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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

#191

Post by account42 »

xhkkffbf wrote: post #131
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…

I'm an author but I'm not rich. Therefore the only way I can afford to write books is because people pay the publishers who, in turn, then have money to pay me. If you want to preserve human culture, you want to make it possible for the non-rich to help create it. If you want to write books for free, go to it. But what the IA did was just plain wrong. Plenty of bookstores like Powells were operating remotely during t…

Is it the only way or the most convenient way? The problem here is that that convenince afforded to creators has a substantial cost for everyone, including other creators.

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

#192

Post by cpach »

jazzyjackson wrote: post #88
capableweb wrote: post #2

I love the Internet Archive and frequently donate to them (2 times so far this year). What I'd love to see improved is the ability to be less "fragile". Currently it's all located in the US and they have a huge focus on the US, both technically and politically. But why not try to replicate it all over the world? There seems to have been some smaller efforts inside the Internet Archive to make it more decentralized, b…

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

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirate_Parties_International

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

#193

Post by drstewart »

krageon wrote: post #181
SpelingBeeChamp wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 :)

>I guess that means you should start looking :)

Not really, since these "abolish copyright" fantasies will never, ever happen, thankfully.

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

#194

Post by ChrisLomont »

dmitriid wrote: post #185
ChrisLomont wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 :)

I'd guess the Kindle is more convenient, no waiting for a title, no late fees, and has a vastly larger selection (on average).

Plus one can put their own content on Kindle, thereby taking lots of titles on trips or elsewhere.

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

#195

Post by tornato7 »

_ktx2 wrote: post #147
gojomo wrote: post #127

Some people here say they like the Internet Archive, and resent copyright maximalism, but wish IA would be more legally conservative around copyright law: "follow the law!" "ask permission!" "work through other libraries!" They may not understand that none of what they like about the Internet Archive would've been possible without a bold willingness to probe the boundaries of copyright law. If you'd asked any mainstr…

One of the things I dislike the most about Internet Archive is their relatively open attitude of flaunting privacy on purpose: http://blog.archive.org/2017/04/17/robots-txt-meant-for-sear... Do you know what system they replaced robots.txt with? Email, one that is filed as a DMCA request: https://medium.com/wednesday-genius/how-to-remove-your-websi... https://jonathanwthomas.net/how-to-get-your-website-out-of-t... So…

If you’re relying on an honor system .txt file to preserve your privacy I think that says enough already. It’s not like they’re infiltrating password-protected links or private iCloud accounts.

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

#196

Post by Kye »

daniel_reetz wrote: post #159
_ktx2 wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could be! However, making a direct attack on individual privacy should never have been an option. To make matters worse, the logic of, "We did this to government and military websites, so now we're going to roll it out everywhere" was quite broken for the time and remains so. There's examples of how this works in a healthy way. Martin Manley is one scenario that comes to mind, where he overtly opted-in to having an a…

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

Some people discover much too late that there are some things they wish they could take back. Often before trying to get a better job or when trying to escape an abuser. Given the ramping up of attacks (legal and otherwise) on queer people, this is going to be a huge issue over the next decade or so.

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

#197

Post by kmeisthax »

ghaff wrote: post #137
kmeisthax wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Digital lending has no legal basis in either the controlled or uncontrolled format. In fact, the argumentation is suspiciously similar to the ReDigi case. Courts generally have upheld that first sale ends when copying begins, even if the end result is the moral equivalent of a sale rather than a copy[0]. And, indeed, the publishers were grumbling about controlled digital lending (CDL) before IA pulled the National Em…

The history of software licensing is sort of interesting. I had occasion to dive into it a year or so ago for a book and it seems to have been institutionalized with the IBM/360 because 1.) IBM was feeling pressure to sell software independent of hardware for antitrust reasons and 2.) All of the existing IP protection mechanisms seemed pretty iffy at the time.

Software is one of the key aspects of the history of copyright maximalism, too. If you strictly applied the utility rule, software would only be patentable, not copyrightable. However, CONTU made a big mistake and convinced Congress to grant software copyright, which created a whole bunch of unanswered legal questions that are only now getting resolution through judicial legislation[0].

A decade and change later when Intel started asking for hardware copyright[1], Congress actually realized their mistake and created a sui generis right for integrated circuit designs ("maskwork rights"). We never complain about maskwork cases because they are incredibly limited, have a 10 year lifespan, and basically only cover direct copying. Software would have been no different had Congress not made the mistake of handing the full enchilada of copyright monopoly protection - including all those pesky questions about derivative works - to software companies.

[0] e.g. is linking infringement? can you copyright interfaces?

[1] Fun fact: before this, it was entirely legal to X-ray chips and reproduce them. In fact, the NES famously shipped with a bootleg 6502 that only had decimal mode missing because that was the only thing MOS could patent.

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

#198

Post by _ktx2 »

tornato7 wrote: post #195
_ktx2 wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the things I dislike the most about Internet Archive is their relatively open attitude of flaunting privacy on purpose: http://blog.archive.org/2017/04/17/robots-txt-meant-for-sear... Do you know what system they replaced robots.txt with? Email, one that is filed as a DMCA request: https://medium.com/wednesday-genius/how-to-remove-your-websi... https://jonathanwthomas.net/how-to-get-your-website-out-of-t... So…

If you’re relying on an honor system .txt file to preserve your privacy I think that says enough already. It’s not like they’re infiltrating password-protected links or private iCloud accounts.

You are right, regulation is what solves this for good

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

#199

Post by [deleted] »

drstewart wrote: post #193
krageon wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 :)

>I guess that means you should start looking :) Not really, since these "abolish copyright" fantasies will never, ever happen, thankfully.

[deleted]

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

#200

Post by gojomo »

_ktx2 wrote: post #198
tornato7 wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you’re relying on an honor system .txt file to preserve your privacy I think that says enough already. It’s not like they’re infiltrating password-protected links or private iCloud accounts.

You are right, regulation is what solves this for good

In truth, regulation can only reliably protect your privacy from well-behaved actors whose actions/violations are observable.

If you've taken no self-help measures to limit access, then bad actors, unobservable to you and regulators, will still be doing whatever they would like to do and can get away with.

But you may be lulled into a false sense of security by the false promise of a 'solution' via regulations.

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