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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

#61

Post by phs318u »

missinglugnut wrote: post #46
TimorousBestie wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> let IA be what it is IA is the eccentric, untamed idealism. You can’t have the Wayback Machine without the National Emergency Library and the Great 78 Project.

As the project matures, the risk tolerance should mature too. Betting your own time and money on the realization of a crazy ideal can be very noble. Betting a resource millions of people are relying on is destructive hubris. They should take the untamed idealism to a separate legal entity before they ruin all the good they've done.

"Millions of people" should either be putting their money (and their objections) where their mouth is or stop relying on someone else's resource. The reality is, that like Wikipedia, few people have donated to IA as a proportion of all its users.

The "good" that they've done is the "good" as the creator's see it, not the "good" as the freeloaders see it. All of which is to simply say that almost all users of IA are relying on the goodwill of the creators.

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

#62

Post by paulddraper »

tototrains wrote: post #14

Remember: If OpenAI/Google does it for $$$, it's not illegal. If idealists do it for public access, full force of the law. Information wants to be free. Oblige it. Fools with temporary power trying to extract from the work of others will be a blip in the history books if we make them.

Neither OpenAI or Google did what Internet Archive did.

To say otherwise is disingenuous.

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

#63

Post by zokier »

convolvatron wrote: post #54
tedunangst wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not? The Wayback Machine predates the National Emergency Library by many years, suggesting it is possible for one to exist without the other.

And Brewster Kahle's notions about culture and information sharing start well before the Internet Archive. In theory one could pick and choose, but this is Brewster's life-long passion project. The man even outfitted a van with a printer and a binder to distribute physical books for free. It's very strange to insist that he _not_ push the boundaries of copyright law for the common good. without that you wouldn't have…

> It's very strange to insist that he _not_ push the boundaries of copyright law for the common good

He as an individual can keep pushing whatever he wants. Just keep IA out of it.

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

#64

Post by paulddraper »

tptacek wrote: post #37
nekusar wrote: post #16

What capitalism continues to show us: proof that public libraries, if created in the last 10 years, would be deemed illegal and sued out of existence. It's only because the late 1800's billionaires wanted to leave legacies and made pay-to-enter and free libraries, and migrated them to free, or public libraries. Thats why so many of them are (John) Carnegie Libraries. Only legal when billionaires do it.

How do you figure libraries would be deemed illegal? They operate today. The Archive, on the other hand, attempted a fair use argument for whole copies of books (the copyrighted form most legible to copyright law) currently for sale as ebooks. I agree with the comment across the thread calling this a spectacularly boneheaded move and expressing gratitude that the entire Archive wasn't compromised over the stunt.

The claim is that they operate today only via precedent.

> proof that public libraries, if created in the last 10 years

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

#65

Post by wcarss »

fngjdflmdflg wrote: post #58
alt187 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might be glad to learn a number of studies (mostly commissioked by the European Union) agree on the fact that piracy doesn't hurt sales. The main consensus is that people who illegally access content wouldn't have bought it otherwise, and that they still advertise it (thus, still driving up sales). These studies have then been systematically strong-armed into silence by the EU and constituent countries' anti-pira…

Why do companies attempt to prevent piracy if it doesn't hurt sales?

The opinions of their principals may not align with published findings, for many reasons.

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

#66

Post by throwanem »

pessimizer wrote: post #56
throwanem wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but from a much older coinage, as documented in (the not entirely uncontroversial) "The New Hacker's Dictionary" compiled by (the likewise) Eric Raymond: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3008/3008-h/3008-h.htm#hacke... I'm old enough to recall the term in active use, and to have received the appellation from one who'd had it likewise handed down. I regard both as epiphenomena of the Internet's frontier or "Wild W…

The site used to be called "Startup News." https://news.ycombinator.com/announcingnews.html https://news.ycombinator.com/hackernews.html

That's good background, but I'm not sure where I'm meant to understand it to disagree with the idea that the "hacker" in "Hacker News" is the same one discussed in TNHD.

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

#67

Post by fragmede »

fngjdflmdflg wrote: post #58
alt187 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might be glad to learn a number of studies (mostly commissioked by the European Union) agree on the fact that piracy doesn't hurt sales. The main consensus is that people who illegally access content wouldn't have bought it otherwise, and that they still advertise it (thus, still driving up sales). These studies have then been systematically strong-armed into silence by the EU and constituent countries' anti-pira…

Why do companies attempt to prevent piracy if it doesn't hurt sales?

Because those studies aren't actual proof, and companies selling things are biased to believe that people won't pay for shit if they don't have to. (Which they won't.)

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

#68

Post by fragmede »

paulddraper wrote: post #62
tototrains wrote: post #14

Remember: If OpenAI/Google does it for $$$, it's not illegal. If idealists do it for public access, full force of the law. Information wants to be free. Oblige it. Fools with temporary power trying to extract from the work of others will be a blip in the history books if we make them.

Neither OpenAI or Google did what Internet Archive did. To say otherwise is disingenuous.

Google Books scanned paper books in, and then made those scans available online, with some limitations.

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

#69

Post by doctorpangloss »

harrall wrote: post #51
fooqux wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, which Google won. Which was basically the point of the person you replied to I think.

Google didn’t “win.” Google Books is currently a shell of its former self.

you're right - really, it's in the opinion of all copyright / IP lawyers & thinkers in this country that Google lost, because it didn't get to do what it wanted to do, even if it "won", it is Pyrrhic.

the balance of comments in Hacker News about a topic like this: it tips towards the wrong understanding of that case. There's Gell Mann Amnesia in every comment section.

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