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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

#141

Post by cool_dude85 »

tptacek wrote: post #132
cool_dude85 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The IA's controlled digital lending setup worked the same way.

No, the IA's CDL system required them to make multiple copies of books (one to digitize the book, and one for every reader of the book), which is not a legal problem a physical library runs into.

I agree, and apparently this distinction is legally relevant. However, it does not change my point that the CDL also has the property that:

"if a book is in high demand in a library, you'd either have to wait your turn or purchase one yourself to avoid the lending queue."

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

#142

Post by TMWNN »

tptacek wrote: post #86
Devasta wrote: post #4

Awful news. Seems like this is the publishers planned approach going forward, nonstop lawsuits to henpeck the IA to death.

I don't think this took much henpecking. IA basically didn't have a case, took it to federal court, appealed it, and won themselves the following 2nd Circuit precedent: "[I]s it “fair use” for a nonprofit organization to scan copyright-protected print books in their entirety and distribute those digital copies online, in full, for free, subject to a one-to-one owned-to-loaned ratio between its print copies and the di…

>This may be a broad setback to all controlled digital lending. As the saying goes, "play stupid games...".

When I made this criticism before of IA, I was told that that was ridiculous since the publishers had it out for IA before the COVID-19 emergency library. That may or may not have been true, but the publishers did not sue IA despite OpenLibrary existing for years before COVID-19. Publishers didn't pull the trigger because they were afraid of losing. It was a MAD situation, and IA unnecessarily triggered a nuclear war that they lost.

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

#143

Post by xhkkffbf »

teruakohatu wrote: post #72
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…

> In his many interviews with U.S. media, he portrays the court cases and legal judgements as a crusade against the Internet Archive and all librarians. It's not. It's the logical outcome of one man's seemingly fanatical conviction against the law and the people who work very hard to bring new books into being. If IA had won, IA would be hailed as a cultural hero. They hit and they missed. Claiming Brewster Kahle is…

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

#144

Post by andybak »

IncreasePosts wrote: post #133
msla wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

> Do you think physical libraries harm the people who bring books into being? Yes, actually, I do. But the public benefits of libraries outweigh the harm it does to authors. But, the fact that I can buy a book once, and pass it between 50 friends to read feels unfair to the author who effectively makes no money off of the work.

So, lending a book to a friend is wrong? Or just doing that when your have more then x friends?

I'm genuinely not sure what you're saying here.

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

#145

Post by tptacek »

cool_dude85 wrote: post #141
tptacek wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the IA's CDL system required them to make multiple copies of books (one to digitize the book, and one for every reader of the book), which is not a legal problem a physical library runs into.

I agree, and apparently this distinction is legally relevant. However, it does not change my point that the CDL also has the property that: "if a book is in high demand in a library, you'd either have to wait your turn or purchase one yourself to avoid the lending queue."

Right. I'd like a system where that distinction matters but it seems plain how the courts will arrive at a conclusion that it doesn't, because the law is about the mechanism more than it is about the intent. Still, we were all holding on to a fig leaf of an argument that the intent would control here, and IA has burnt that leaf up, at least in NY, CT, and VT.

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

#146

Post by TMWNN »

skyyler wrote: post #9
ranger_danger wrote: post #3

>Four major book publishers again thwarted the online repository’s defense that its one-to-one lending practices mirrored those of traditional libraries How does it not? I don't get it... why are physical libraries in the clear if it's still a 1:1 borrow?

Can you imagine, if public libraries weren't already a thing, convincing some Americans to build one in 2024?

The First Sale doctrine long precedes public libraries.

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

#147

Post by zajio1am »

teruakohatu wrote: post #72
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…

> In his many interviews with U.S. media, he portrays the court cases and legal judgements as a crusade against the Internet Archive and all librarians. It's not. It's the logical outcome of one man's seemingly fanatical conviction against the law and the people who work very hard to bring new books into being. If IA had won, IA would be hailed as a cultural hero. They hit and they missed. Claiming Brewster Kahle is…

> The copyright goalposts have moved so far past where they were originally, the people who work very hard can be dead for decades and their works still in copyright, and by the time they are dead for 70 years

Note that copyright lasting 50 years after the author's death was already in Berne Convention from 1886. Some (but not all) of these extensions in US were just adaptation of older weaker US copyright to international conventions.

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

#148

Post by cmiles74 »

doublescoop wrote: post #104
teruakohatu wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In his many interviews with U.S. media, he portrays the court cases and legal judgements as a crusade against the Internet Archive and all librarians. It's not. It's the logical outcome of one man's seemingly fanatical conviction against the law and the people who work very hard to bring new books into being. If IA had won, IA would be hailed as a cultural hero. They hit and they missed. Claiming Brewster Kahle is…

This wasn't a case of the estates of dead authors trying to hold onto rights. Working authors were actively being harmed by the activities of the IA through the CDL. Working authors were met with refusals to meet to discuss this issue. I don't think that characterization of Kahle is unfair at all. His position was unreasonable, determined to be illegal, and damaging to people who depend on copyright to license their…

How was the CDL hurting working authors? A library bought the book, paying the publisher and the author. The IA scanned the book for digital lending, this digital copy could only be checked out by one person and only when the physical book was not also checked out.

I understand the court decided this wasn't okay. That aside, how was it hurting working authors?

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

#149

Post by doctorpangloss »

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…

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

#150

Post by Filligree »

ghaff wrote: post #74
pcaharrier wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"IA lifted its one-to-one owned-to-loaned ratio, allowing its digital books to be checked out by up to 10,000 users at a time, without regard to the corresponding number of physical books in storage or in partner libraries’ possession―a practice IA acknowledges was a 'deviat[ion] from controlled digital lending.'" No argument from me that copyright and fair use is broken (and exclusively in ways that inure to the ben…

They were getting away with something because it seemed kind of reasonable. They were effectively letting one person effectively remotely view a physical book they owned. But NEL threw all that out the window. And COVID was a pretty translucent fig leaf. It's not like there is any shortage of public domain works "for the children" out there even if copyright terms should be shorter.

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