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

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

storage.courtlistener.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 848 posts

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

#131

Post by jandrese »

criddell wrote: post #87
majorchord wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I meant that digitally lending the books out that IA owns 1-to-1 in the same way a real library lends out physical books should legally be treated the same, regardless of any ebook-specific licensing.

As I understand it, as soon as the IA makes the digital copy they want to lend (digitally or physically), they now have two copies of the book and have committed copyright infringement. As soon as they lend a copy, there are now three copies in existence (unless they delete their copy as part of the loan) which is another count of infringement.

If they had a system where every page of the original was burned as it was scanned, and when you "checked out" a book it literally deleted the original on the server as it was sending it and the person returning the book also transferred the bytes back it would be quite a show.

I'm about 95% sure a scheme like that would still find them shut down. Remember the Aereo decision? They went through similar contortions, including building an antenna farm with thousands of tiny individual antennas, and were immediately killed off by the courts because it was seen as a legal hack. Such a scheme might threaten cable TV income if it were allowed to stand. Protecting incumbents from competition is a vital role of the courts.

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

#132

Post by tptacek »

cool_dude85 wrote: post #121
tcgv wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. And if a book is in high demand in a library, you'd either have to wait your turn or purchase one yourself to avoid the lending queue.

The IA's controlled digital lending setup worked the same way.

No, the IA's CDL system required them to make multiple copies of books (one to digitize the book, and one for every reader of the book), which is not a legal problem a physical library runs into.

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

#133

Post by IncreasePosts »

msla wrote: post #96
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…

CDL is how physical libraries work: They buy a book and then lend it out multiple times to multiple people, on a one-in one-out basis, who then do not have to buy the book themselves. They even repair books to avoid purchasing new ones again. Do you think physical libraries harm the people who bring books into being?

> Do you think physical libraries harm the people who bring books into being?

Yes, actually, I do. But the public benefits of libraries outweigh the harm it does to authors. But, the fact that I can buy a book once, and pass it between 50 friends to read feels unfair to the author who effectively makes no money off of the work.

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

#134

Post by EarlKing »

msla wrote: post #96
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…

CDL is how physical libraries work: They buy a book and then lend it out multiple times to multiple people, on a one-in one-out basis, who then do not have to buy the book themselves. They even repair books to avoid purchasing new ones again. Do you think physical libraries harm the people who bring books into being?

A physical library does not involve making a copy, but lending out an existing physical copy. One book, one reader. "Controlled Digital Lending" literally involves making and transmitting a copy to another physical medium electronically. Brewster has endangered the good work done by people at the archive for a case he was never going to win and which was of dubious value. If he wants to be the next Anna's Archive then he should drop all pretense and go do that... but leave the archive to do what the archive is meant to do.

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

#135

Post by jrochkind1 »

zerocrates wrote: post #106
jrochkind1 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, that is a disaster. I'll have to read more, I hadn't realized that.

Yeah the posture and discussion on that is basically "we don't even need to go into the NEL because CDL as a whole isn't fair use." There are some limiting principles... the lower decision only covered books that were "in print" in eBook form... but the rationale here is quite broad and would easily stretch beyond these specifics. (There's a small amount of analysis related to whether the digitization involved in CDL…

So what I'm mad at is not that IA did CDL and imperilled thier other work -- it's that instead of doing CDL in a way most likely to result in a successful case if sued, they did it in a reckless not-C way that resulted in a bad case that ruined CDL, where maybe a better case with better facts would not have.

In a more reasonable world we could imagine Congress might pass a law authorizing actual one-copy-per CDL by non-profit libraries. But nobody's going to hold their breath for that.

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

#137

Post by EarlKing »

jrockway wrote: post #40

Someone has to push the limits to see where they actually are. Now we know.

We already knew what those limits were. This accomplished nothing other than endangering the internet archive by committing mass acts of copyright infringement. Ultimately, if he wanted to push the limits and get the law changed through judicial activism, he should've done it in his personal capacity rather than as a policy of the internet archive.

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

#138

Post by doctorpangloss »

tptacek wrote: post #129
doctorpangloss wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t know, it doesn’t take a genius or a law degree to understand that maintaining a one to one ratio of physical copies to digitally lent books is the same shit as a regular library but more convenient. It stands to reason that the law shouldn’t preclude technological advances that make libraries more convenient. The reason traditional libraries aren’t threatened by the law is cultural. There are states that ban…

Judges aren't anti-library. People care a lot less about "compsci" culture than "compsci" people think they do. We simply aren't that important.

> Judges aren't anti-library.

Some are now!

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

#139

Post by jandrese »

wslh wrote: post #111
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.

I only separated the logic based on your point about preservation. I completely agree that copyright rules are often abused and modified 'a piacere.' The topic of preservation resonated with me because I do amateur research in genealogy, and, for example, if you don’t interview great-grandparents or grandparents, much of that information could become irrecoverable later.

My overall point was "are works actually preserved if they are locked away and inaccessible?" A work that technically exists, but is inaccessible until after your death is effectively lost to you.

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

#140

Post by [deleted] »

msla wrote: post #96
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…

CDL is how physical libraries work: They buy a book and then lend it out multiple times to multiple people, on a one-in one-out basis, who then do not have to buy the book themselves. They even repair books to avoid purchasing new ones again. Do you think physical libraries harm the people who bring books into being?

[deleted]
Post reply on HN