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Internet Archive's legal fights are over, but its founder mourns what was lost

arstechnica.com

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Re: Internet Archive's legal fights are over, but its founder mourns what was lost

#4
post #3

Is the feature gone, the one where I use my local library card to access an online book for 2 weeks if no one else has it currently?

Most of the IA’s ebook collection still supports controlled digital lending, just like every other library that operates an ebook lending system with CDL.

Re: Internet Archive's legal fights are over, but its founder mourns what was lost

#5
post #3

Is the feature gone, the one where I use my local library card to access an online book for 2 weeks if no one else has it currently?

From TFA: In the end, the fight led to more than 500,000 books being removed from the Archive’s “Open Library.”

Good chance the book you wanted is gone at the least

Re: Internet Archive's legal fights are over, but its founder mourns what was lost

#6

That's what happens when you practically beg book publishers to sue you.

The fact that giving free access to books during a pandemic, in a format that doesn't need physical contact, when libraries were shut down or hard to access for a lot of people should have been praised, not pursued by legal action from rent seeking entities.

The copyright system as a whole should by torn up.

At least it give a clear signal to anyone with a ounce of moral which publisher to avoid at all cost.

Re: Internet Archive's legal fights are over, but its founder mourns what was lost

#7
post #6

That's what happens when you practically beg book publishers to sue you.

The fact that giving free access to books during a pandemic, in a format that doesn't need physical contact, when libraries were shut down or hard to access for a lot of people should have been praised, not pursued by legal action from rent seeking entities. The copyright system as a whole should by torn up. At least it give a clear signal to anyone with a ounce of moral which publisher to avoid at all cost.

I worry 'hacker' news is going to become more and more 'normie' steadily moving farther and farther away from Barlow's declaration of independence of cyberspace cypherpunk ethos

It's easier to make money when you comply with The Man

Re: Internet Archive's legal fights are over, but its founder mourns what was lost

#8
> Kahle thinks “the world became stupider” when the Open Library was gutted—but he’s moving forward with new ideas

> The lawsuits haven’t dampened Kahle’s resolve to expand IA’s digitization efforts, though. Moving forward, the group will be growing a project called Democracy’s Library

please just stop. let IA be what it is. or rather, nothing wrong in doing new projects but don't tie them to IA, just start them as completely separate things. IA is too important as-is to be a playground for random kooky ideas playing with fire.

Re: Internet Archive's legal fights are over, but its founder mourns what was lost

#9
post #6

That's what happens when you practically beg book publishers to sue you.

The fact that giving free access to books during a pandemic, in a format that doesn't need physical contact, when libraries were shut down or hard to access for a lot of people should have been praised, not pursued by legal action from rent seeking entities. The copyright system as a whole should by torn up. At least it give a clear signal to anyone with a ounce of moral which publisher to avoid at all cost.

Copyright needs torn up or at the very least significant reform but if you're going to be skirting around the edges of it to try to do a good thing it's probably a good idea to not just straight up obviously and blatently break the letter and spirit of the law. CDL is an awkward and dubious workaround but if you drop the 'C' you're just doing copyright infringment and that would be much better left to entities like Anna's Archive. The criticism of IA in this regard is usually that it was a bad strategy, not that the goals were bad.

Re: Internet Archive's legal fights are over, but its founder mourns what was lost

#10
post #5
post #3

Is the feature gone, the one where I use my local library card to access an online book for 2 weeks if no one else has it currently?

From TFA: In the end, the fight led to more than 500,000 books being removed from the Archive’s “Open Library.” Good chance the book you wanted is gone at the least

I hope Anna's Archive kept a copy.
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