EFF and heavyweight legal team will defend Internet Archive against publishers • Hacker News Board

Re: EFF and heavyweight legal team will defend Internet Archive against publishers

#271

Post by basch » Fri, Jul 03, 2020, 5:56 PM UTC

ALittleLight wrote: post #263

basch wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What everyone is saying is exactly the opposite of philosophical. This is an argument of semantics. The existing supreme court rulings are crystal clear that they treat infringement as a different type of crime than theft, as they have different properties. No one is arguing with you about IF loss of sales can occur. They are telling you the legal definition of theft does not cover loss of potential. Hence the use of…

Do you genuinely interpret what I wrote as a claim that internet piracy met the legal definition of theft?

I am telling you, that everyone else arguing against you is having an argument of semantics, that you are using the wrong words to make your point.

Steal and theft are the wrong words to describe a loss of potential sale.

Re: EFF and heavyweight legal team will defend Internet Archive against publishers

#272

Post by jjcon » Sat, Jul 04, 2020, 5:20 AM UTC

iamstupidsimple wrote: post #179

jjcon wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> where publishers outright steal (in true meaning of the world) revenue from YouTube content creators because there might be a sound that's similar to some song written 30+ years ago? Conversely for every one of these there are easily 1000 YouTube videos that shamelessly steal IP outside the bounds of fair use and nobody does anything. If pewdiepie posts a 30 second meme clip from the latest avengers people think it…

Copyright _does_ treat them differently. It's why fair use exists. Is Disney entitled to fair use inside a paid/sold product, with no criticism or enhancement?

Memes aren’t inherently fair use

Re: EFF and heavyweight legal team will defend Internet Archive against publishers

#273

Post by int_19h » Sat, Jul 04, 2020, 8:56 AM UTC

Chris2048 wrote: post #245

WalterBright wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But big budget AAA effects cost money, and somebody has to pay for them. On the other hand, why does society need movies that cost $100 million to make? (Much of that being what the stars cost.) > In film/TV, people do not volunteer to act, or edit footage, or operate cameras. Programmers didn't do it much for free before OSS. > Yes, there are indie films, and indie creators. They're all over YouTube. Exactly. > Th…

> why does society need movies that cost $100 million to make? Why don't they need them? Who decides what is worthy? The best answer is - the market. Ignore these movies and they might as well not exist for you.

The market you speak about is itself artificial, created by the copyright regime that we have, and its specific rules. Who decides the rules?

Re: EFF and heavyweight legal team will defend Internet Archive against publishers

#274

Post by int_19h » Sat, Jul 04, 2020, 9:01 AM UTC

Gaelan wrote: post #84

[I typed this up as a reply to a comment that has now been flagged. I think it's a conversation worth having, so I'm putting it at the top level instead.] I'd argue that "intellectual property" is fundamentally different from physical property, and can't really be "stolen" per se. If I steal your car, I have a car and you don't have a car. If I "steal" your book, we both have the book. I'm better off, and you're no w…

A simple approach is to apply the "intellectual property" analogy consistently - and that means taxing it like we tax real estate.

You could have a short grace period - say, a couple of years - with no tax at all, to accommodate individuals and startups exploring a market etc. After that require explicit registration for continued protection, or else the work automatically falls into public domain. And anything on the registry is taxed.

Furthermore, said tax could be made progressive, to discourage copyright hoarding, and impose a natural term limit. More valuable works would have longer-lasting copyrights with such an arrangement, but there'd always be some point past which it's simply no longer profitable. No abandonware, either - if the tax isn't paid, it becomes PD.

Re: EFF and heavyweight legal team will defend Internet Archive against publishers

#275

Post by dangerlibrary » Sat, Jul 04, 2020, 2:04 PM UTC

kazinator wrote: post #255

dangerlibrary wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My argument is really only about calculating economic damages from piracy, and how it is difficult without information about a pirate's willingess to pay. Even for personal use, if my willingness to pay is $50, but the price is $1000, and I pirate, that's a legitimate claim that piracy caused economic harm to the author. But, importantly, not $1000 of economic harm - just $50. I've deprived the author of the opportun…

Suppose you are the copyright holder of a book, and are asking $1000. For years, there are no takers; you have no revenue. I come along and would like to read your book, but at most I'm willing to pay $10. I get a little idea: I advertise that I have this book for sale for $10 a copy, and start taking orders. I collect 99 paid orders. At that point, I have $990 of other people's money. I add $10 of my own to make $10…

The seller of the book has more money than they would have without the pirate.

You can argue about morality and the appropriateness of this behavior, and I'd probably agree with you on most points. The world you describe probably isn't the world I would prefer to live in, all things considered. But it's tricky argue that the bookseller is _economically_ worse off than they would have been without the pirate - as you just showed.