Record labels hit Internet Archive with new copyright lawsuit • Hacker News Board

Re: Record labels hit Internet Archive with new copyright lawsuit

#271

Post by account42 » Mon, Aug 14, 2023, 1:22 PM UTC

IndySun wrote: post #229

tux3 wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not really sure I understand why I should suppose that. I've seen people in every category, who started with a passion and did or did not turn it into a job, and did or did find the time to keep making art for the love of it You can do art for money or not, I just don't see how you're trying to relate this to archival of music that is no longer sold, whose authors aren't around anymore. I get the impression you'r…

'You can do art for money or not', does not compute in the poverty stricken corners of this planet. A staggeringly blasé remark. US Copyright laws, that tend to circle the globe, are obnoxious, favoring the already wealthy or established entities to make creativity an unfair business. I look forward to the change. I am not advocating a blanket position on 'art', or any human endeavour, for that matter. But it would b…

Copyright is not and should not be a welfare system. If you want to help people out of poverty, please do so without restricting what other people can do in private.

Re: Record labels hit Internet Archive with new copyright lawsuit

#272

Post by account42 » Mon, Aug 14, 2023, 1:30 PM UTC

t0mas88 wrote: post #110

arghdos wrote: post #15

> The complaint states that when the 78rpm records were converted into digital files, IA reproduced copyrighted recordings without permission. When IA copied those files to a server, that amounted to another unauthorized reproduction Am I wrong to interpret this as trying to outlaw ripping a CD and uploading to a personal NAS? There’s additional claims about distribution to the public that (may??) seem more reasonabl…

They can relocate that part to the Netherlands. Copying without public distribution is explicitly legal, and all storage media and smartphones carry a "tax" that's given to the rights holders to compensate them for this. For a long time downloading was legal (uploading wasn't), due to this. But it has changed sometime in the last decade. While the tax is still there and mandatory, so the copyright-lobbyists won on pa…

> They can relocate that part to the Netherlands. Copying without public distribution is explicitly legal, and all storage media and smartphones carry a "tax" that's given to the rights holders to compensate them for this.

Given to some rights holders.

Re: Record labels hit Internet Archive with new copyright lawsuit

#273

Post by account42 » Mon, Aug 14, 2023, 1:38 PM UTC

avidiax wrote: post #261

isykt wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. There should be an active sale clause for all copyrighted material, including video games. If you want to make money from the work you “own,” then fucking do it. Emulators exists for most systems. For books, the marginal cost of epub distribution is essentially zero and any high school kid can make one for you on a Sunday afternoon.

You need to also require the the work is offered in previous versions, with monotonically decreasing real price (and maybe a meaningful discount on prior versions). Goodbye Calculus 47th Edition. Students can now buy Calculus 40th edition both used and new at a reasonable price in perpetuity. The publisher can charge more for Calculus 50th edition when there's actually new calculus or better teaching methods.

Don't US textbooks already scramble exercises so you can't just buy (use copies of) older textbook versions - effectively making making old versions obsolete without having to do any real work improving the content.

Making students buy their own copies of required textbooks always seemed insane to me. Glad that that's not how things work here and any required excercises (already uncommon) were just provided by the professors/assitants as part of the course.

Re: Record labels hit Internet Archive with new copyright lawsuit

#274

Post by account42 » Mon, Aug 14, 2023, 1:48 PM UTC

HenryBemis wrote: post #31

ghastmaster wrote: post #6

This really scares me. The wayback machine is a treasure. I don't know what will happen to it if these cases succeed.

Imagine a mixture of 1984: Who controls the past, controls the future: who controls the present controls the past. On the specifics of the lawsuit.. well if the law us bad, then change the law. But not following the law is not nice.

Sometimes civil disobedience ins the only way to change unjust laws.

Re: Record labels hit Internet Archive with new copyright lawsuit

#275

Post by account42 » Mon, Aug 14, 2023, 2:09 PM UTC

bigodbiel wrote: post #115

hakfoo wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we need to completely revisit the ownership model here. Kill copyright entirely. (I would vote for anyone-- up to and including Mike Pence-- who made this a major plank of their campaign) We have at least one corner of the universe where we've defeated scarcity. We can't run out of music. Hell, we can't even run out of a specific recorded performance, if even the most trivial efforts of due-diligence backups…

Like the idea, but tangible arts like paintings or live tours are scarce, unlike digital media. So for these money should be going directly to the organizer (artist, sculpture, troupe, etc). For non-tangible mediums, an endowment would make sense (despite the bickering). I can see an incentive for artists to then produce tangible arts for the monetary rewards, but also our industry already is filled with negative inc…

> Like the idea, but tangible arts like paintings or live tours are scarce, unlike digital media.

