitions on copying what someone else has done without paying them tribute is an abstraction of personal property, which is much closer to an innate human concept.

Re: Judge decides against Internet Archive

#770

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a politically convenient misrepresentation stemming from a lack of understanding regarding how the United States is structured politically. First and foremost, the Electoral College (and Congress, whose numbers are the basis for the College's numbers) are determined by a popular vote within the respective States. The ballots in a presidential election are asking the voters "Which candidate should your State vot…

Oh, I get it. You think that my disagreement stems from a lack of understanding and that if I disagree it is because I don't understand what you're saying.

Most of the cries for abolishing the Electoral College come around election time from the losing side, of which both sides of the political aisle have been guilty of. Republicans cried for it when Clinton won, Democrats cried for it when Bush won, Republicans cried for it when Obama won, Democrats cried for it when Trump won, Republicans cried for it when Biden won, etc.

This indicates most of it is all politically motivated, enabled by a lack of understanding for the political system among most Americans. It's a gross violation of Chesterton's Fence, crying for the Electoral College (the "fence") to be abolished ("torn down") because who needs such a seemingly convoluted and meaningless system, amirite?

As for you specifically, you obviously still aren't understanding how American democracy is structured, no. We are a representative democracy and a federal republic. The people vote along State lines to determine delegations whom we respectively send to the Federal political table. The United States operates on Statewide Popular Votes, not nationwide popular votes, because we are a Union of individual, otherwise independent States.

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