Judge decides against Internet Archive • Hacker News Board

Re: Judge decides against Internet Archive

#231

Post by grey413 » Sat, Mar 25, 2023, 2:54 AM UTC

bdowling wrote: post #161

warent wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems horrendous. Don't many community/government libraries do this? Seems like a huge blow to freedom of information and sharing.

> Don't many community/government libraries do this? Those books are licensed to the libraries by the publishers. The introduction of the opinion here explains how it works: > This dispute concerns the way libraries lend ebooks. Public and academic libraries in the United States spend billions of dollars each year obtaining print books and ebooks for their patrons to borrow for free. Pls.’ 56.1 ¶ 113. Libraries usual…

It's worth emphasizing that part of the reason why publishers are happy to work with providing libraries with ebooks is that libraries are extremely good customers. There's something like 100,000 libraries in the US alone. A single organization like the Internet Archive just simply doesn't have the purchasing power to make publishers willing to give up any ground.

Re: Judge decides against Internet Archive

#232

Post by Zetice » Sat, Mar 25, 2023, 2:54 AM UTC

allturtles wrote: post #91

A lot of people in these comments still seem confused about what has happened here. This ruling is not about the emergency library at all. It's a ruling that controlled digital lending (one physical copy backing each digital copy lent out) is illegal.

So what does this mean for my extensive library in Plex of DVDs I own?

Re: Judge decides against Internet Archive

#233

Post by benatkin » Sat, Mar 25, 2023, 2:57 AM UTC

jkdufair wrote: post #215

hedora wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s a terrible ruling. The first sale doctrine says the copy of the book you bought is yours. Lending the book is clearly not copying it. So, I guess you just don’t own anything you buy anymore? Like what if I want to lend a tool to someone, and the tool manufacturer wants to rent their tools out? Is that also illegal? What if the tool contains software? What if reasonable use of the tool requires accessing a prin…

I don’t disagree with the ruling. IA is not lending their copy that they purchased. They are lending a copy of their copy. While that copy is lent out, they are still free to, I.e. read the copy in their possession.

Unsurprising that not all of HN is pro-fair use.

That's how you digitally send a copy of a book.

You're saying something similar to "you wouldn't download a car".

Re: Judge decides against Internet Archive

#234

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Mar 25, 2023, 2:57 AM UTC

crooked-v wrote: post #208

Thorentis wrote: post #2

I think most people here saw this coming. Unfortunately this isn't a question of whether the law is good, it's a question of whether IA broke the current laws we have. IA can and should lobby for copyright law to change. But breaking it before it has changed is risky and foolish, and does more harm than good.

> But breaking it before it has changed is risky and foolish, and does more harm than good. The entire US civil rights struggle would disagree with you.

[deleted]

Re: Judge decides against Internet Archive

#235

Post by nvader » Sat, Mar 25, 2023, 2:57 AM UTC

Zetice wrote: post #230

sacnoradhq wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sets back archival and human knowledge back 100 years. If you embargo a physical copy, an electronic copy should be lendable. I would start a webtorrent+ipfs+i2p site in Iceland just to get around this insane perpetual monopoly on difficult-to-find, old shit that doesn't have a market but publishers keep locked away.

100 years? Seems hyperbolic. And you don’t need to do anything at all; all of these books have been freely available on IRC for years.

Sherlock Holmes' emotions would like a word. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/oct/07/the-curious-ca...

Re: Judge decides against Internet Archive

#236

Post by deely3 » Sat, Mar 25, 2023, 2:58 AM UTC

terrycody wrote: post #221

What were they thinking?! What were they thinking?! What were they thinking?!

IA or judges?

Re: Judge decides against Internet Archive

#237

Post by Aeolun » Sat, Mar 25, 2023, 3:00 AM UTC

unopened wrote: post #154

Aeolun wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t understand the reasoning there though. Like, I can get on board with sayibg fair-use is silly, but lending a book that I own —either digitally or physically— should be protected.

The concept of "owning" a book digitally is already on shaky ground, since most large publishers only sell licenses for accessing ebooks. You're not actually purchasing a copy in perpetuity like a physical book. Naturally these licenses are entirely on the publishers' terms. In practice this means publishers can revoke access licenses for all sorts of arbitrary reasons, alter the content of ebooks already purchased,…

> You're not actually purchasing a copy in perpetuity like a physical book.

I own the physical book. Why does the publisher have any further rights to tell me what I do with it?

Re: Judge decides against Internet Archive

#238

Post by endisneigh » Sat, Mar 25, 2023, 3:02 AM UTC

benatkin wrote: post #233

jkdufair wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t disagree with the ruling. IA is not lending their copy that they purchased. They are lending a copy of their copy. While that copy is lent out, they are still free to, I.e. read the copy in their possession.

Unsurprising that not all of HN is pro-fair use. That's how you digitally send a copy of a book. You're saying something similar to "you wouldn't download a car".

I don’t see how you’re refuting their point

Re: Judge decides against Internet Archive

#239

Post by endisneigh » Sat, Mar 25, 2023, 3:03 AM UTC

musicale wrote: post #207

granzymes wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article doesn't seem to understand the issue. Whether a copy of a work is fair use turns on, amongst other things, the effect of the copy on the potential market for the original. The article acknowledges this. Controlled Digital Lending competes directly with the licensing scheme publishers have for library ebooks. The fair use argument was always doomed to fail. The article then completely ignores the copyright…

What IA is doing is removing the physical copy from circulation, making a digital copy, and lending out the digital copy. I don't see the argument that this is "distribution" any more than regular (obnoxious) ebook lending is.

What’s stopping IA from using the physical book while it is simultaneously lending out a copy?

Nothing. Which is why losing was inevitable.

Re: Judge decides against Internet Archive

#240

Post by endisneigh » Sat, Mar 25, 2023, 3:04 AM UTC

I don’t understand why people are shocked at this outcome.

Nothing was stopping IA from both reading the physical copy purchased (or potentially lending it out, physically), as well as lending out the copy that was created as a result of digitization.

Losing this was inevitable.

In fact, the analogies to libraries were flawed from the start. Libraries purchase a book and lend out the very book that was purchased. Clearly that’s not what’s happening with the internet archive.

I’m other words: a library lends out book b. The internet archive buys book c, puts it through Digitize(), which returns book cprime and lends out cprime. However fair use would only permit lending out c, not cprime.