Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The British Library puts 1M newspaper pages online for free

ianvisits.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 60 posts

Re: The British Library puts 1M newspaper pages online for free

#41

Post by Banana699 »

JackFr wrote: post #36
dalbasal wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This needs to change, big time. There is almost no cash value to an article one day later, yet we completely impoverish the public domain for its sake. Not only are creators of valuable works is usually pretty distant from direct ownership anyway, there's no possible way for them to profit directly from this work. The only way a spotify-like deal works is because copyright ownership is conglomerated. IMO, public (esp…

> There is almost no cash value to an article one day later, yet we completely impoverish the public domain for its sake. If there is no value to an article one day later, it’s literally impossible that restricting it impoverishes anyone. Copyright law is messed up, but demanding access to something by asserting it’s worthless makes no sense.

>If there is no value to an article one day later, it’s literally impossible that restricting it impoverishes anyone.

You have mistakenly generalized "cash value" to "value" without reason. I find a ton of value reading old media, because it allows one to "play the historian", you get a unique and magical ability to experience an era just like its natives have done, except not with their outlook on life or assumptions. It's the closest you can get to traveling to a far foreign country.

This is value, but not cash value. Releasing this media impoverishes no one (in terms of cash value) but massively impoverishes people like me (in the sense of value).

>Copyright law is messed up,

10^grahams_number amen to that, it's bloody ridiculous to withhold something decades after its creator died and their family is now in the 5th generation and probably don't know the thing ever existed.

Copyrights, patents and intellectual property are a blight upon the earth, a massive bug in civilization's conception of ideas and knowledge that no one is willing to report.

Re: The British Library puts 1M newspaper pages online for free

#42

Post by Normille »

vidarh wrote: post #31
Normille wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh. It's worse than that. Copyright apparently extends back to the middle ages: https://stiobhart.net/2021-04-8-bubble-trouble/

The article does not say that. It conflates copyright and trademarks a couple of places, but it's clear that this is a combination of Redbubble applying their own over-cautious policies combined with trademark registrations, not copyright. There are plenty of issues with trademarks too, but they are very different to copyright.

I think the nub of the article is that the artist had his artwork banned just for referring to the fact his designs were inspired by a mediaeval manuscript ie. 'The Book of Kells' because Trinity College have trademarked 'The Book of Kells' to use as a brand name on products they sell.

As it says in the article

  >...So, are [Trinity College] actually saying that no one is even allowed to mention "The Book of Kells", for fear of violating their copyright? If so, that’s really going to fuck up a lot of History books!...
I take on board what you mean about the distinction between Copyright and Trademark, but I think it still serves to illustrate just how ridiculous the legal minefield around both issues has become.

Re: The British Library puts 1M newspaper pages online for free

#43

Post by bnj »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #30
zozbot234 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That makes even less sense, though. Yesterday's news does not really compete with today's news, they're effectively in separate markets.

So? Yesterday's books, movies, and music compete with today's books, movies, and music. Nobody cares about the news one way or the other. So the news gets treated just like everything else.

There are virtually unlimited quantities of free to consume media - TV, Books, Movies. People don't pay more money for new creations because the older works aren't published or available.

Relaxing copyright restrictions after a more reasonable period (seven years) doesn't take value away from new work, it enriches the public commons in a way that encourages the creation of new culture.

A tiny portion of cultural works remain profitable after the first few years. Grant seven years of copyright automatically, and let creators purchase extensions in five year blocks that increase in price. $100 for five additional years, $1000 for five years after that, $10000 for five more, $100000 for five more. It makes no sense to barricade all cultural works behind a copyright wall to protect the tiny slice of properties that continue to pay dividends after a generation.

Re: The British Library puts 1M newspaper pages online for free

#45

Post by nonameiguess »

5faulker wrote: post #34
cube00 wrote: post #2

> The British Library keeps to a ‘safe date’ when determining when a newspaper can be considered to be entirely out-of-copyright, which is 140 years after the date of publication. It's depressing that copyright has been extended so far it's now longer then any single individual's possible lifetime.

It's almost as if they're slowly declassifying documents over time.

A funny thing is actual US classification guidance is the default declassification length is 10 years from publication, and the maximum length without a special appeal is 25 years: https://ustr.gov/sites/default/files/foia/Classification%20G...

Re: The British Library puts 1M newspaper pages online for free

#46

Post by bryanrasmussen »

Banana699 wrote: post #41
JackFr wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is almost no cash value to an article one day later, yet we completely impoverish the public domain for its sake. If there is no value to an article one day later, it’s literally impossible that restricting it impoverishes anyone. Copyright law is messed up, but demanding access to something by asserting it’s worthless makes no sense.

