Internet Archive forced to remove 500k books after publishers' court win • Hacker News Board

Re: Internet Archive forced to remove 500k books after publishers' court win

#251

Post by TaylorAlexander » Sat, Jun 22, 2024, 4:13 AM UTC

deaddodo wrote: post #194

ryandrake wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe in hundreds, maybe thousands of years, after humanity has finally evolved past our current monkey mentality, future historians will look back at this time period in awe: "They had the technology to make the sum of all human knowledge available to everyone... And they blew it! Further, they had the means to feed everyone, clothe everyone, house everyone, but they just walked away in the other direction, pure…

> If Star Trek Replicators were invented today, we're so stupid we'd outlaw them. You're so optimistic to think the law would even be this fair. More like limit access to corporations as "the only custodians responsible enough to wield them", while still allowing the developing world to starve and further increasing their profit margins simultaneously to decreasing working wages and employment levels.

Hah some Ferengi actually did this in an episode of TNG! They showed up on a random planet with a replicator and then used their ability to produce anything as a means to subjugate the population.

Re: Internet Archive forced to remove 500k books after publishers' court win

#252

Post by Dylan16807 » Sat, Jun 22, 2024, 4:14 AM UTC

bandrami wrote: post #233

ekianjo wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

its necessary to make sure dead authors have an incentive to keep on writing great books

The usual steelman I hear is that Ulysses S. Grant wrote his memoirs on his deathbed because he knew the royalties after he died would take care of his family. I grant that's a marginal case but I don't know that the CBA there actually works on long copyright's side.

Taking copyright away on death is a bad method, and that's a reasonable argument against it.

It should be a fixed term that isn't very long. And if that term ends before death and they want more money then great, write something new.

I think most people objecting to copyright lasting after death are really reacting to how long it all is, and the average amount of time that is. Some of them really don't want it to go past death, but I think most of those objectors would be fine with copyright that lasts exactly 25 years no matter what.

Re: Internet Archive forced to remove 500k books after publishers' court win

#253

Post by ranger_danger » Sat, Jun 22, 2024, 4:16 AM UTC

cft wrote: post #24

ranger_danger wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

90% of the "archive" is just mass piracy anyway

Piracy means that something was taken by force from someone. What was it that was taken that's no longer there?

that is not what software piracy means...

Re: Internet Archive forced to remove 500k books after publishers' court win

#254

Post by TaylorAlexander » Sat, Jun 22, 2024, 4:16 AM UTC

zer00eyz wrote: post #217

coliveira wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Europeans and Americans are now taxing green technology, which they said in the past they want, because it is built in another country...

Chinese cars? really? They are at best a hazard. The Chinese government dumped tons of money into every one of those cars, they are being sold at a loss. Not because it's good for any one, rather because china fucked up. Every single one of those cars is a state funded fire hazard about to go on the road. EDITL: cause looking up data is hard apparently: western data: https://www.edmunds.com/electric-car/articles/elec…

Personally I don’t hold this view of China. I think they invested in manufacturing while we divested and now they’re simply reaping the rewards of those investments by producing superior or soon to be superior technology.

A lot of people in the west have a vested interest in discrediting Chinese manufacturing but if we put our heads in the sand and refuse to see what is really happening they’re just going to pass us by.

Note that basically every automobile producing country puts government money in to that industry so highlighting that China is doing it is on its own meaningless.

Re: Internet Archive forced to remove 500k books after publishers' court win

#255

Post by incompatible » Sat, Jun 22, 2024, 4:17 AM UTC

Aurornis wrote: post #171

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #25

There is no greater folly of contemporary human society than the purposeful restriction of such vast and easily shareable repositories of knowledge. Perhaps these schemes made sense in the past but with the advent of the internet and independent groups willing to fund all hosting fees, we should move to models of publishing that do not require this restriction of information. Library genesis exists but necessarily mu…

> we should move to models of publishing that do not require this restriction of information. It’s interesting how this comment veers into a completely hypothetical overhaul of society in which money doesn’t matter, for reasons which of course are hand-waved away. On one hand: Sure! Sounds great! If someone can reinvent all of society in a way that everyone is free to do whatever they want and not worry about getting…

Why should we turn information into a "product", introducing scarcity where none is required? It's just a misguided attempted to force every part of society into a capitalist system, regardless of whether it makes any sense. It will probably fail in the long run anyway, since who wants to pay for something that they can get for free, even it involves circumventing the rules. How many here would pay $30 to take a casual look at a journal article, when they could get it from Sci-Hub?

If we are sticking with a mostly capitalist system so that money is so important to get things created, then a government can provide some for this purpose (and they often do already). It's not like they don't borrow or print money in whatever quantity is needed.

I suspect that it's the same issue that has led certain neoliberals and libertarians to denying that various forms of pollution are a problem. There's just no way that it can be fixed within capitalism, so better just deny that there's any problem at all.

