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Internet Archive forced to remove 500k books after publishers' court win

arstechnica.com

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Re: Internet Archive forced to remove 500k books after publishers' court win

#351

Post by johnnyanmac »

greenie_beans wrote: post #221
dabraham1248 wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sounds like that would severely decrease what authors can earn, especially older ones. I mean, I know a bunch of authors. All of them wrote because they needed to write (even the textbook authors). And almost none of them earned much of anything from it (even the textbook authors). One English prof told me that he received almost enough for his morning coffee for about three years. Then he didn't. And he drank just…

yeah, everybody arguing in here like writers are making a living off their books

I'm 100% on board with giving publishers and huge boot and making sure their labor is properly compensated. Sadly these discussions here always tend to turn into "copyright as a concept is BS, I want to utilize knowledge immediately with no restraint".

A reverse motte and Bailey, if you will. There's a perfectly objectionable issue that we can band together to solve, ignored in liue of the extreme argument that'd take decades in court to resolve.

Re: Internet Archive forced to remove 500k books after publishers' court win

#352

Post by johnnyanmac »

1oooqooq wrote: post #188
Aurornis wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why should someone be thrown in jail for singing the happy birthday song in front of a crowd of people? This is not a thing that happens, and it’s hard to take anyone seriously when they’re presenting this as a counter argument. If you can’t even understand the difference between criminal and civil matters, how can you even begin to discuss this topic?

except it is. try to upload to YouTube your birthday party with a barely audible pop music playing in the background. now which argument can't be taken seriously? granted, it's not jail. but being removed from the monopoly forum for internet videos could be worse than jail if you're business depends on that.

>granted, it's not jail.

That's a pretty important distinction.

>being removed from the monopoly forum for internet videos could be worse than jail if you're business depends on that.

If your business relies on thst then strike up a deal. That's what copyright should be doing.

The situation is still stupid, yes. But the core issue of people profiting off of material they dont own is still something we want to protect against.

Re: Internet Archive forced to remove 500k books after publishers' court win

#353

Post by WalterBright »

tsimionescu wrote: post #345
WalterBright wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You cannot make money off of people who are starving.

If they're literally at the point of starvation, maybe true - though famines often happen when people simply can't get access to food, even if they have the resources to buy it. So, bringing food to a starving area is unlikely to be bad for business. However, the more important point is that you can surely make money off of people by becoming their only source of food/money - i.e. they would starve without you, so th…

> the more important point is that you can surely make money off of people by becoming their only source of food/money

If you the only source, there is a reason for that, usually because you are shooting people who try to leave.

I'll cite a counter for you. The US was the first country in the world to eliminate the specter of famine (around 1800). Free labor was the distinguishing ingredient, not slave labor. (The slaves at the time were used to primarily farm cotton and tobacco.) The average height of Americans increased dramatically throughout the 19th century. Scores of millions of Americans arrived in America as paupers and moved into the middle class.

The economic machine of America was fueled by free labor, not starving people.

Re: Internet Archive forced to remove 500k books after publishers' court win

#354

Post by zjuventus14 »

monero-xmr wrote: post #328
TaylorAlexander wrote: post #25

There is no greater folly of contemporary human society than the purposeful restriction of such vast and easily shareable repositories of knowledge. Perhaps these schemes made sense in the past but with the advent of the internet and independent groups willing to fund all hosting fees, we should move to models of publishing that do not require this restriction of information. Library genesis exists but necessarily mu…

It might take decades and billions of dollars to prove a molecule can cure disease XYZ. Once you know the molecule, copying it is cheap. Only intellectual property rights can provide the incentive to find said molecule, safe in the knowledge that once it is found, all of the costs can be recouped plus profit. That is the clear-cut case for intellectual property, but it’s the same principle for books. I’m not going to…

It’s true that copyright and patents make pursuing certain risky (from a monetary perspective) innovations that are valuable to society worthwhile. But they’re only one way of solving that problem. We choose to apply copyright almost universally, even to innovations and ideas that don’t suffer from high capital risk, and would be worthwhile to pursue without copyright or with shorter copyright. Why not instead subsidize R&D for successful drugs (a lot of drug research in the U.S. is already publicly funded).

It seems to me that it’s an exceptional case that there’s some idea that’s would benefit society but is only economically viable under the current copyright regime. But our laws apply protections that are only needed in this rare instance to all ideas. I highly recommend “Against Intellectual Monopoly” by Michele Boldrin and David K. Levine. It changed how I view IP a great deal, and the final chapters are dedicated to how we could practically transition away from our current system.

Re: Internet Archive forced to remove 500k books after publishers' court win

#355

Post by johnnyanmac »

encomiast wrote: post #160
FpUser wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most financially successful humans only care how to increase their already huge amount of money. they do not give a flying fuck about advancing humanity as a whole.

[citation needed]

Do we really need a citation on how corporations are run, and what they do to constrain innovation?

Re: Internet Archive forced to remove 500k books after publishers' court win

#356

Post by WalterBright »

eat_veggies wrote: post #344
WalterBright wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can force starving people into unfair arrangements where the choice is between getting screwed or dying of hunger. History shows us that if you want to force starving people to work for you, you also need to shoot the people who refuse. See the Soviet gulags, and the Nazi slave labor camps.

Indeed the arrangement is violent and enforced with terrible violence, and in no way is this incompatible with profits.

[flagged]

Re: Internet Archive forced to remove 500k books after publishers' court win

#357

Post by WalterBright »

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #339
WalterBright wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You cannot make money off of people who are starving.

This is false. You can create conditions where their only real choice is to work for you. And since they’re starving, they’ll work for very low wages. You sell the product of their labor and collect the surplus value created by their work.

[flagged]

Re: Internet Archive forced to remove 500k books after publishers' court win

#358

Post by johnnyanmac »

WalterBright wrote: post #312
FpUser wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most financially successful humans only care how to increase their already huge amount of money. they do not give a flying fuck about advancing humanity as a whole.

The neato thing about free markets is in order to make more money you have to please other people so those people will freely give you their money.

That works until you capture the market. That's the entire phenomenon aroind the poorly named "enshittification".

Companies have in fact figured you can be too big to fail and wait until they get their to no longer "please other people" and squeeze them. Or at least, get away with otherwise company killing moves for years longer than they should.

Re: Internet Archive forced to remove 500k books after publishers' court win

#359

Post by interloxia »

My daughter's favourites list has shrunk by 50 books, about 10%. We read a few every day.

It's a great source of English books for us. Our city library is good, but it doesn't have thousands of picture books.

Libby has about 15 books. We borrow them often enough that it gives the error message that they are unavailable to borrow :/

Re: Internet Archive forced to remove 500k books after publishers' court win

#360

Post by johnnyanmac »

Ekaros wrote: post #285
TaylorAlexander wrote: post #25

There is no greater folly of contemporary human society than the purposeful restriction of such vast and easily shareable repositories of knowledge. Perhaps these schemes made sense in the past but with the advent of the internet and independent groups willing to fund all hosting fees, we should move to models of publishing that do not require this restriction of information. Library genesis exists but necessarily mu…

Maybe we should do software first. I see no reason why I should not get copies of all binaries and all source code for any and every service I use upon request. And even copies of databases backing them when requested. Then I could simply replicated it in my own environment or roll up competing service. And as for data, what is privacy anyway. If you want the data be private don't generate it... /s

Sadly I feel like Poes law hits here. I do see a few borderline argue such a case.

They must have no products of their own nor care how the people behind the knowledge they consume make a living.

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