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Tell HN: Internet Archive is facing a Big 4 Publishers lawsuit

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Re: Tell HN: Internet Archive is facing a Big 4 Publishers lawsuit

#181

Post by krageon »

SpelingBeeChamp wrote: post #161
jazzyjackson wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

is there any group lobbying for the abolishment of all copyright? I'd like to donate to them.

Do you enjoy feature films? Video games? Television shows? Hardly any of that content would exist at the quality level you are accustomed to, without copyright. I say that as a producer of such content. If anyone could legally copy and distribute my work without my permission, I would not produce it, because there would be minimal financial incentive for me to do so. The current level of such unauthorized distributio…

Ok, then I guess we will have to live with that not existing. Copyright is a travesty.

> If copyright ceased to exist, I and nearly every other producer that I know, would find another line of work.

I guess that means you should start looking :)

Re: Tell HN: Internet Archive is facing a Big 4 Publishers lawsuit

#182

Post by bakugo »

stubish wrote: post #167
daniel_reetz wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With respect, I fail to see how a public website is a privacy matter.

Information on a public website is public until it is taken down or the information changed. The Internet Archive removes an individuals control over when the information remains public. This is privacy. We might be caught naked, and we can't unsee what has been seen, but it is a basic human instinct to draw the curtains and contain further damage. Perfectly innocent individuals suffer because the IA rules are design…

> The Internet Archive removes an individuals control over when the information remains public.

And that's a good thing in the vast majority of cases. Unless we're talking about sensitive information that was published without the consent of the person in question, all public information should remain public forever.

Re: Tell HN: Internet Archive is facing a Big 4 Publishers lawsuit

#183

Post by account42 »

stubish wrote: post #171
gojomo wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neiher 'flaunting privacy' nor 'direct attack on individual privacy' are fair descriptions of any of the Archive's web collection policies. People who freely publish information, to the worldwide public, on the 'World Wide Web' should reasonably expect all sorts of entities to collect, save, analyze, & repurpose that info, unless they take specific steps to discourage such access & use. The Archive's crawlers identif…

This is victim blaming. In my jurisdiction, you retain copyright under any information you publish, even to the worldwide public. This means I can reasonably expect entities to collect, save, analyze and repurpose that info within reason , and without specific steps to discourage access & use. This is why there are laws such as 'fair use' and 'satire', because we wanted to extend what is considered reasonable use of…

You are arguing about copyright in a thread discussing accusations of privacy violations.

Re: Tell HN: Internet Archive is facing a Big 4 Publishers lawsuit

#184

Post by xwdv »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #40
xwdv wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ask for forgiveness not permission if you want to innovate.

This is becoming one of the most abused sayings in the startup world. In this case “ask for forgiveness” could mean going out of business in the process. You can only afford to “ask for forgiveness” and break the law if you’re willing to lose it all. Why the IA did this as part of their long established archive business instead of a separate venture is beyond me.

Forgive us for abusing it. We just want to succeed.

Re: Tell HN: Internet Archive is facing a Big 4 Publishers lawsuit

#185

Post by dmitriid »

ChrisLomont wrote: post #178
dmitriid wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Kindle unlimited is a pretty similar to a library and many publishers support it and include their books. Yes, it costs something per month, but it's much less than the overhead costs for librarians, heat and a building. How much do you think you personally pay for libraries? 1 cent a year? Half a cent a year? And it's not "many publishers support ", it's "libraries are obliged to have all books, and in many countr…

> How much do you think you personally pay for libraries? 1 cent a year? Half a cent a year? More on the order of $40/yr. https://www.amacad.org/humanities-indicators/public-life/pub...

Thank you for finding this!

Still three times less than a Kindle Unlimited subscription :)

Re: Tell HN: Internet Archive is facing a Big 4 Publishers lawsuit

#186

Post by account42 »

stubish wrote: post #167
daniel_reetz wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With respect, I fail to see how a public website is a privacy matter.

Information on a public website is public until it is taken down or the information changed. The Internet Archive removes an individuals control over when the information remains public. This is privacy. We might be caught naked, and we can't unsee what has been seen, but it is a basic human instinct to draw the curtains and contain further damage. Perfectly innocent individuals suffer because the IA rules are design…

If you print a magazine you also don't get to recall all copies if you change your mind about something. Giving individuals this kind of control over other's ability to freely share information is dangerous because it is easily abused to hide information that is in the public's interest and that is not an edge case at all. Making a decision to publish something on the public web is hardly analogous to being caught naked even if you may come to regret either.

