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The Internet Archive has lost its appeal in Hachette vs. Internet Archive

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Re: The Internet Archive has lost its appeal in Hachette vs. Internet Archive

#91

Post by ianburrell »

majorchord wrote: post #20
uxp100 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought the person you were responding too was saying that isn’t what physical libraries do. Also, as far as I know that isn’t what physical libraries do. They buy licenses to share e-books. And don’t physically scan anything.

I meant that digitally lending the books out that IA owns 1-to-1 in the same way a real library lends out physical books should legally be treated the same, regardless of any ebook-specific licensing.

Owning the physical book lets libraries lend out the physical books. Libraries can't lend out digital copies of physical books. They lend out digital copies that they have purchased.

Owning object is different that copyright. Copyright owner is only one that can license making copies. Owning a book gives no rights to make copies, with the exception of making personal copies.

Re: The Internet Archive has lost its appeal in Hachette vs. Internet Archive

#92

Post by penteract »

wahern wrote: post #70
airhangerf15 wrote: post #16

Honestly the dumbest possible move by Internet Archive. IA has gotten more and more ideological as well, and it's been censoring content it doesn't like. I'm not sure if they're in the Wikipedia/Mozilla boat of screwed up political spending, but if they are, this decision should at least temper that down. I'm sure they'll be able to raise the money needed to pay off this lawsuit. It's true the Archive has a lot of am…

> I'm sure they'll be able to raise the money needed to pay off this lawsuit. 1) The relevant statute actually remits statutory damages for libraries.[1] Though this exception went untested because... 2) The parties negotiated a damages settlement between themselves before the trial court heard evidence and arguments on damages, but they agreed to let the summary judgment appeal go forth to establish firmer precedent…

Does "remits" mean reduces here, along the lines of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remittitur? It was an unfamiliar term to me and I'm not sure I've found the right meaning.

Re: The Internet Archive has lost its appeal in Hachette vs. Internet Archive

#93

Post by fsckboy »

TeaBrain wrote: post #71
room4 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> how dumb it was for them to think they could create new legal/copyright theory in the wake of the mass-hysteria of 2020. I haven't followed the details of this case, but as a general notion, that sounds kinda reasonable to me? Copyright law and enforcement is terribly broken in the USA, with a handful of giant publishers wielding massive, abusive power and the average American being harmed by losing their fair use…

Copyright law is broken in the US, but that doesn't mean that Internet Archive was going to legally get away with what they were doing and escape legal trouble, even if it arguably wasn't morally wrong.

"appeal to morality" is how Internet Archive, Wikipedia, Mozilla, and Google etc. have lost their way in the first place.

Re: The Internet Archive has lost its appeal in Hachette vs. Internet Archive

#94

Post by ndiddy »

jrochkind1 wrote: post #66
ilamont wrote: post #52

This has been playing out for many years. And it's all because Brewster Kahle decided that an overly broad interpretation of the Internet Archive's mission trumped the rights of authors and publishers, and the laws of the United States. When IA was asked to stop CDL - many times - he continued. The National Writers Union tried to open a dialogue as early as 2010 but was ignored: The Internet Archive says it would rat…

So, this case was not about CDL (Controlled Digital Lending). It was about DL with the "C" removed. Specifically the IA's previous CDL program only lent out one electronic copy at a time per physical copy held, and this case is about a program at beginning of pandemic where they suspended these limits. There could still be appeals in store for this case, but regardless of the outcome of this case, CDL could still be…

If you read the decision (https://ww3.ca2.uscourts.gov/decisions/isysquery/797361df-8d...), it almost entirely focuses on CDL not being legal in general rather than bringing up IA's "National Emergency Library" program. One illustrative quote:

"IA maintains that it delivers each Work “only to one already entitled to view [it]”―i.e., the one person who would be entitled to check out the physical copy of each Work. But this characterization confuses IA’s practices with traditional library lending of print books. IA does not perform the traditional functions of a library; it prepares derivatives of Publishers’ Works and delivers those derivatives to its users in full. That Section 108 allows libraries to make a small number of copies for preservation and replacement purposes does not mean that IA can prepare and distribute derivative works en masse and assert that it is simply performing the traditional functions of a library. 17 U.S.C. § 108; see also, e.g., ReDigi, 910 F.3d at 658 (“We are not free to disregard the terms of the statute merely because the entity performing an unauthorized reproduction makes efforts to nullify its consequences by the counterbalancing destruction of the preexisting phonorecords.”)."

Re: The Internet Archive has lost its appeal in Hachette vs. Internet Archive

#95

Post by Aachen »

ndiddy wrote: post #24
majorchord wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I know, IA owns the physical books they scanned, so why shouldn't they be allowed to lend them out 1-to-1 digitally the same as a physical library?