>If there is no value to an article one day later, it’s literally impossible that restricting it impoverishes anyone. You have mistakenly generalized "cash value" to "value" without reason. I find a ton of value reading old media, because it allows one to "play the historian", you get a unique and magical ability to experience an era just like its natives have done, except not with their outlook on life or assumption…

>This is value, but not cash value.

I agree that then copyright on the news should expire a lot sooner, but really if people (as a general category) find value in something they (as a general rule) will pay some amount to have it. It may not be a great amount, and you may not be one of the people who will pay for it despite valuing it (many people who value music won't pay for it, but there are obviously people who do value it and will pay).

I am not arguing that there should be copyright on this media just that what the parent commenter said is correct, you can't claim that it holds some form of value without also admitting that someone will pay (another form of value) for it.

In point of fact now that I think of it I have some old hardbound police gazette collections that are republished sometime in the last 20 years from 100+ years ago. I paid for those.

Re: The British Library puts 1M newspaper pages online for free

#47

Post by Retric »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #46
Banana699 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If there is no value to an article one day later, it’s literally impossible that restricting it impoverishes anyone. You have mistakenly generalized "cash value" to "value" without reason. I find a ton of value reading old media, because it allows one to "play the historian", you get a unique and magical ability to experience an era just like its natives have done, except not with their outlook on life or assumption…

>This is value, but not cash value. I agree that then copyright on the news should expire a lot sooner, but really if people (as a general category) find value in something they (as a general rule) will pay some amount to have it. It may not be a great amount, and you may not be one of the people who will pay for it despite valuing it (many people who value music won't pay for it, but there are obviously people who d…

Economically numbers close enough to zero are zero. Basically every method of value extraction has overhead so something can both be valued and have no economic value.

Re: The British Library puts 1M newspaper pages online for free

#48

Post by WalterBright »

Retric wrote: post #47
bryanrasmussen wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This is value, but not cash value. I agree that then copyright on the news should expire a lot sooner, but really if people (as a general category) find value in something they (as a general rule) will pay some amount to have it. It may not be a great amount, and you may not be one of the people who will pay for it despite valuing it (many people who value music won't pay for it, but there are obviously people who d…

Economically numbers close enough to zero are zero. Basically every method of value extraction has overhead so something can both be valued and have no economic value.

> every method of value extraction has overhead so something can both be valued and have no economic value

Right. Which is why I don't bother selling on ebay or amazon, it isn't worth the time, postage, or trip to the post office. It just goes to the thrift store, as they have a business model that enables them to eke out a profit on such items.

Re: The British Library puts 1M newspaper pages online for free

#49

Post by bryanrasmussen »

Retric wrote: post #47
bryanrasmussen wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This is value, but not cash value. I agree that then copyright on the news should expire a lot sooner, but really if people (as a general category) find value in something they (as a general rule) will pay some amount to have it. It may not be a great amount, and you may not be one of the people who will pay for it despite valuing it (many people who value music won't pay for it, but there are obviously people who d…

Economically numbers close enough to zero are zero. Basically every method of value extraction has overhead so something can both be valued and have no economic value.

yet books that compile publications from previous centuries are published and bought but evidently the ledgers are not debited or credited for the parties to these transactions. Basically if a method of value extraction has so much overhead that it has no economic value I would expect that method to disappear, thus when methods of value extraction are still in use I think that someone has managed to derive economic value from that method - perhaps a very paltry economic value in comparison to some of the companies we discuss here quite frequently - but still some value.

Re: The British Library puts 1M newspaper pages online for free

#50

Post by dkd903 »

This is great.

When is the British Museum returning all its 1000s of stolen artefacts to their rightful owners?

Vox: The British Museum is full of stolen artifacts - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hoTxiRWrvp8

Here is a snippet from: Dalrymple, William. The Anarchy (p. 21). Bloomsbury Publishing. Kindle Edition.

"The last hereditary Welsh prince, the memorably named Owain Gruffydd ap Gwenwynwyn, built Powis Castle as a craggy fort in the thirteenth century; the estate was his reward for abandoning Wales to the rule of the English monarchy.

But its most spectacular treasures date from a much later period of English conquest and appropriation. For Powis is simply awash with loot from India, room after room of imperial plunder, extracted by the East India Company (EIC) in the eighteenth century.

There are more Mughal artefacts stacked in this private house in the Welsh countryside than are on display in any one place in India – even the National Museum in Delhi."

Post reply on HN