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If we lose the Internet Archive, we’re screwed

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Re: If we lose the Internet Archive, we’re screwed

#401

Post by groby_b »

slim wrote: post #387
jsnell wrote: post #7

The title implies that losing this lawsuit is threatening the existence of the Internet Archive. Is that really the case? If it is true, then maybe IA should be run by somebody with better judgement. This was a project with a massive chance of failure (how could anyone think that this wasn't just blatantly infringing?) and a low payoff. If it's also an existential risk, then wtf are they doing running it?

It's not a game. It's resistance by every mean available against corporations that want control over what knowledge we have access to. He did an unexpected and courageous move for the benefit of humanity. The Internet Archive is a huge responsibility because if not exhaustive, it could falsify history. It's leaders mandate is to preserve history, not to preserve what they let him preserve

This is, frankly, hot air.

The IA resisted nothing, achieved nothing, made nobody's life better, and created an opportunity for bad precedent.

It was an utterly boneheaded move. (It has also nothing to do with "exhaustive preservation")

Re: If we lose the Internet Archive, we’re screwed

#402

Post by groby_b »

We're going to at some point talk about the fact that the IA decided to do the absolutely most stupid thing they could possibly do to ensure they'd create the setup for the most devastating ruling possible, yes?

Yes, our current copyright system is fucked up. This is, however, not a new fact. And the IA should've spent about 5 minutes talking to their lawyers to figure out why the idea as implemented was the worst thing they could possibly do. With pretty much no upside for them or the public.

It's the utter boneheaded waste of resources here that's just hard to comprehend. You know you work in a hostile environment. Behave accordingly.

(This does not change that Hachette et.al are positively disastrous for the public good and should, frankly, be looked at as a cartel. And treated accordingly.)

Re: If we lose the Internet Archive, we’re screwed

#403

Post by anigbrowl »

noNothing wrote: post #39

Ignoring fair use and countries other than the US we see that Copyright in the COnstitution said to promote science and useful arts, works should have protection for a limited time. Shortly after COngress defined "limited" as 14 years plus a renewal for 14. Then it was 28. plus a renewal and after more lobbying it reached today's time of the Authors lifetime plus 70 years. And since Mickey Mouse protection expires ne…

Indeed so. It's only limited if you subtract out the human experience from policymaking. Given that the average lifespan in the US is 77 years, the reality is that you have to wait until you're almost at the end of your life for legally unrestricted access and use of material by someone who died the same year you were born.

The cake is a lie.

Re: If we lose the Internet Archive, we’re screwed

#404

Post by Y_Y »

causi wrote: post #256
Y_Y wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not wanting to be a library isn't illegal. The actions of IA don't have any bearing on the legality of CDL. You've made it clear that you don't like what they did with NEL and that's reasonable enough, I think extrapolation from there is unwarranted.

They shouldn't have any bearing. In the real world lawyers and judges are flawed human beings whose decisions are influenced by emotion and impression. If being hungry can drop a judge's parole granting rate from 65% to zero, an organization showing they'd really rather be totally flouting the law can certainly influence the outcome of a case.

then again maybe that wasn't what was happening with those poor undernourished judges - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14701328

Re: If we lose the Internet Archive, we’re screwed

#405

Post by tablespoon »

astraloverflow wrote: post #354
int_19h wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really wish we ditched the name "copyright" altogether because of its unfortunate implications. It's not actually a right - it's a privilege . The system is entirely artificial and wouldn't exist without active social and legal enforcement. And if the privilege is abused in ways that don't benefit society, then it can and should be curtailed or even revoked.

Personally I find the term "intellectual property" to be more messed up. It isn't property, it's a government granted monopoly on reproduction and distribution. Calling it property allows for this bizarre concept of a form of "theft" that still leaves you with the thing "stolen" from you.

> Personally I find the term "intellectual property" to be more messed up. It isn't property, it's a government granted monopoly...

So, in other words, it's property.

There's nothing that guarantees a particular lump of atoms are "yours" besides a government-granted monopoly to control that lump. The atoms don't care.

Re: If we lose the Internet Archive, we’re screwed

#406

Post by faeranne »

modriano wrote: post #357
GenericDev wrote: post #308

I'm so sick of modern businesses and their vampire approach on creativity and intelligent property. I see a lot of comments in this thread with what about-isms or "I don't care, we wouldn't miss anything", but these people are short-sighted. And to be honest the hacker news community is frequently the community I loathe to engage in these topics with. Because they are always looking forward with very little respect f…

> I am so sick and tired of the copyright laws that play counter to productive creation and stymying efforts to preserve anything. The fact that I have to wait until people die until copyright is up is god awful. So what's the right way to balance the need to preserve artistic/creative works and the rights of the creator to monitize or permit usage of their works? It seems rather gross to just say that the creator ha…

There's a fine line that could exist, but doesn't right now. Archiving content is a concept that goes back to the first cave paintings, and one tactic that has been proposed is to archive silently (meaning don't publish the archive immediately), then publish when the original source is lost. Archive.org did at one point do this, but given how often the internet changes, and the difficulty of tracking published and unpublished content, this eventually went away. We could create a robots.txt-like standard to indicated published and unpublished content, but there is actual money being made by destroying content and siloing everything. Till we accept that destroying history is bad, no attempt to solve this problem will be considered. We can have both, but the people fighting archive.org don't want both.