The decision covers that point: "IA maintains that it delivers each Work “only to one already entitled to view [it]”―i.e., the one person who would be entitled to check out the physical copy of each Work. But this characterization confuses IA’s practices with traditional library lending of print books. IA does not perform the traditional functions of a library; it prepares derivatives of Publishers’ Works and deliver…

In short, it sounds like the answer to the "why" question at the top of this thread (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41447904) is: the scan is a derivative and copyright law lets you lend books, not derivative works thereof

Which seems like a nitpicky distinction to me when it's the same words on the same page and they're not shown to anyone else at the same time... but such is a judge's job as opposed to a legislator

Re: The Internet Archive has lost its appeal in Hachette vs. Internet Archive

#96

Post by msla »

ilamont wrote: post #52

This has been playing out for many years. And it's all because Brewster Kahle decided that an overly broad interpretation of the Internet Archive's mission trumped the rights of authors and publishers, and the laws of the United States. When IA was asked to stop CDL - many times - he continued. The National Writers Union tried to open a dialogue as early as 2010 but was ignored: The Internet Archive says it would rat…

CDL is how physical libraries work: They buy a book and then lend it out multiple times to multiple people, on a one-in one-out basis, who then do not have to buy the book themselves. They even repair books to avoid purchasing new ones again. Do you think physical libraries harm the people who bring books into being?

Re: The Internet Archive has lost its appeal in Hachette vs. Internet Archive

#97

Post by tptacek »

msla wrote: post #96
ilamont wrote: post #52

This has been playing out for many years. And it's all because Brewster Kahle decided that an overly broad interpretation of the Internet Archive's mission trumped the rights of authors and publishers, and the laws of the United States. When IA was asked to stop CDL - many times - he continued. The National Writers Union tried to open a dialogue as early as 2010 but was ignored: The Internet Archive says it would rat…

CDL is how physical libraries work: They buy a book and then lend it out multiple times to multiple people, on a one-in one-out basis, who then do not have to buy the book themselves. They even repair books to avoid purchasing new ones again. Do you think physical libraries harm the people who bring books into being?

Physical libraries lend actual physical objects. They don't copy anything. This is a copyright case.

Re: The Internet Archive has lost its appeal in Hachette vs. Internet Archive

#98

Post by jandrese »

wslh wrote: post #75
jandrese wrote: post #45

Very much not a surprise. I think the Internet Archive is providing an invaluable service to humanity in preserving works that would otherwise be lost to time. it is one of the crown jewels of the Internet, doing a job that nobody else is willing to do. But at the same time I know the courts side with publishers pretty much every time and copyright law being such as it is they're totally screwed. The only real questi…

But, beyond this ruling, could Internet Archive just scan the books, store the data and release it to the public at a later time? I am just thinking about the preservation part in your comment.

"A later time" being the after the year 2100 for most of these works. I am not exaggerating. If the author is still alive today their works won't enter the public domain until after you are dead.

One can argue that the Internet Archive would be effectively useless if they strictly followed copyright law.

Re: The Internet Archive has lost its appeal in Hachette vs. Internet Archive

#99

Post by halJordan »

haswell wrote: post #64
thebrid wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As much as I love the Internet Archive, is it really that crazy? The four factors used for determining fair use are: * the purpose and character of the use * the nature of the copyrighted work; * the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole * the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work. In the Internet Archive case, they're d…

To me, the point isn’t that what the IA was doing was fair use, but that what LLMs are doing arguably is not . > In the AI use case, they're typically aiming not to output any significant part of the training data What they’ve aimed to do and what they’ve done are two different things. Models absolutely have produced output that closely mirrors data they were trained on. > not competing in the market with the origina…

But look at your own argument. LLMs are not fair use because they might be prompted into regurgitating something substantially similar to the trained data.

And yet, the IA is 100% aiming to absolutely reproduce literally every part of the work in a 100% complete manner that replaces the original use of the work.

And you cannot bring yourself to admit that the IA is wrong. When you get to that point you have to admit to yourself that you're not making an argument your pushing a dogma.

Re: The Internet Archive has lost its appeal in Hachette vs. Internet Archive

#100

Post by tptacek »

jrockway wrote: post #40

Someone has to push the limits to see where they actually are. Now we know.

That's an overly simplistic way to look at this. Depending on the fact pattern you bring to a case, you will get different limits, which then apply to everyone later on regardless of their own fact patterns. IA took just about the worst possible fact pattern all the way to the 2nd Circuit for no discernible reason.
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