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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

#661

Post by RobotToaster »

healsdata wrote: post #173
cmiles74 wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Because other libraries have licensing agreements that benefit authors on a different basis than "you sold one book to one library". You may argue that that shouldn't be the paradigm, but one library unilaterally changing it denies the authors their say on the change, either through licensing or legislation.

> that benefit authors on a different basis

It benefits the publishing megacorps on a different basis, authors make very little on book sales or loans.

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

#662

Post by tristor »

This decision is ridiculous. It essentially codifies, once and for all, that buying a physical book conveys more rights than buying a digital book, to the buyer. Previously this was de facto the case only because of DRM on the digital book, but this now makes it de jure, regardless of the presence of DRM.

By my take, the only correct action any right-thinking person can do is civil disobedience and work to archive, anonymously and for the public, as much written works as possible. This is an absolute theft of the commons, and particularly heinous.

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

#663

Post by tombert »

0x1ch wrote: post #206
jrflowers wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> IA will let you download full video games for the switch that are still being actively sold [1] I am not seeing that anywhere. I see a file called “My Nintendo Switch games collection” and it is a big jpeg photo of a bookshelf. Is this what you mean?

I'm heavy into the tracker and open water scenes. IA is most certainly holding some amount of content that is copyrighted and currently sold like they mentioned. It's just not easy to find.

I really don't think it's hard to find at all. I just Kagi'd "PS3 games internet archive" and found a big download of hundreds of games that, as far as I'm aware are still copyrighted, and some of which are (I believe) still being commercially sold on the Playstation Store. This took about ten seconds on my end, but admittedly I'm a pretty fast typist.

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

#664

Post by RobotToaster »

iggldiggl wrote: post #603
riffraff wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference between physical books and digital books is apparently wear https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41452031

Although at least in the local library that I'm familiar with, wear is nowhere near as severe as what e-book lending licenses might suggest. From a quick search in the US those often seem restricted to two years or twenty-six lends. The former condition seems totally ridiculous (my library has tons of books older than two years) and even the latter seems questionable – from back when they used to stamp the return dat…

> from back when they used to stamp the return dates into the books [1], quite a few books had managed 26 lendings without falling apart yet.

I remember seeing books that had been lent easily over 100 times.

Not to mention a book can be rebound by a library if it's purchase price is high.

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

#665

Post by vagrantJin »

glitcher wrote: post #646
dannyobrien wrote: post #551

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I will claim that IA is an overly-sensible org because they fought this in court. That about show a healthy respect to the law, middlemen and authors to argue in the presence of a judge. For Publishers and middlemen, this is a hollow victory. Murky water.

Say for instance, I buy a book. I make a scanned copy and lend out the original. The person who borrowed the book, makes a copy and sends it back. I do this for 1 million times. I wasn't distributing copies, no one was distributing copies.

This is what we did in Uni. The class would contribute some small amount to the purchase of an original book. Then the person who bought the original with the classes money, made a copy, passing the original along. Within the week, every student had borrowed that book. And everyone had a copy. Do you see the murky water?

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

#666

Post by bunderbunder »

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…

It's true that this case isn't really about CDL, but it's also not just about the EL.

It's not about CDL because it's very specifically focused on Open Library's specific implementation, Open Library. Nobody is suing Hoopla or OverDrive. The courts are openly acknowledging that by explicitly spelling out why this ruling only applies to Open Library and not to other well-known CDLs.

And the Emergency Library was just the concrete pressure pipe that broke the camel's back. Publishers and author's unions had reportedly been trying to negotiate with IA about OL all along, and EL was just the move that prompted them to stop playing nice and take it to court. The rulings don't need to focus on EL, though, because a ruling against the aspects of OL that are under contention would automatically apply to EL as well.

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

#667

Post by blendergeek »

sumeno wrote: post #586
dannyobrien wrote: post #551

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

> Why did only Kahle do it, and why was it only Kahle coming up with CDL as an idea to prevent the death of first sale, of lending a book, of the idea of a free library in a digital future? Lots of libraries do free digital lending of ebooks in a legal way and have done so for a long time

The publishers charge the libraries per lending event. This is nothing like lending physical books and the publishers fully control it.

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

#668

Post by thimabi »

dewey wrote: post #578
thimabi wrote: post #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…

> consider simply moving to another jurisdiction 1) It's not "simply" 2) Moving to another jurisdiction makes things harder, not easier. You'd have to move all the servers and you'd lose almost all easy ways of receiving funds and donations. Ask websites on the brink of legality how much fun payment processing is (adult, piracy, IPTV providers,...).

Considering that the opportunity cost for not switching jurisdictions seems to be no longer being in that particular business, any obstacles along the way seem minor in comparison.

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

#669

Post by wly_cdgr »

vagrantJin wrote: post #665
glitcher wrote: post #646

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I will claim that IA is an overly-sensible org because they fought this in court. That about show a healthy respect to the law, middlemen and authors to argue in the presence of a judge. For Publishers and middlemen, this is a hollow victory. Murky water. Say for instance, I buy a book. I make a scanned copy and lend out the original. The person who borrowed the book, makes a copy and sends it back. I do this for 1 m…

[flagged]

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

#670

Post by gibolt »

ethbr1 wrote: post #649
holmesworcester wrote: post #613

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This comment plus the parent changed my opinion on the case. They still may have gone too far be loaning out copies, but the fight to return to physical book loaning practices is worth it. Ownership and long-term availability matter.
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