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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

#301

Crazy that this is not fair use but ai is.

I wonder how legit it would be to have an AI scan over the copy, re-write it (as minimally as possible) in its own words, and then just distribute that. Probably not all that legit, but arguably thats where we're headed anyway :/

The challenge (afaik) is that "as minimally as possible" is very much a gray line, and that line can be make weaker depending on the volume of material.

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

#302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

If you read the original ruling, IA lost control of the physical book so they weren't actually doing CDL.

This is why this case was so frustrating. In order to challenge long standing thought, you need to build an airtight case. Lapses like the above and then steering users to buying used copies from BWB shows IA was not ready for a case.

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

#303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) Making a copy is not always illegal; for example, scanning books for Google Books by Google is considered legal. 2) Digital books are DRM-protected so you cannot lend them or re-sell like you can with physical books. So making a digital copy of a physical book can be considered merely a method to workaround these restrictions. 3) Publishers want to use new technology (electronic books) to remove rights that consum…

> 1) Making a copy is not always illegal; for example, scanning books for Google Books by Google is considered legal. I believe I remember this was tried at one point too. The significant difference here is that Google has seemingly unlimited money to throw towards lobbying and court cases

Google books shows length limited excerpts. That's a huge difference.

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

#304
post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're arguing against a principle that applies to physical libraries (Who also have films btw)...so are physical libraries also nonsense? Libraries do not serve the interest of publishers (and let's just focus on publishers because if we're being real here, publishers are the ones who stand to lose money - "think of the authors" is just a distraction)... i digress, Libraries exist as a benefit to society, they aren'…

> let's just focus on publishers No. I'm focusing on all media - books, tv, movies, games, etc. It's one set of copyright laws. > so are physical libraries also nonsense? Copyright strikes a balance of rights between content creators/owners and content consumers. Physical libraries with the limitations of physical transfer strike are a reasonable balance. A global digital pool with instantaneous and unlimited transfe…

The constitution explicitly states that copyright exists "to promote the progress of science and the useful arts". It's not meant to be about serving the financial interests of content owners except insofar as that also benefits society.

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

#305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What this court decision establishes is that you cannot treat the digital books the same way you can treat physical books. For example, you can re-sell or lend a physical book under "first-sale doctrine" but you cannot do the same with a digital book. So "they the people" have less rights now.

There was literally no upside to the CDL. Neither in theory from the start nor in the ultimate outcome.

The upside that you can lend a book without visiting a library; if you live in a remote area you don't need to travel; if you like reading at night you can do it; if you are a foreigner or illegal migrant, you can lend a book too.

So digital library, lending books over Internet is much better than a physical library.

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

#306
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.

Not sure I follow. I can't think of any country where the CDL would've been clearly legal as is, to say nothing about its "emergency" version.

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

#307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IA allowed to read books throught the website so no copies are made. When lending a book through file download they used DRM to prevent reading after the lending term ends.

I'm sorry to have to disagree with you here but in fact every page of a book you show inside of a web browser is under the law a copy of that page of the original book.

When you look at a book you make a copy on your retina (if you want to reduce to absurd).

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

#308
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…

Not gonna define “CDL”? Ok, “Commercial Drivers License” it is.

As far as I can tell (these are all new acronyms to me too), they stand for:

CDL: Controlled Digital Lending

NEL: National Emergency Lending.

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

#309

If I can relate this to movies [1], it might be illuminating: Watching a movie, you normally get a "home viewing" license. That does not give you the right to show it at your business (even if you don't charge money and only 10 people come). There's also a Public Performance Rights (PPR) license, and I always had to get PPR's because Google lawyers would shut us down otherwise. PPR costs considerably more than a home…

[deleted]

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

#310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

They lost here on both regular CDL and the National Emergency Library "uncontrolled" variant. The court's decision and conclusion is almost entirely about just regular CDL: "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-l…

It's unfortunate that IA did CDL so poorly. In the original findings it came out that they were not controlling the print copy, so they were never really doing CDL. Also, it was super shady to send people to their own used book store from the digital copies. Really just a bad first case for CDL.
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