Re: Internet Archive forced to remove 500k books after publishers' court win

#256

Post by geysersam » Sat, Jun 22, 2024, 4:19 AM UTC

zer00eyz wrote: post #242

chii wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

do you have any evidence that they're more prone to fire than any other EVs?

https://news.metal.com/newscontent/102243830/tragedy-of-elec... The Chinese government cant even keep it under wraps with how bad it is. If you pay attention to Chinese news there's a few of them every week. And thats the ones we hear about, mostly because the were spontaneous, or in buildings/gargages, or people die. Go look it's hard to fuckin miss.

If it was only a safety issue the governments in the US and EU would only need the existing legal infrastructure for car safety to regulate Chinese electric vehicles.

The US tariffs are not even officially claimed to have anything to do with safety, but everything to do with industrial competition.

Re: Internet Archive forced to remove 500k books after publishers' court win

#257

Post by TaylorAlexander » Sat, Jun 22, 2024, 4:20 AM UTC

zer00eyz wrote: post #242

chii wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

do you have any evidence that they're more prone to fire than any other EVs?

https://news.metal.com/newscontent/102243830/tragedy-of-elec... The Chinese government cant even keep it under wraps with how bad it is. If you pay attention to Chinese news there's a few of them every week. And thats the ones we hear about, mostly because the were spontaneous, or in buildings/gargages, or people die. Go look it's hard to fuckin miss.

I will take it on faith that you’ve seen loads of examples but I’d be particularly interested in statistics about the number of fires per vehicle produced compared to the same for vehicles from other companies. Obviously one article saying that an EV caught fire isn’t compelling as we have that here too. The problem was so bad with the Chevy Bolt EV that some of them caught fire while just sitting in people’s driveways and the entire fleet had to be recalled.

Without statistics I’m totally unmoved by even a long list of Chinese examples as the same can be produced here too. And Teslas have killed plenty of people due to faulty self driving software!

Re: Internet Archive forced to remove 500k books after publishers' court win

#258

Post by spywaregorilla » Sat, Jun 22, 2024, 4:20 AM UTC

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #235

xattt wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Especially when another country is undercutting domestic production of others in order to impose an Orwellian ideology.

I think the truth is we just failed to invest in the manufacturing tech and now they’re beating us in the market, so we’re taxing them to make it hard for them to compete. I’d way rather we just invest and outcompete them. I don’t think they’re intentionally undercutting us they just have lower costs from decades of investment that we haven’t been doing ourselves.

They're undercutting us by virtue of labor standards and other corners that we don't cut.

Re: Internet Archive forced to remove 500k books after publishers' court win

#259

Post by talldatethrow » Sat, Jun 22, 2024, 4:21 AM UTC

anigbrowl wrote: post #143

encomiast wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the wife that supported the author can't profit off their assets? The author can't pass on this to children? Should we do the same thing for other property like land and money?

This kind of hectoring discourse is aggressive and rude. You can do better. Authors that get paid can certainly leave the assets they received to their families. They could also transfer ownership of unpublished intangible assets. More than that sucks the general public into a quasi-contractual relationship with a posthumous person; I disclaim fiscal obligations of strangers toward ghosts.

People don't just write books to profit while they are alive. They write books so their families have something to pay the bills once they die as well. Books are hard enough to write and sell successfully. The few that make it are special for the families of the writers, and you want to take them.

You're free to give away your work. Stop telling others what to do with their work and that you want to take it because they died.

Re: Internet Archive forced to remove 500k books after publishers' court win

#260

Post by Dylan16807 » Sat, Jun 22, 2024, 4:24 AM UTC

CSMastermind wrote: post #203

poikroequ wrote: post #158

> "I understand that publishers and authors have to make a profit, but most of the material I am trying to access is written by people who are dead and whose publishers have stopped printing the material," wrote one IA fan from Boston. This really is the crux of the problem. Copyright should be "use it or lose it." If you don't make your books readily available, then you should have no right to demand copies of your…

>If you don't make your books readily available, then you should have no right to demand copies of your book be removed from places like IA What if an author explicitly doesn't want to distribute their works or to distribute an alternative version of their works? There was the recent case of the company that owns the rights to Dr. Suess choosing not to publish old versions of books they felt had racist depictions. An…

> What if an author explicitly doesn't want to distribute their works or to distribute an alternative version of their works?

Too bad. Once you publish it the first time, the cat is out of the bag. Eventually it's going to go into the public domain whether you like it or not.

> And who sets the standard for readily available? If I offer my book for sale for $100 is it readily available? At what price is something no longer readily available? Does it depend on the type of book? What if it's for sale broadly but not in the state where you live? What if it's free but must be read in person and cannot be taken home with you?

Good question but can definitely be decided. $100 is probably fine. Regulators can decide. Yes. Not good enough. Not good enough.

We have frameworks for mandatory music licensing, we can do more things like that.