If anything, the IA should be more reluctant to remove information without a court decision.

Re: Tell HN: Internet Archive is facing a Big 4 Publishers lawsuit

#187

Post by account42 »

SpelingBeeChamp wrote: post #161
jazzyjackson wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

is there any group lobbying for the abolishment of all copyright? I'd like to donate to them.

Do you enjoy feature films? Video games? Television shows? Hardly any of that content would exist at the quality level you are accustomed to, without copyright. I say that as a producer of such content. If anyone could legally copy and distribute my work without my permission, I would not produce it, because there would be minimal financial incentive for me to do so. The current level of such unauthorized distributio…

> Hardly any of that content would exist at the quality level you are accustomed to, without copyright.

How would you know? Yes these all require funding but the idea that we as a society can only fund big creative works by giving up everyones right to freely share and enjoy them is absurd. Copyright is an effective(ish) way of funding things in a world built around copyright but it is not the only one and there is no reason to believe that there could not be better ones in a world without copyright.

It's a sad world we live in when creators are upset that their creation is shared.

Let's also not forget that the need to commercialize creative content using copyright can also negatively influence those works themselves as what is profitable under this scheme is not neccesarily what is best.

> It’s also a huge waste of time, as in order to be able to pay my employees and myself, I have to dedicate time to combating infringement-as-a-business.

Good news: without copyright you would not have to spend any time to combat infringement since there would be no infringement.

> For starters, the wholesale abolition of copyright would violate the United States Constitution.

Does it? I'm certainly not an expert of the matter but AFAII the constitution only ALLOWS the government to create laws like copyright but does not require it.

Re: Tell HN: Internet Archive is facing a Big 4 Publishers lawsuit

#188

Post by account42 »

Veen wrote: post #168
jazzyjackson wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do you enjoy feature films? Video games? Television shows? not really no, I like stand up comedy, music, indie films, art that people make because they feel compelled to make art, not because they've done the math on the best return-on-investment My ideal funding model is kickstarteresque, raise X amount and then publish I consider copyright contradictory to free speech, I can say whatever I want unless it's alread…

> art that people make because they feel compelled to make art, not because they've done the math on the best return-on-investment How do you think such people buy food and heat their homes.

- Patronage

- Crowdfunding

- Other forms of payment for creation rather than distributing copies

- Government grants

- UBI

Those are just the super obvious ones. Generally when something is considered valuable, society finds ways to pay for it. Not allowing copyright and patent parasites collect as much means there is more that can be spread to actual creators.

Or they could work on something else that is not as easily copied - there will always be others driven to create art.

That there are business models profiting from certain laws should not exclude those laws from being reconsidered. In a way, copyright is like pollution: externalizing the costs to everyone else for your own profit.

Re: Tell HN: Internet Archive is facing a Big 4 Publishers lawsuit

#189

Post by account42 »

xhkkffbf wrote: post #133
BitwiseFool wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If libraries hadn't already been in existence since antiquity, copyright holders would never have allowed them to exist.

But why do you say that? Kindle unlimited is a pretty similar to a library and many publishers support it and include their books. Yes, it costs something per month, but it's much less than the overhead costs for librarians, heat and a building. Many municipalities could actually save money by closing their libraries and giving everyone with an active library card a subscription to Kindle unlimited. I'm not suggestin…

https://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/technology/companies/18am...

Re: Tell HN: Internet Archive is facing a Big 4 Publishers lawsuit

#190

Post by account42 »

mypalmike wrote: post #70
metadat wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The mission of preserving human culture is far more important than respecting rent-seeking copyright holders. At the end of the day, The Internet Archive has good intentions and is morally in the right. The time has come to consider changing the laws to allow for truly fair use, especially for physical items scanned to digital (e.g. books), old video games, and more. It's about selecting for the common good over the…

"Rent seeking" requires a lack of created value. If you want access to these works, which you seem to be arguing for, then you are saying these works do have value. I suspect you are just misusing the term.

I think it applies perfectly. Just like with houses the creative works need to first be created - but the ones profiting in perpetuity by collecting rents are more often than not the original creators.
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