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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

#211

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A lot of the material I checked out on IA was older books still in copyright, but no longer published. And physical copies get warn over time. Existing knowledge should remain accessible. Publishers do not act in the best interest of authors, they squeeze higher percentages from them just like any other content distribution platform.

If IA had fought that fight ... dealing with copyright holders who have stopped publishing and made this content unavailable, they would have had more support at every step of the way.

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

#212

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Just for the sake of argument, let us say infinite copies kills all profit drive to make a book. What kind of books still get written? There is an argument for the quality of books being made increasing due to only books that have true passion for the sake of sharing being produced under this system... art for the sake of itself, not for the sake of profit. If your only determining factor for writing a book is to mak…

Who are we to decide books made for profit are not good? In fact many of my favorite books were clearly made in an attempt to trade my money for enjoyment, and were better because of that since they were made with the readers satisfaction as a goal.

Plus there are plenty of people who do it for the art even if they get paid, but the payment makes themselves better off and allows them to continue their work.

Like capitalism allows many authors to be able to create their intended art and find an audience, with both artistry and the desire to make money. And it's not like writing a book is easy, so the money is also extra motivation.

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

#213

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> 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

#214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just for the sake of argument, let us say infinite copies kills all profit drive to make a book. What kind of books still get written? There is an argument for the quality of books being made increasing due to only books that have true passion for the sake of sharing being produced under this system... art for the sake of itself, not for the sake of profit. If your only determining factor for writing a book is to mak…

I think that argument is pretty naive. The only books that would still get made are those from people privileged enough (money and time) to write books. You'll get way more ghost-written biographies from celebrities and hot takes from politicians.

I think writing a book to make money is itself pretty naive. There's already a bit of privilege involved in being able to devote time to writing, and in many cases make attempts for years before getting published to modest revenue.

A lot of people start writing books despite knowing those odds and outcomes.

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

#215

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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?

From TFA: > However, the Internet Archive expanded its library project during the covid-19 pandemic. It launched the National Emergency Library, allowing an unlimited number of people to access the same copies of ebooks. That’s when the publishers banded together to file the lawsuit, targeting both online libraries. The digital copy could be checked out by many people at the same time.

NEL was a brief deviation from the usual CDL one-borrower-at-a-time system. Parent asked how CDL, not NEL, hurt authors.

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

#216
At this point, the Internet Archive should consider simply moving to another jurisdiction. Decisions like this are a shame, because they hinder a proper way to deal with piracy.

Physical libraries compete with book sales too, but of course libraries are lawful. Why should digital libraries be treated differently? Because there are ways to circumvent DRM on Internet Archive books? Well, there are ways to bypass DRM on sold ebooks, too.

Perhaps IA’s greatest mistake was to allow unrestricted lending during the pandemic. If it had kept its original mission, maybe things would not have ended up like this.

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

#217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A physical library does not involve making a copy, but lending out an existing physical copy. One book, one reader. "Controlled Digital Lending" literally involves making and transmitting a copy to another physical medium electronically. Brewster has endangered the good work done by people at the archive for a case he was never going to win and which was of dubious value. If he wants to be the next Anna's Archive the…

That is incorrect. Libraries regularly scan and OCR books to make them digitally accessible and searchable. I hope the likes of the Library of Congress are ready to shutdown their online services.

Digitally accessible and searchable on site, not on line... unless you're saying the Library of Congress makes *in copyright* works available on line to all comers?

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

#218

> This appeal presents the following question: Is 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 digital copies it makes available at any given time, all without authorization from the copyright-holding publishers or author…

> When the conclusion is so obviously incorrect, we should examine the underlying precedent that leads us to such an erroneous conclusion. This precedent should give us pause. They're restricting a NONPROFITs to distribute legally purchased print media in a way that the publishers don't want.

This is nonsense. They are not distributing "legally purchased print media", they are VERY literally distributing digital copies of the original legally purchased print media.

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