Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Temporary National Emergency Library to close 2 weeks early

blog.archive.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 150 posts

Re: Temporary National Emergency Library to close 2 weeks early

#11

Post by nordsieck »

geofft wrote: post #8

> We moved up our schedule because, last Monday, four commercial publishers chose to sue Internet Archive during a global pandemic. Did this come as a surprise? Did Internet Archive not expect publishers to sue? The Archive launched the emergency library during a global pandemic. Lots of people, myself included, said that this was a risky move because they would obviously get sued and it would put not only the Archiv…

> Publishers and authors alike like physical libraries because when more people check out books from libraries, more copies get purchased.

I don't think they like libraries per se, they've just made peace with the first sale doctrine.

On the upside, libraries are a stable source of demand for new books.

On the downside, libraries' collection are generally used more intensely than private collections - each book in a library displaces more than one private sale.

> It stands to reason that they shouldn't mind digital libraries that follow the same principle.

Maybe. I don't think the first sale doctrine really covers Controlled Digital Lending, so I guess we'll see how things pan out in court.

Re: Temporary National Emergency Library to close 2 weeks early

#12

Post by hopfscotch6 »

geofft wrote: post #8

> We moved up our schedule because, last Monday, four commercial publishers chose to sue Internet Archive during a global pandemic. Did this come as a surprise? Did Internet Archive not expect publishers to sue? The Archive launched the emergency library during a global pandemic. Lots of people, myself included, said that this was a risky move because they would obviously get sued and it would put not only the Archiv…

The publishers do not have a legitimate business and deserve to go out of existence. Copyright is nonsense.

Re: Temporary National Emergency Library to close 2 weeks early

#13

Post by jawns »

hopfscotch6 wrote: post #12
geofft wrote: post #8

> We moved up our schedule because, last Monday, four commercial publishers chose to sue Internet Archive during a global pandemic. Did this come as a surprise? Did Internet Archive not expect publishers to sue? The Archive launched the emergency library during a global pandemic. Lots of people, myself included, said that this was a risky move because they would obviously get sued and it would put not only the Archiv…

The publishers do not have a legitimate business and deserve to go out of existence. Copyright is nonsense.

How do you propose that the authors of creative works be paid for their efforts, outside of copyright?

Re: Temporary National Emergency Library to close 2 weeks early

#14

Post by SirYandi »

hopfscotch6 wrote: post #12
geofft wrote: post #8

> We moved up our schedule because, last Monday, four commercial publishers chose to sue Internet Archive during a global pandemic. Did this come as a surprise? Did Internet Archive not expect publishers to sue? The Archive launched the emergency library during a global pandemic. Lots of people, myself included, said that this was a risky move because they would obviously get sued and it would put not only the Archiv…

The publishers do not have a legitimate business and deserve to go out of existence. Copyright is nonsense.

What if an author self publishes their book, does he/she deserve copyright?

Re: Temporary National Emergency Library to close 2 weeks early

#15

Post by hopfscotch7 »

jawns wrote: post #13
hopfscotch6 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The publishers do not have a legitimate business and deserve to go out of existence. Copyright is nonsense.

How do you propose that the authors of creative works be paid for their efforts, outside of copyright?

They aren’t?

Re: Temporary National Emergency Library to close 2 weeks early

#16

Post by hopfscotch7 »

SirYandi wrote: post #14
hopfscotch6 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The publishers do not have a legitimate business and deserve to go out of existence. Copyright is nonsense.

What if an author self publishes their book, does he/she deserve copyright?

No

Re: Temporary National Emergency Library to close 2 weeks early

#17

Post by DecoPerson »

The Internet Archive is so incredibly important.

There’s a lot of different views about the purpose of life or lack thereof, but for all except a few beliefs, having access to past writings is very important.

Humanity is only at the very beginning of its existence. The success or failure of projects like the Internet Archive will drastically change our future.

If you think the loss of the Internet Archive won’t significantly current day activities, you’re wrong. Besides the fact that the IA holds the only easily accessible copies of many websites from the 90s and early 2000s, there is the “my legacy” factor.

Do you think people would have commissioned statues of themselves if they knew they were going to be vandalized and torn down in a protest 100 years later?

Even though we may try to stop our egos affecting our decisions, they still play a huge role. Mathematicians don’t just write papers to further the field, they also do it to gain notoriety and leave a legacy.

I know that if I write a blog post, it will be unavailable from its original source within 20 years. But that’s OK! The Internet Archive will store a copy and someone many generations from now will be able to read my humble writings. Oh... but the IA was shut down because its leadership decided to be philanthropic during a period of human history that lacked freedom of information. I’m going for a walk instead.

Perhaps the “my legacy” effect has only a marginal influence on how many authors decide to put pen to paper, but it’s still something. It’s hard to measure, so if it’s plausible that it could be significant, we should act appropriately.

Re: Temporary National Emergency Library to close 2 weeks early

#18

Post by jawns »

geofft wrote: post #8

> We moved up our schedule because, last Monday, four commercial publishers chose to sue Internet Archive during a global pandemic. Did this come as a surprise? Did Internet Archive not expect publishers to sue? The Archive launched the emergency library during a global pandemic. Lots of people, myself included, said that this was a risky move because they would obviously get sued and it would put not only the Archiv…

I'm an author, and from my perspective, CDL seems like a reasonable way (if not the most reasonable way) to apply the first sale doctrine in the digital age.

Publishers would prefer to instead license ebooks and pretend first sale doesn't apply at all for digital books. I understand why that irritates a lot of people.

The Internet Archive, on the flip side, is pretending that copyright infringement doesn't apply during a pandemic and that the first sale doctrine is much more expansive than it actually is.

My hope is that both sides will come to accept CDL as a compromise system. It hurts publishers and authors no more than print lending does, and it's on much more solid legal ground than the IA's uncontrolled lending.

Re: Temporary National Emergency Library to close 2 weeks early

#19

Post by different-guy »

jawns wrote: post #13
hopfscotch6 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The publishers do not have a legitimate business and deserve to go out of existence. Copyright is nonsense.

How do you propose that the authors of creative works be paid for their efforts, outside of copyright?

I propose that they do it out of love, and not for money. There will be less trash on the market and more high quality work.

Re: Temporary National Emergency Library to close 2 weeks early

#20

Post by aspenmayer »

ghaff wrote: post #5
jMyles wrote: post #3

Figuring out how to move projects like IA to a configuration where they are beyond the reach of the state, but still universally accessible, is one of the most important open issues of the internet today.

Which also means they would be beyond the protection of a state and its laws. That doesn't strike me as an obviously preferable situation. Nothing that needs to be accessed via a network and requires human interaction is really truly beyond the reach of nation states. Just because you're on an offshore platform in the North Sea [1] doesn't mean you're not exposed to having your network and supply lines cut off at a m…

I don’t follow. Sites on IPFS are still copyrightable. They aren’t mutually exclusive concepts legally.
Post reply on HN