Re: If we lose the Internet Archive, we’re screwed

#407

Post by 0xcde4c3db »

FreeCodeFreak wrote: post #148

It contains a lot of copyrighted content, especially ebooks and software. This could be avoided if they would just follow the rules like everyone else.

Nearly every large service that allows user uploads contains a lot of copyrighted content, hence DMCA safe harbor. IA seems to operate in a gray area with stuff like the Console Living Room (which doesn't allow downloads), but as far as I've heard they are responsive to valid DMCA notifications. A lot of supposed "DMCA notifications" are bullshit, though (don't contain the required elements, not sent to the registered DMCA agent).

Re: If we lose the Internet Archive, we’re screwed

#408

Post by anigbrowl »

misnome wrote: post #135
tristor wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe my viewpoint on this is informed by long-standing desire to basically start something like IA but in a way which is protected from the acts of nation-states. The fundamental problem with human society is that the power structures are always co-opted by elites for their own purposes rather than the purposes of society as a whole, it doesn't matter what the system of those power structures is, in all cases they g…

> it's not evidence that the IA did anything wrong in any moral or social sense. The fact our society is held hostage, and that information is imprisoned, by entities like the MAFIAA is not a justification for this outcome I don't think that IA's position was morally or ethically wrong; I would wager a lot of people here would feel the same way. Unfortunately, for this case, morality and ethicality aren't the law. An…

You can't have a revolution without breaking any laws. Gene Sharp and the advocates of nonviolence have really done a number on a lot of people's heads, giving them the idea that fundamental changes can be accomplished without any disruption or conflict through manifesting a large but peaceful number of people in a symbolic location. The only thing that gets you is a management shakeup. Real revolutions are messy.

Re: If we lose the Internet Archive, we’re screwed

#409

Post by int_19h »

astraloverflow wrote: post #354
int_19h wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really wish we ditched the name "copyright" altogether because of its unfortunate implications. It's not actually a right - it's a privilege . The system is entirely artificial and wouldn't exist without active social and legal enforcement. And if the privilege is abused in ways that don't benefit society, then it can and should be curtailed or even revoked.

Personally I find the term "intellectual property" to be more messed up. It isn't property, it's a government granted monopoly on reproduction and distribution. Calling it property allows for this bizarre concept of a form of "theft" that still leaves you with the thing "stolen" from you.

Property on anything beyond that which you're immediately using or occupying is a monopoly granted by social convention (from which laws are then derived). As Jefferson said,

"It is a moot question whether the origin of any kind of property is derived from nature at all... It is agreed by those who have seriously considered the subject that no individual has, of natural right, a separate property in an acre of land, for instance. By an universal law, indeed, whatever, whether fixed or movable, belongs to all men equally and in common is the property for the moment of him who occupies it; but when he relinquishes the occupation, the property goes with it. Stable ownership is the gift of social law, and is given late in the progress of society."

So in that sense I don't think it's an altogether misleading analogy, although of course the ability to copy without taking makes it very different from tangible property. But both are ultimately social conventions, and both exist supposedly for the common good. If that common good cannot be demonstrated, and even moreso if there's demonstrable harm, the conventions can change.

Re: If we lose the Internet Archive, we’re screwed

#410

Post by throwaway4aday »

modriano wrote: post #357
GenericDev wrote: post #308

I'm so sick of modern businesses and their vampire approach on creativity and intelligent property. I see a lot of comments in this thread with what about-isms or "I don't care, we wouldn't miss anything", but these people are short-sighted. And to be honest the hacker news community is frequently the community I loathe to engage in these topics with. Because they are always looking forward with very little respect f…

> I am so sick and tired of the copyright laws that play counter to productive creation and stymying efforts to preserve anything. The fact that I have to wait until people die until copyright is up is god awful. So what's the right way to balance the need to preserve artistic/creative works and the rights of the creator to monitize or permit usage of their works? It seems rather gross to just say that the creator ha…

We should be more discerning with where we allow copyright to be enforced. In my view, copyright's only legitimate purpose is to prevent someone else from selling your work as their own in order to make money. If the person or entity distributing your work is doing so with no direct recompense and only has the aim of making the work widely accessible mostly for education, scholarship and to the impoverished who would not otherwise purchase your work, then there should be no case to be tried. You wouldn't make any money off of these uses anyways. The people with enough disposable income to buy your book or software along with dozens of other copyright protected works they may purchase in a year aren't (generally) the same people who spend hours scouring IA or torrent sites for a freebie, their time is worth too much for that when they can just click Buy Now on Amazon and be done with it. Those are the people, whales in gaming industry parlance, that are paying your bills. Fighting legal battles against librarians and pirates won't win you any customers, it'll just reduce your publicity and sour what's left of it.
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