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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

#641

Post by [deleted] »

franciscop wrote: post #583
el_jay wrote: post #546

Am I to understand that it’s legal and okay for LLM providers to profit massively from training commercial models on copyrighted works, without the rights holders’ permission - but illegal, and unacceptable, for private individuals to access a digital library?

Copyright protects mainly against the distribution of works, not about consumption. It is not the access to the library the bit that is illegal here, it is illegal for that library to distribute works without the copyright holders permission. You might like it or not (I don't), but copyright laws are fairly straightforward.

[deleted]

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

#642

Post by wayathr0w »

the-mitr wrote: post #461

Can someone explain if this will also affect archival projects hosted on the Internet Archive?

Depends. This case was specifically about a library of books whose uploads were all done or coordinated by IA's employees. That is something different than the various things, including but not at all limited to books, unaffiliated people upload. It's certainly possible "random people's uploads" could come under increasing scrutiny & legal attack as publishing companies are likely feeling emboldened by the victory, but I don't think that's what this specific ruling was about.

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

#644

Post by toss1 »

dannyobrien wrote: post #551
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…

I disagree with this assessment on many levels, but I think the most important challenge I can make is to the idea that Brewster Kahle is a rogue actor, who in some sense mis-interpreted the mission and strategy of the Internet Archive. For those of you who are just learning that name from this lawsuit, here's his wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brewster_Kahle Kahle founded the Archive in the nineties,…

No. He had no case to begin with. There was zero chance of him becoming some kind of hero from this action.

What might have made him a hero is having been smarter about how he went about this book/library project, and he's blown it. And he has now put the entire IA at risk by doing this stupid book/library thing under the same company.

The fact that he lost, and the plaintiffs affirmatively won on Summary Judgement [0] is huge. It shows Kahle/IA NEVER HAD A CASE from the outset.

Summary Judgement means, based on the undisputed material facts and the law, there is no purpose to a trial, and a proper judgement on the case can be made immediately. "Summary judgment is a pretrial motion that promptly resolves legal actions where the parties have no genuine issues with any material fact. The court produces a judgment for one party against the opposing party without needing a full trial." IA may appeal to SCOTUS, but I see no scenario SCOTUS even looks at the case, nevermind takes it and rules in IA's favor.

For years it's been an obviously unnecessary risk for IA. While it may have been a noble cause, it was absolutely a risk, and should have been done under a separate corporate/legal entity.

Instead, he recklessly barged ahead with no regard for likely consequences. The result is that the entire Internet Archive and Wayback Machine is now at real risk of being lost when the court awards damages.

I've seen far too many smart people doing stupid things, but this is one of the most glaring examples. I hope IA survives.

Why aren't others doing it? Because IA existed and no one wants to do redundant things. Today, they just stopped being redundant, so I hope others will rapidly invest the resources to make different Internet Archives...

[1] https://www.findlaw.com/litigation/filing-a-lawsuit/what-is-...

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

#645

Post by meindnoch »

mumblemumble wrote: post #295
jandrese wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

We've also got to think about the actual value of preserving all of these works in a completely indiscriminate manner. Curation is important. Even assuming, for the sake of argument, that we could keep everything forever, actually doing so would ultimately harm the value of the archive, due to Sturgeon's Law. The truth is that the vast majority of cultural output is of only ephemeral value. It's relevant to a place a…

>The truth is that the vast majority of cultural output is of only ephemeral value. It's relevant to a place and a time, but not necessarily great enough to also be interesting to people from a different place and a future time.

On a long enough timescale, the value starts increasing again. C.f. graffiti from Pompeii, Akkadian bookkeping tablets, etc.

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

#646

Post by glitcher »

dannyobrien wrote: post #551
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…

I disagree with this assessment on many levels, but I think the most important challenge I can make is to the idea that Brewster Kahle is a rogue actor, who in some sense mis-interpreted the mission and strategy of the Internet Archive. For those of you who are just learning that name from this lawsuit, here's his wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brewster_Kahle Kahle founded the Archive in the nineties,…

All of this sounds nice, but also ignores the details of the lost court case. When I learned more about the actual case details it really seemed like a strange hill to die on for the IA, and it was nearly inevitable they would lose. I think there was a very sensible middle ground the IA could have chosen to avoid it all while still sticking to their core mission.

