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

Publishers File Suit Against Internet Archive

publishers.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 358 posts

Re: Publishers File Suit Against Internet Archive

#161

Post by IncRnd »

saagarjha wrote: post #9

> Despite the self-serving library branding of its operations, IA’s conduct bears little resemblance to the trusted role that thousands of American libraries play within their communities and as participants in the lawful copyright marketplace. IA scans books from cover to cover, posts complete digital files to its website, and solicits users to access them for free by signing up for Internet Archive Accounts. I wond…

Actual libraries have limited copies of any book, even e-books. In an actual library, a book cannot be downloaded by the entire Internet at one time.

Re: Publishers File Suit Against Internet Archive

#162

Post by WarOnPrivacy »

The history of publishing orgs is one of compulsive lawsuits.

> Despite Google taking measures to provide full text of only works in public domain, and providing only a searchable summary online for books still under copyright protection, publishers maintain that Google has no right to copy full text of books with copyrights and save them, in large amounts, into its own database.

re: Author's Guild v. Google https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authors_Guild,_Inc._v._Google,....

Re: Publishers File Suit Against Internet Archive

#163

Post by tzs »

user5994461 wrote: post #60
BitwiseFool wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If libraries weren't an ancient concept that preceeded copyright law they'd be illegal today.

Libraries would be only illegal in the US though, because all these copyright issues are US specific. Archive.org might as well rebase itself somewhere else.

What they are being accused of would be highly questionable under the copyright laws of over 190 countries, including almost all that are likely to be reasonable places to host a major internet site.

Re: Publishers File Suit Against Internet Archive

#164

Post by notriddle »

tosers4 wrote: post #83
toomuchtodo wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Library Genesis serves as an unofficial alternative to Internet Archive' Open Library, with no lending controls and copyright restrictions (as they operate outside of US jurisdiction and make no attempt to adhere to copyright law, similar to SciHub). To your point, the Internet Archive most definitely needs to operate in a distributed, global fashion to prevent a single country from causing a loss of cultural data be…

Isn't SciHub just a rich "client" for LibGen?

SciHub is a web service that downloads papers on demand. In addition to serving the paper up, they also send a backup to LibGen, making LibGen's scientific paper section an archive of SciHub.

Re: Publishers File Suit Against Internet Archive

#165

Post by marnett »

ghaff wrote: post #114
Mindwipe wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They did it because the pandemic has closed libraries coast to coast, and it was a nice thing to do for people. Imagine that, making a decision not based on money or liability. You mean a stupid one that endangers everything else you do, yes? Robbing a bank and giving away the money is a decision not based on money or liability, but you shouldn't be very surprised you still get put in prison for it.

To say nothing of the fact that there are about 20,000 books at Project Gutenberg and countless other (legal) short stories, books, articles, etc. around the web. (And that's before talking video and other multimedia.) It's not like there is some critical shortage of things to read online in the absence of the IA.

What about modern textbooks and academic pieces that students need access to? And, in particular, students from lesser privileged socioeconomic backgrounds in the US public education system?

Re: Publishers File Suit Against Internet Archive

#166

Post by cygx »

mrgalaxy wrote: post #22
TylerE wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a normal library, they have to obtain one copy for each copy checked out.

Oh I guess I kind of assumed that was what they were doing, although I guess I didn't explicitly see that anywhere. If they really do lend more copies then they've purchased then IA is pretty clearly in the wrong.

They suspended their waitlist until June 30 ("or the end of the US national emergency, whichever is later") in response to library closures.

Re: Publishers File Suit Against Internet Archive

#167

Post by tzs »

hashhar wrote: post #112
jasode wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>IA's lending is not unlimited, even with the National Emergency Library. I'm not debating with you about the details since I haven't used IA's system myself but the last time this came up, a commenter explained that there were a bunch of loopholes in IA's "limits" that it was effectively "unlimited". E.g. after the checkout period expires, you just check out the ebook again. Again, I don't know if this is true. EDIT…

And how is that different from a physical library.

A physical library pays based on maximum simultaneous checkouts. If they want to allow 5 people to have copies checked out simultaneously, they buy 5 copies from the publisher.

Re: Publishers File Suit Against Internet Archive

#168

Post by cygx »

IncRnd wrote: post #161
saagarjha wrote: post #9

> Despite the self-serving library branding of its operations, IA’s conduct bears little resemblance to the trusted role that thousands of American libraries play within their communities and as participants in the lawful copyright marketplace. IA scans books from cover to cover, posts complete digital files to its website, and solicits users to access them for free by signing up for Internet Archive Accounts. I wond…

Actual libraries have limited copies of any book, even e-books. In an actual library, a book cannot be downloaded by the entire Internet at one time.

So does the IA during normal operation.

Re: Publishers File Suit Against Internet Archive

#169

Post by space_fountain »

betamaxthetape wrote: post #74
space_fountain wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But for copyright to mean something and for the authors to get paid IA's emergency library can't become the norm right? If they don't enforce limits on the number of copies what does it matter that they monitor the number of copies.

> IA's emergency library can't become the norm I don't think the plan is to "become the norm". It's an 'emergency library', and it exists currently because the pandemic has forced regular libraries to close.

Hum, many are starting to reopen which maybe helps to explain why this lawsuit is happening now. Regardless while it changes the morality I don't think it changes anything about the legality.

Re: Publishers File Suit Against Internet Archive

#170

Post by space_fountain »

EvanAnderson wrote: post #80
space_fountain wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this press release is missing an important details. While previously IA only allowed the same number of books that they owned to be lent out as part of their response to covid they've dropped that restriction. As much as I like IA if copyright is to continue to exist that can't be legal. http://blog.archive.org/2020/03/24/announcing-a-national-eme...

Copyright doesn't exist as boolean. It's a social contract-- a give and take between the owners of "intellectual property" and society-- and exists along a continuum. Copyright in the US has, in the last 50-ish years, taken a hard turn toward benefit for the owners of the "intellectual property" (not requiring registration anymore, increased duration of terms, the DMCA and everything that came along with it). I'd arg…

I don't think a reinterpretation where anyone is allowed to make and lend as many copies of works as they want is workable though. Like we haven't found another way to incentive producing content.
Post reply on HN