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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

#531

Post by nickpp »

SequoiaHope wrote: post #397
mandmandam wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does this account keep managing to make every thread on HN into 'communism bad' without getting flagged? Tell me your secrets Walter.

As an anarcho communist and prolific HN commenter I sigh every time I see his name. Sadly he doesn’t actually understand communism and seems to be stuck in 1980’s anti communist propaganda. For example the sibling comment to this one where he conflates collectivism with being “anti freedom” (lol). At least he’s getting the downvotes he deserves in this thread.

As a survivor of communism, I sigh every time I see this ideology that killed countless millions still being pushed in places where other inhuman ideologies (like fascism and its ilk) will attract a swift ban.

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

#532

Post by nickpp »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #358
WalterBright wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I remember when this BS was being pushed about Wintel capturing the market and killing competition. Then mobile happened, Google and now AI - doomers just changed the brands doing the capturing.

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

#533

Post by WalterBright »

belorn wrote: post #512
WalterBright wrote: post #491

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> outlawing people from importing food I.e. the government is doing it.

No, this was companies doing it. They controlled ports, rail and roads (or what ever roads that may exist in remote areas), and controlling in-going supplies was a matter of policy and enforcement. Mining and railway companies where once very large and powerful, similar to some trading companies in the past.

"outlawing" means a law, and the law is done by government.

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

#534

Post by monero-xmr »

zjuventus14 wrote: post #444
monero-xmr wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The government is political. When you make things political, it has requirements separated from the profit motive. I’m not an anarchist. I think the government has its place. But it’s undeniable that a lot of fundamental research is held hostage by politics: Certain ideas are in vogue and get funded, while the new ideas and those pursuing them must wait, or perhaps never get funded for whatever political reason. The…

I don’t entirely disagree - subsidies aren’t a perfect solution. But the current system is so far from perfect that I think considering alternatives is worthwhile. I’d be curious how many actual world-changing innovations were ONLY pursued because of the existence of copyright, that don’t belong to a class of innovation (like pharmaceuticals) that could have a solution, whether copyright, subsidies, or something else…

It doesn't have to be all-or-nothing. If research is a tree, and the seeds and trunk are funded by the government, then the branches and leaves are the private sector. The government's strength is providing large and longterm funding for ideas with uncertain outcome. The government's weakness is managing and running an enterprise of any scale - see the DMV, any public housing in America of appreciable size, the VA, the vast majority of public schools, and so on. This is because no one in the enterprise has any motivation at all, other than not getting fired, which is practically impossible in the government sector.

I'm fine with initial research being funded by the government, and entrepreneurs attempting to take that research to commercialize it.

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

#535

Post by Karrot_Kream »

mandmandam wrote: post #451
Jensson wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Be that as it may, ideological crusades such as this are explicitly disallowed on here. "Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. That tramples curiosity." That goes for both sides, every time someone repeats the meme "capitalism bad!" they are perpetuating their own crusade, at that time the gloves are off and it is free to engage with them. You can see it in this thread where people start…

> every time someone repeats the meme "capitalism bad!" they are perpetuating their own crusade That's called 'false equivalence'. Discussions about economic systems can be had without being crusades. > at that point it is ok to go and defend capitalism according to HN guidelines No, I don't think the spirit of the guidelines is to permit "ideological battles" as long as "someone else starts it". The clear intent of…

> A generalization without any evidence. Also, capitalism is currently the dominant system in the West, making it both the obvious starting point for discussion of economic systems, and the most productive candidate for legitimate criticism.

If someone made the same remark about non-democratic political systems, would you say the same thing? "Democracy is the current dominant system in the West, making it both the obvious starting point for discussion of political systems, and the most productive candidate for legitimate criticism." I doubt it. I think some honesty is useful: you want to criticize capitalism but you don't want someone to defend it, you want a space to criticize it. I think if you're going to criticize capitalism then you need to be willing to fend with someone willing to defend it. It's fair game. It may seem unfair, but just like we hold onto our values of democracy tightly so some hold onto their values of capitalism.

If you want a space specifically to criticize capitalism, there are plenty on the internet, and HN isn't one of them. I'm pretty sure you can throw a pebble randomly at literally any Bluesky English poster or Mastodon instance and you'll find one though.

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

#537

Post by persnickety »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #514
persnickety wrote: post #511

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Um, I reacted to this exchange in context: >>Why should we turn information into a "product"[...] > Because [...] That clearly indicates that you're in fact advocating it to be a product. Perhaps I misunderstood your post, but then I'm afraid you're not making yourself very clear. I'm also not seeing any references to survival in your post, just of incentivizing where work goes, so I am fairly certain what you think…

I've gotten 15 other responses and the ideas I write and respond to inevitably blend together. So I apologize if I make some assumptions based on statements from other parts of the post that I have answered. Regardless, I am a huge fan of the devil's advocate. You can talk about points without them being your complete world view. That's the assumption that we seem misaligned with. Just because I don't want all inform…

Oh, being a devil's advocate is all fine. But when it's not clear what the advocate is advocating it stops being interesting.

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

#538

Post by slothtrop »

willcipriano wrote: post #226
slothtrop wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most musicians don't make a living from their art, they work day jobs. That doesn't mean piracy is the only factor or a strong one, but it's part of the equation.

Most musicians make music that nobody wants to hear.

Oh they're just not trying to "sell out" enough, why didn't they think of that! Be serious.

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

#539

Post by WillAdams »

throwaway14356 wrote: post #527
WillAdams wrote: post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With the goal being that one would get things back in print so as to compensate the author.

yes, that should be the goal. They don't fully align with the publisher who seeks his own compensation.

Given typical author contracts what mechanism is there for a publisher making a book available w/o compensating the author?

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

#540

Post by romwell »

encomiast wrote: post #222
romwell wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unless you have a competing theory of ownership that explains why other assets can benefit the family of those who create things of value after death but not works of art, music, writing, etc., you haven't really made a cogent argument. Easy. The ownership of intellectual property can indefinitely remain with the author (or be passed on to their children, spouses, etc). We even have a great model for it now: NFTs.…

I think this is a specious argument. The value in intellectual property is the right to copy it. You can make a similar argument for other property: you own your car, but the right to drive it was not created by you. You own your house, but the right to occupy it and prevent others from occupying it is not created by you. It's not clear if you are arguing that there is some natural right to own and inherit a car that…

>It's not clear if you are arguing that there is some natural right to own and inherit a car that is granted by some authority other than the state and where that authority comes from.

Sure! There is a natural right to own things: I have a thing, I am not giving it to you. I am the authority. If you want to have it, well, you'll have to do something. Because you can't drive my car while I'm driving it.

That was the problem that the communists ultimately couldn't resolve: people end up having things no matter what you do. My, mine are one of the first words humans learn to utter.

"Intellectual property theft" is a misnomer; like "identity theft".

>The value in intellectual property is the right to copy it.

You are almost correct.

It's not the right to copy. It's the exclusivity, enforced by the state. By definition, it's a privilege (not a right), and is created by punishment.

Information has no inherent value once it becomes public knowledge. The state needs to be actively involved for public information to have any value.

So, we're not talking about the right to copy that gets passed along. Nobody is talking about taking that right away.

It's the privilege to command the state to punish someone for making a copy without one's permission that we say shouldn't be passed along to one's heirs.

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