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If we lose the Internet Archive, we’re screwed

sbstatesman.com

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

#561

Post by Zuiii »

1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #542
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…

OK, let's stop licking Oligarch Gates' boot. Let's remove copyright from software and watch MSFT go into free fall.

Pushing the idea that software is copyrightable is going to be Bill Gate's lasting legacy and history will eventually look back at it as one of humanities worse policies.

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

#562

Post by Zuiii »

misnome wrote: post #471
anigbrowl wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> You can't have a revolution without breaking any laws I think you misinterpreted what I wrote. If you had asked me beforehand whether this specific action would trigger a copyright revolution, I'd have said no. I'm not trying to say that they should have followed the (obvious) law, I'm theorising that perhaps IA was willing to gamble their existence that this _would_ trigger that. Sci-hub probably had a much better…

Does anyone know why they complied with the indian court and not the many other places where they were sued or ordered to cease operation? If anything, I would have expected india to be the last country they would comply with since their courts are known to be laughably delusional when it comes to what they consider to fall under their jurisdiction.

I mean I can see the benefit in Telegram acquiescing to their delusion (the potential of becoming a wechat in their large market is far to inciting), but I don't see what benefit it would be for scihub.

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

#563

Post by ajb »

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…

Sadly the supreme court already declined to interpret that clause as a restriction: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eldred_v._Ashcroft

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

#564

Post by barnabee »

tablespoon wrote: post #405
astraloverflow wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The atoms don’t care but if someone else takes them, you don’t have them anymore.

That is a different class of concept than so-called “intellectual property”.

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

#565

Post by luckylion »

kroltan wrote: post #496
luckylion wrote: post #472

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The IA isn't, but the argument was that copyright is dumb, not that a nonprofit like the IA should have exception. Archiving and making publicly available are different things though, so I don't think an exception for archiving should extend to distribution. The archiving also clashes with individual privacy rights and the "right to be forgotten" (which I'm not a big fan of in its depth, but totally agree with in principle).

Perhaps not having distinct terms isn't the worst thing: it reminds us that history is largely fictional, both on the personal and the society level, and its truthiness and usefulness is derived from our shared belief in it.

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

#566

Post by luckylion »

627467 wrote: post #511
luckylion wrote: post #472

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Its a vacuous argument: it's very obvious that any domain hosting such content for free incurs in costs of hosting and handling legal threats for doing so. So any income received would be another excuse for legal threats. On the other hand: why are these public goods services still hosted in infra/protocols exposed to western/us legal arm?

> On the other hand: why are these public goods services still hosted in infra/protocols exposed to western/us legal arm?

Because you can't host them on thoughts and wishes alone. The capitalist system with its legal constraints is what created it, funded it and runs it.

And yes, hosting incurs costs, but hosting copies of content isn't "retelling" or "remixing", it's copying. And since we want cultural output, we're incentivizing the production by giving you exclusive rights to benefit from your creations.

If you believe that the terms are ridiculously long and should be drastically shortened, I agree. But rejecting the idea of copyright will just remove much of what is created. I don't think we'd be better off in that case.

You might argue that that which wouldn't have been created had there not been the promise of potential profit isn't worth much culturally, but in that case you shouldn't be worried about the copyright restricting access to it, much like you shouldn't be worried about a locked door denying access to an empty room.

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

#567

Post by Kim_Bruning »

UberFly wrote: post #559
Kim_Bruning wrote: post #519

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So many assumptions in that question! I think the site rules do imply you're not supposed to go for the straw man argument that ends a debate, but rather for the steel-man argument that stimulates further curious conversation. So let's go for that then... : People often build on each other's work. Can you imagine situations where people can take inspiration from each other a whole lot earlier, or are allowed to borro…

Your points are made from a very idealistic place, but not rooted in reality. If I steal your car and tell you that I'm just "building on your work" to better my life, are you going to feel the same?

For ideals not rooted in reality, it seems to have paid the bills ok so far. (knock on wood).

Now, I have to take you seriously because the site rules say so. So I will! But I haven't heard a "stealing a car" analogy since last century, so I may be rusty. And maybe you're taking this in a novel direction? Let's see!

==

So a trick people did to me in the late '90s was to redefine "to steal" and not tell me. Sorry, but I do have to check for a minute!

In the case where you have allegedly stolen my car: can I walk out of the house next morning half asleep, put my keys in the ignition, and drive the car to $customer without noticing much?

If so, then you have redefined "stealing" beyond my Overton Window and I shall be forced to make rude noises at you.

==

Otherwise: obviously I want to be able to drive my car. Depriving me of my property is bad. Where do you want to go with this?

edit/note: possibly I'm misremembering and people were still using the "you wouldn't steal a car" argument in the very early 2000s?

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

#568

Post by dzonga »

if there was ever a time I advocated for tax : it's for public libraries and access to knowledge at free / reduced cost whether books, journals etc.

authors gotta make a living. but then they can make living via speaking engagements.

e.g speak at a public library say at 50k. paid via benefactors and tax.

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

#569

Post by ThunderSizzle »

theonlybutlet wrote: post #479
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

There's an in-between. The spirit of the law.

That's how one should primarily live - the middle way, the narrow path, but without being lukewarm.

I'm pointing out that being an originalist is also a sort of appeal to authority to the Constitution. If the authority is then wrong on another topic, it undermines the point of the respect of the authority.

That's why saying "I'm not always an Originalist" while literally making an Originalist argument makes no sense. It would've been better to simply not make that qualification.

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