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Tell HN: Internet Archive is facing a Big 4 Publishers lawsuit

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Re: Tell HN: Internet Archive is facing a Big 4 Publishers lawsuit

#51

Post by metadat »

liquidise wrote: post #38
metadat wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The mission of preserving human culture is far more important than respecting rent-seeking copyright holders. At the end of the day, The Internet Archive has good intentions and is morally in the right. The time has come to consider changing the laws to allow for truly fair use, especially for physical items scanned to digital (e.g. books), old video games, and more. It's about selecting for the common good over the…

> The mission of preserving human culture is far more important than respecting rent-seeking copyright holders That genuinely may be so, but "this law i broke shouldn't exist" is not an advisable legal defense. Also, what you call "rent seeking" others would call "return on investment". I do think there is a grey area here, "fair use" being one example, but i think summarily discounting distributors and publishers wh…

I'd be completely sympathetic if the commercial entities were willing to work with (or had tried) and strike a reasonable compromise with TIA. Instead, they've chosen to go for blood and sue a valuable, well-intentioned organization who tried to help folks have access to information during the pandemic.

There is no end to the greed. Fuck 'em.

Re: Tell HN: Internet Archive is facing a Big 4 Publishers lawsuit

#52

Post by capableweb »

Rebelgecko wrote: post #21

This is pretty much why I stopped donating to them, not like they'll miss the sporadic $50 they'd get from me. Getting sued is a pretty obvious result of their decision to ignore copyright laws. If they didn't realize that they'd be sued then they're hopelessly shortsighted (there's no "emergency" exemption to copyright laws, even if you can make the argument that morally there should be). If they did know that they'…

> they can branch out from their core competencies

Being a library is their core mission and fighting what they are fighting now is one of the reasons I keep donating to them. I want them to be able to offer a digital library all over the world, this for me is the Internet Archive.

Re: Tell HN: Internet Archive is facing a Big 4 Publishers lawsuit

#53

Post by eikenberry »

COGlory wrote: post #6

So...they didn't think the law should apply so they just decided to ignore it? What were they expecting? How can they possibly expect to win this lawsuit? I hate copyright with all my soul but this is just stupid. You can't just decide to take the law into your own hand. This is just a waste of money and effort.

I'm sure they expected it and have a plan. Copyright as a lot of flexibility in the wording around it's laws and this could be deemed fair use. Previously the flexibility has been used by the copyright industry to increase their rent seeking but it doesn't have to always go that way.

Re: Tell HN: Internet Archive is facing a Big 4 Publishers lawsuit

#54

Post by fipar »

COGlory wrote: post #6

So...they didn't think the law should apply so they just decided to ignore it? What were they expecting? How can they possibly expect to win this lawsuit? I hate copyright with all my soul but this is just stupid. You can't just decide to take the law into your own hand. This is just a waste of money and effort.

I agree with your “You can’t just decide to take the law into your own hand” when doing so hurts or damages someone else. So I would agree with you not being able to hold someone detained in an unofficial jail just because they stole from you, or not being able to physically hurt someone that hurt you unless it’s self defense (so you do that to stop them from hurting you as they’re doing that). However, in cases like this, where you feel that the law is somehow unfair and needs to change, and you breaking it doesn’t actually hurt anyone, it feels like civil disobedience to me. So sure, there are consequences and you need to be ready to face them, but one possible outcome is your case helping change the law after all. A lot of progress has been made in democracies with that method.

Just think that if people would never take the law in their hands some countries would still have legal slaves, or legal segregation.

Re: Tell HN: Internet Archive is facing a Big 4 Publishers lawsuit

#55

Post by ProAm »

COGlory wrote: post #6

So...they didn't think the law should apply so they just decided to ignore it? What were they expecting? How can they possibly expect to win this lawsuit? I hate copyright with all my soul but this is just stupid. You can't just decide to take the law into your own hand. This is just a waste of money and effort.

> You can't just decide to take the law into your own hand.

See Uber, Lyft, AirBNB..... Just get big enough and buy enough politicians that it's not going to be a problem.

Re: Tell HN: Internet Archive is facing a Big 4 Publishers lawsuit

#56

Post by COGlory »

misnome wrote: post #17
COGlory wrote: post #6

So...they didn't think the law should apply so they just decided to ignore it? What were they expecting? How can they possibly expect to win this lawsuit? I hate copyright with all my soul but this is just stupid. You can't just decide to take the law into your own hand. This is just a waste of money and effort.

It seems an especially dumb move because being sued was absolutely inevitable from the first announcement of this. Presumably, even if they are hoping to change law with the case - it’s putting up the rest of IA’s (almost irreplaceably invaluable) mission as a gamble on whatever chances they think they have here.

I hadn't considered this angle, and would love to be wrong, but haven't digital books been exempt from first sale doctrine for quite some time now? I thought this case law was well established.

Re: Tell HN: Internet Archive is facing a Big 4 Publishers lawsuit

#57

Post by hash07e »

twblalock wrote: post #27
xwdv wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ask for forgiveness not permission if you want to innovate.

> Ask for forgiveness not permission if you want to innovate. That only works if you are capable of handling the legal trouble that results.

Like Uber..

Right?

Re: Tell HN: Internet Archive is facing a Big 4 Publishers lawsuit

#58

Post by eikenberry »

liquidise wrote: post #38
metadat wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The mission of preserving human culture is far more important than respecting rent-seeking copyright holders. At the end of the day, The Internet Archive has good intentions and is morally in the right. The time has come to consider changing the laws to allow for truly fair use, especially for physical items scanned to digital (e.g. books), old video games, and more. It's about selecting for the common good over the…

> The mission of preserving human culture is far more important than respecting rent-seeking copyright holders That genuinely may be so, but "this law i broke shouldn't exist" is not an advisable legal defense. Also, what you call "rent seeking" others would call "return on investment". I do think there is a grey area here, "fair use" being one example, but i think summarily discounting distributors and publishers wh…

Maybe if the industry hadn't bribed the government over and over to extend copyright again and again we might not call it rent seeking. 12 years of copyright is almost reasonable. But current copyright durations are pure rent seeking.

Re: Tell HN: Internet Archive is facing a Big 4 Publishers lawsuit

#59

Post by mherdeg »

COGlory wrote: post #6

So...they didn't think the law should apply so they just decided to ignore it? What were they expecting? How can they possibly expect to win this lawsuit? I hate copyright with all my soul but this is just stupid. You can't just decide to take the law into your own hand. This is just a waste of money and effort.

> So...they didn't think the law should apply so they just decided to ignore it?

> What were they expecting?

This concisely describes how I felt about Sci-Hub the first few times I read about the project. There are some differences, e.g. the Internet Archive chooses to operate within US jurisdiction.

Re: Tell HN: Internet Archive is facing a Big 4 Publishers lawsuit

#60

Post by citizenkeen »

liquidise wrote: post #38
metadat wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The mission of preserving human culture is far more important than respecting rent-seeking copyright holders. At the end of the day, The Internet Archive has good intentions and is morally in the right. The time has come to consider changing the laws to allow for truly fair use, especially for physical items scanned to digital (e.g. books), old video games, and more. It's about selecting for the common good over the…

> The mission of preserving human culture is far more important than respecting rent-seeking copyright holders That genuinely may be so, but "this law i broke shouldn't exist" is not an advisable legal defense. Also, what you call "rent seeking" others would call "return on investment". I do think there is a grey area here, "fair use" being one example, but i think summarily discounting distributors and publishers wh…

> That genuinely may be so, but "this law i broke shouldn't exist" is not an advisable legal defense.

It actually happens more often than you might think.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_nullification

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