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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

#491

Post by Kim_Bruning »

UberFly wrote: post #483
Kim_Bruning wrote: post #478

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that it would be great if creators get to eat. Right now though many people don't get to eat (enough) no matter what, many other people don't get to make use of creative work, and a small number of big players walk away with all the money. IMO pretty much literally anything else would probably put us in a better situation. At this point after several decades of experience, I think even just outright abolishin…

How would abolishing copyright law not make everyone (but the content creator) basically the equivalent of a vampire AI corporation slurping up what they please? Why would anyone create when everyone instantly gets to use their hard work in any way they want? It's like abolishing all property rights.

I'm saying that even abolishing copyright law might be an improvement. I didn't imply that that was the best idea (definitely not). Preferably copyright should be replaced by something that better promotes the arts and sciences.

===

Even so: to respond to who would create even if copyright law would be abolished:

A lot of people create with the intent of letting everyone instantly get to use their hard work. This is actually rather common. Huge amounts of fan-art, original art, original fiction and original fiction get created every day. Scientific articles get written every day. Wikipedia gets written every day. Open source software gets written every day. And let's not start about AI art and AI text (which currently is all PD) . 90% of this all might be crap, but then 90% of everything is crap. There are definitely gems among the 10%, just like everywhere else. And due to the sheer volume: there are a lot of gems.

Much of this activity would still happen without copyright law. There is clearly sufficient incentive at least. Fun is a common incentive. Sharing back is a common incentive too. Advancing the course of science. Earning fame.

Or you can just earn money. People earn money this way. I earn money this way. In this kind of situation, you pay the bills by "making things that don't exist yet".

Current copyright law has actually often gotten in the way more than that it has helped, I feel. I can tell you stories if you like! This does differ a bit per field and profession, of course.

===

But really copyright law should be replaced:

If you actually want to earn money by depending on copyright law, I feel you're getting short-changed at the moment. AI will "steal" your style; youtube, spotify and amazon will pay you mere pennies, of which apple might will pinch a percentage, your publisher will pinch a percentage, and you get left with ... very little.

Copyright frankly isn't helping many people right now. I don't think anyone is happy. Unless you know a bevy of small creators now living in mansions in Beverly Hills? I'd love to hear of it!

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

#492

Post by PragmaticPulp »

coldpie wrote: post #24
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?

> If it is true, then maybe IA should be run by somebody with better judgement. I'm skeptical that you even get the IA without someone like these folks running it. Imagine you're the type of crazy person who starts and runs the IA, the pandemic starts and libraries and schools shut down, and there's a big button in front of you saying "give people access to knowledge that was just removed from them". I dunno man, I c…

> I'm skeptical that you even get the IA without someone like these folks running it.

Isolating business ventures from each other is common practice. They didn't need to run both operations out of the same business entity.

> I dunno man, I can understand the type of person who creates the IA also feeling compelled to push that button under those circumstances. Was it a bad decision? I dunno, probably, I guess.

The operation may have been a risky decision, but doing it under the umbrella of the Internet Archive made it a terrible decision.

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

#493

Post by gamblor956 »

Pokepokalypse wrote: post #417
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…

Frankly, at least in the context of US Copyright Law, we need to go back to Article I of the Constitution that defines copyright. The very first sentence is "To promote the useful arts and sciences..." If congress passes a copyright law, and that law can't demonstrate that it actually MEASURABLY does promote the useful arts and sciences, (but rather hinders them, as is often the case), then that law should be overtur…

The full quote is: "To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries."

The Constitution does not require that IP laws actually or measurably promote the "useful arts and sciences" because the Constitution does not require the promotion of the useful arts and sciences but rather the progress of such. Moreover, the second half of the statement, says how Congress is Constitutionally supposed to accomplish that.

The idea is protecting even the stupid stuff is what lets the actual innovation proceed, the same way protecting Larry Flynch and flag burning protects other forms of speech.

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

#494

Post by [deleted] »

rhtgrg wrote: post #329
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…

> very little respect for domains outside of technology. The HN community can also be out of touch with technology. If you are an AI researcher this becomes plainly obvious the moment you visit any of the AI threads (if it isn't obvious already from the 6 to 12 month delay on the posting of cutting edge developments here). Sometimes it's hard to argue with zwj.org's assessment [0]. [0] https://cdn.jwz.org/images/2016…

[deleted]

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

#495

Post by mrdatawolf »

7speter wrote: post #466
ThunderSizzle wrote: post #463

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't disagree until your ending qualification. Being picky and choosy on when it's good to be a Constitutional Originalist means you might as well not be. If the Consitution is a dynamic living document beyond just amendments on one topic, then an originality argument loses weight even on another topic

Constitutional originalism is a rather recent construct. Its just that no one points out it was something mostly crafted by antonin scalia and friends that we think its some idea someone like Thomas Jefferson came up with.