These don't rely on copyright so wouldn't need any special consideration when abolishing it.

Re: Record labels hit Internet Archive with new copyright lawsuit

#276

Post by account42 » Mon, Aug 14, 2023, 2:13 PM UTC

hakfoo wrote: post #97

lotsofpulp wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Author’s life is too long. Surely, 20 years is far sufficient to incentivize creating media, although I would err on the side of 10 years. The copyright term is automatically too long if my anyone who would benefit from it entering the public domain is dead.

I think we need to completely revisit the ownership model here. Kill copyright entirely. (I would vote for anyone-- up to and including Mike Pence-- who made this a major plank of their campaign) We have at least one corner of the universe where we've defeated scarcity. We can't run out of music. Hell, we can't even run out of a specific recorded performance, if even the most trivial efforts of due-diligence backups…

How would your endowment be distributed: who are the recipients and how is the money divided?

Don't get me wrong, I like the idea of abolishing copyright and funding art more directly but I also don't see the point in the goverment deciding what is and isn't art. At that point perhaps its better to ensure that everyone was a livable universal basic income and let people create art if they want to use their time to create art. And on top of that you can still have patronage / grants if you want specific types of art created more than they would otherwise be.

Re: Record labels hit Internet Archive with new copyright lawsuit

#277

Post by account42 » Mon, Aug 14, 2023, 2:29 PM UTC

lotsofpulp wrote: post #91

version_five wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think (but could be convinced otherwise) that the term is less important than the restrictions. More liberal definitions of fair use, for example, or clarity on when something is a copy or a derivative (like with people getting sued for vaguely similar songs) would be better. The work is always the authors, I'm less concerned about them retaining some kind of claim on it, especially if they're still actively using…

I think that makes the situation more complex than needs be by opening people up to more legal liability than necessary. As far as society is concerned, society’s resources (police, courts, etc) should only be given up to the point that the incentive to create works of art exists. At zero copyright length, we can say artists (and media creating/owning businesses) have less than a desirable amount of incentive to crea…

> At zero copyright length, we can say artists (and media creating/owning businesses) have less than a desirable amount of incentive to create (from society’s perspective).

Can we? What is the amount of art that we want to be created? How much more art do we really need every year considering that old art can be infinitely reproduced in the digital age? Remember that the art output without copyright is well above zero since we had art before copyright.

Re: Record labels hit Internet Archive with new copyright lawsuit

#278

Post by account42 » Mon, Aug 14, 2023, 2:38 PM UTC

adventured wrote: post #94

beej71 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the publish date plus 20 years not to exceed the life of the author is plenty.

There are some significant edge cases that can plainly make that unfair. Let's say Kurt Cobain dies at 27 (or even younger) without an heir other than a very young daughter. ~95% of his earning capacity might be in the next 15 years, rather than the prior 5 years. The daughter might be cast into relying on charity while everybody else gets to freely commercially exploit his music after his death. ('the US social safe…

Personally I would not involve the authors life at all in the term (then again I think the ideal term length is zero) but I also don't see an artist kids not being able to profit from their dead parents works anymore unfair than a cobblers kids not being able to profit from their parents works after death. Life isn't fair. If someone needs welfare than I am in support of making sure it is available - but please let's not use it as an excuse for unrelated laws.

Re: Record labels hit Internet Archive with new copyright lawsuit

#279

Post by beej71 » Mon, Aug 14, 2023, 2:47 PM UTC

IndySun wrote: post #191

mixmastamyk wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Normal people do like free stuff it turns out. And typically not going to pay when it's ancient anyway. Instead of going without, they could give it a try. They'd like that too—if they knew it was possible and even encouraged.

Can you please add a link to your free art, movie, album, musical, and/or poem. Or do you only supply links to other peoples said art?

I'm always happy to drop links to my free (beer) books, no SEO, DRM, ads, or tracking. Simply knowledge for the sake of knowledge.

But it's kinda OT on this thread and feels too much like blatant self-promotion, so I'll refrain. :)

Re: Record labels hit Internet Archive with new copyright lawsuit

#280

Post by account42 » Mon, Aug 14, 2023, 2:48 PM UTC

Asooka wrote: post #96

echelon wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Yes it should. Property is property. It is insane that some property somehow becomes unownable after an arbitrary length of time. If I own land, that land will go to my heirs or, if none exist, on auction. Then someone else will own it. It won't become permanently public and non-property. Intellectual property ought to work the same way. The great part is that we can create an infinite amount of intellectual property…

So-called "intellectual property" is no property at all but a government-protected monopoly on distribution. You do not "own" copyright. This monopoly isn't free for society - both the enforcement and the loss due to restrictions on other peoples basic rights (namely, freedom of speech).