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

#647

Post by Amezarak »

matwood wrote: post #602
Amezarak wrote: post #597

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Under US copyright law controlled digital lending was clearly illegal. This case did not establish any new precedent, it's a plain reading of the law and the decision reflects that. You and I can both not like it, we can wish the law was different, but no court ruling was ever going to go any other way, and the reckless move of opening uncontrolled digital lending doesn't change that. It may make logical sense to thi…

I agree it was going to be a hard case, but I don't think CDL properly implemented is automatically illegal. The issue here is IA had a lack of control and couldn't assert the print copy came down in their CDL implementation. It's unfortunate this was the case used to test CDL since it was a loser from the start.

It is clearly illegal. It doesn’t matter whether you have a physical copy backing it. It doesn’t matter if you have control over your digital lending. Making a copy (digitization or ctrl + paste) and distributing it is illegal by default without permission of the copyright holder. This is the core of copyright law.

You can defend against the default presumption by arguing fair use. The IA did try this but it was very clearly doomed to fail, because they are providing whole copies for normal use. It was so obvious it was a summary judgement. “Fair use” is not a general term about what we think should be allowed, it has a specific statutory definition and there is no serious debate over whether CDL can be twisted into it. It may be morally right but it’s clearly legally wrong.

It may be ridiculous that yes, if you scan in a book, send it to your friend, burn your physical copy and delete your copy of the scan, that you inarguably committed copyright infringement. But that’s the law.

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

#648

Post by bunderbunder »

codedokode wrote: post #258
bunderbunder wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something like this would never have fallen under fair use in the first place, I don't think. It doesn't really mesh very well with any of the factors US law lists as considerations when deciding whether or not use is fair. If this falls under anything it falls under the first sale doctrine. I generally side with publishers and artists on the generative AI debate, but I'll at least concede that they have some grounds…

Did AI companies buy copyrighted works though?

If they had then fair use questions would have been a moot point.

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

#649

Post by ethbr1 »

holmesworcester wrote: post #613
jasode wrote: post #607

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>And now there will be a legal precedent to shut down all CDLs of these "lots of libraries" No, it's a different situation. In contrast, the government public libraries legitimately purchased ebook licenses (aka "renting") from the publishers and then "loaned" out a limited # of simultaneous copies in a legal manner. The book publishers approved this arrangement. The Internet Archive didn't do that. Instead, they "lo…

And those paying attention will see that the publisher-approved version of digital lending gives publishers a legal/technical off switch on the existence of libraries, to the extent libraries go digital. Is anyone here okay with this? Kahle/IA certainly aren't!

Exactly. The broader issue here is about control -- specifically, who has the right to alter the financial arrangement, at what time.

I think everyone can agree we've seen from academic publishing what a shitshow {public need} + {extractive private IP ownership} can be.

Requesting libraries to enter into agreements with publishers in order to loan copies of their books isn't in the public interest.

Because invariably these publishers will realize they can bump rates year over year. And then private equity will realize they can buy these rights holders for a secure income stream. And then the year over year price growth will accelerate.

And contrast this with physical first sale doctrine. (1) The library bought or was donated a copy of the book. (2) As long as they could store it, no publisher could tell them a damn thing about how they could and couldn't loan it.

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

#650

Post by Ray20 »

tomxor wrote: post #190
forrestthewoods wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> this digital copy could only be checked out by one person and only when the physical book was not also checked out Even if that were the case I don’t think it’s acceptable. Physical used goods have limitations on transfer rate. If you want a used book you have to go to the store. Or have it shipped across the country. I adamantly oppose a global digital pool with instantaneous transfers. In that world you never nee…

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'…

>Libraries exist as a benefit to society, they aren't supposed to neatly fit into absolutist capitalist ideals. Libraries fit perfectly fine in the absolutist capitalist ideals (because they exist as a benefit to society), it is itellectual property that are not.
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