Isn't it, really, a counter to Woodrow Wilson's, then, new idea of the Constitution being a "living" document? And it's funny you bring up Thomas Jefferson, who wrote it as a static document with a mechanism to change it (Amendments). Add to that the fact that he said it should be scrapped every generation so it would better reflect the current times. Neither of these approaches argue for it being a "dynamic living document".

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

#496

Post by kroltan »

luckylion wrote: post #472
nuodag wrote: post #467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am so sick and tired of the copyright laws that play counter to productive creation and stymying efforts to preserve anything. If you think about how cruel it is to make illegal the way human culture has worked for millenia, to listen to the storys you hear, retell them, remix them and make them your own in a new context. That is against the law now.

No it's not. Go ahead, tell your friends the book you recently read. As a matter of fact, go ahead, read that book to your friends. Perfectly legal. Oh, you want to "retell" it and make money off of it? Yeah, that's something else.

Is the Internet Archive making money off of it?

I agree with your statement in isolation, but this is in the context of preserving stories (and heck, history) so they can be retold at all.

---

Unrelated tangent, I really miss the distinction of "story" ("estória") and "history" ("história") in the Portuguese language, it makes speaking about topics involving but not exclusively fiction very hard.

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

#497

Post by modriano »

Kim_Bruning wrote: post #491
UberFly wrote: post #483

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would abolishing copyright law not make everyone (but the content creator) basically the equivalent of a vampire AI corporation slurping up what they please? Why would anyone create when everyone instantly gets to use their hard work in any way they want? It's like abolishing all property rights.

I'm saying that even abolishing copyright law might be an improvement. I didn't imply that that was the best idea (definitely not). Preferably copyright should be replaced by something that better promotes the arts and sciences. === Even so: to respond to who would create even if copyright law would be abolished: A lot of people create with the intent of letting everyone instantly get to use their hard work. This is…

> Unless you know a bevy of small creators now living in mansions in Beverly Hills?

Per a google search, it seems that mainly very famous actors, actresses, and generally people who've contributed significantly to our culture live in Beverly Hills. The google results are definitely biased towards celebrities, but Beverly Hills seems to be a very odd example to choose when trying to point out how copyright isn't helping creators. It's natural to expect some proportionality between a creator's audience and the profit the can make monetizing their work.

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

#498

Post by thaumasiotes »

tablespoon wrote: post #165
TimTheTinker wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The IA is the only way to see a lot of what was written and widely read starting in the 1990s onwards. Libraries used to keep archives of old newspapers and publications on microfilm, and anyone who needed to research something could go and look through those archives. The IA holds a similar function today - but it's the only one with its breadth and age. If we lose the IA, we lose a lot of important historical infor…

> Libraries used to keep archives of old newspapers and publications on microfilm, and anyone who needed to research something could go and look through those archives. The IA holds a similar function today - but it's the only one with its breadth and age. Newspapers very frequently maintain and provide public access to their own online archives now. That's also not a function the IA is even especially good at--its c…

> Newspapers very frequently maintain and provide public access to their own online archives now.

This is actually the worst way to preserve newspapers. There are two major problems:

1. It's their own content. Sometimes they find old content embarrassing and hide it.

2. Sometimes newspapers shut down. When that happens, the archive disappears! This defeats the whole purpose of archival.

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

#499

Post by Kim_Bruning »

modriano wrote: post #497
Kim_Bruning wrote: post #491

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm saying that even abolishing copyright law might be an improvement. I didn't imply that that was the best idea (definitely not). Preferably copyright should be replaced by something that better promotes the arts and sciences. === Even so: to respond to who would create even if copyright law would be abolished: A lot of people create with the intent of letting everyone instantly get to use their hard work. This is…

> Unless you know a bevy of small creators now living in mansions in Beverly Hills? Per a google search, it seems that mainly very famous actors, actresses, and generally people who've contributed significantly to our culture live in Beverly Hills. The google results are definitely biased towards celebrities, but Beverly Hills seems to be a very odd example to choose when trying to point out how copyright isn't helpi…

The story goes that many people in the creative professions earn very little or even can't make ends meet; thus mansions in Beverly Hills are only available to the few.

This is especially true of small creators afaict.

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

#500

Post by jasonfarnon »

7speter wrote: post #466
ThunderSizzle wrote: post #463

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't disagree until your ending qualification. Being picky and choosy on when it's good to be a Constitutional Originalist means you might as well not be. If the Consitution is a dynamic living document beyond just amendments on one topic, then an originality argument loses weight even on another topic

Constitutional originalism is a rather recent construct. Its just that no one points out it was something mostly crafted by antonin scalia and friends that we think its some idea someone like Thomas Jefferson came up with.

Are you suggesting "living constitution" is of any vintage?
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