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Internet Archive forced to remove 500k books after publishers' court win

arstechnica.com

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Re: Internet Archive forced to remove 500k books after publishers' court win

#561

Post by account42 »

spankalee wrote: post #104
TaylorAlexander wrote: post #25

There is no greater folly of contemporary human society than the purposeful restriction of such vast and easily shareable repositories of knowledge. Perhaps these schemes made sense in the past but with the advent of the internet and independent groups willing to fund all hosting fees, we should move to models of publishing that do not require this restriction of information. Library genesis exists but necessarily mu…

Why should an author be forced to give away their work for free? They can already choose to give it away for free if they wish. We already have the Creative Commons licenses, and there are many open textbook projects.

The author author can always choose not to give their work away if they don't want to. The question is why should everyone else give up their right to free speech for the benefit of the author? That needs a convincing argument that the restrictions actually benefit everyone and not just the author.

Re: Internet Archive forced to remove 500k books after publishers' court win

#562

Post by account42 »

bandrami wrote: post #233
ekianjo wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

its necessary to make sure dead authors have an incentive to keep on writing great books

The usual steelman I hear is that Ulysses S. Grant wrote his memoirs on his deathbed because he knew the royalties after he died would take care of his family. I grant that's a marginal case but I don't know that the CBA there actually works on long copyright's side.

That's more of an argument for making the duration fixed and not dependent on the authors life at all. Having both lifelong copyrights PLUS a fixed duration is just double dipping.

Re: Internet Archive forced to remove 500k books after publishers' court win

#563

Post by account42 »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #505
joquarky wrote: post #468

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the creator is now disincentized How can we be sure of this? Some artists create art for fame, or just to be in that zen-like zone of consciousness that happens with making art Also, why is the current model assumed to be the best, when it is based on a lot of outdated assumptions (e.g., physical copies)?

>How can we be sure of this? It's theft. How many people, no matter how altruistic, will feel truly zen seeing their own idea copied by people who care nothing about thw craft making money, exploiting other labor, and otherwise making the world a worse place? I argue less than the amount that at least want a steady living at the bare minimum. Something many struggle to achieve. >why is the current model assumed to be…

> It's theft.

That's not remotely true even with today's absurd laws.

Re: Internet Archive forced to remove 500k books after publishers' court win

#564

Post by johnnyanmac »

account42 wrote: post #563
johnnyanmac wrote: post #505

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>How can we be sure of this? It's theft. How many people, no matter how altruistic, will feel truly zen seeing their own idea copied by people who care nothing about thw craft making money, exploiting other labor, and otherwise making the world a worse place? I argue less than the amount that at least want a steady living at the bare minimum. Something many struggle to achieve. >why is the current model assumed to be…

> It's theft. That's not remotely true even with today's absurd laws.

This isn't a legal definition, it's the dictionary term

>(the act of) dishonestly taking something that belongs to someone else and keeping it.

How is this action of taking someone else's idea and keeping the fruits of their mental labor not thievery?

Again, not legally arguing. The point here was to exercise the psychological reason that having your ideas taken without permission nor even acknowledgemrnt feels bad. Theft is bad and feels bad. People want to avoid that where possible.

Re: Internet Archive forced to remove 500k books after publishers' court win

#565

Post by account42 »

talldatethrow wrote: post #259
anigbrowl wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This kind of hectoring discourse is aggressive and rude. You can do better. Authors that get paid can certainly leave the assets they received to their families. They could also transfer ownership of unpublished intangible assets. More than that sucks the general public into a quasi-contractual relationship with a posthumous person; I disclaim fiscal obligations of strangers toward ghosts.

People don't just write books to profit while they are alive. They write books so their families have something to pay the bills once they die as well. Books are hard enough to write and sell successfully. The few that make it are special for the families of the writers, and you want to take them. You're free to give away your work. Stop telling others what to do with their work and that you want to take it because t…

Does your plumber's family get to live of the toilets he installed? Why shouldn't they be able to do that but a writer's family can?

> Stop telling others what to do with their work

We are not telling them what to do we are saying authors shouldn't have the right to restrict what we can do, or to be more precise, say - because that's what copyright is in the end, a limitation on free speech.

Re: Internet Archive forced to remove 500k books after publishers' court win

#566

Post by account42 »

throwAGIway wrote: post #526
joquarky wrote: post #473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds like an appeal to tradition. And an appeal to putting all your eggs in one basket and then demanding that eggs remain valuable long after you're dead and replicators are invented. Also, why does your family get to shirk their obligation to contribute to society?

What obligation? They are paying taxes. That's more than enough.

What are they paying those taxes with? That's right other people's labor. I don't see why the rest of the society should support his.

Re: Internet Archive forced to remove 500k books after publishers' court win

#567

Post by account42 »

talldatethrow wrote: post #520
anigbrowl wrote: post #503

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Design patents have a 15 year life. I'm a great lover of books and arts in general, but I'm not clear on why ownership rights in some creative endeavors should be massively privileged over others. Can the families of authors not write books of their own, or engage in other economic activity? What about the families of people who toil over creative work and don't hit the jackpot? There are many fine writers/artists wh…

Sure they can, just like you could have your house taken from you and you could build another one. Why do your kids expect to get your house when they could build one too?

Is was never their house to begin with. We just allowed to not use it ourselves for a while but that doesn't mean we can't change that arrangement when we realize it's actually a very bad deal for most of us.

Re: Internet Archive forced to remove 500k books after publishers' court win

#568

Post by account42 »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #347
kibwen wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Enough with this nonsense. A book isn't a family business, it's not the family home, it ain't the family farm, it's an artifact that you produced once, it makes no sense to inherit the right to copy it . We allow inheritance to exist because it creates social good by facilitating community continuity. And the best social good when it comes to copyright is to let it expire as soon as possible; let's be honest, "until…

A book is knowledge, knowledge can 100% be a family businesss to be continued. I don't see it as any different from a family restaurant protecting their recipes in an otherwise cutthroat industry. The terms is too long as is, but I see no reason to not have any posthumous transfer period so the family can figure out what they want to do with their knowledge.

Aside from the flaws in your analogy already pointed out to you, there is actually very little value in a secret recipe. A skilled cook will be able to reproduce something close enough just by seeing and tasting the result. The real value of a family restaurant is the pride in their legacy that gets them to actually stick to a recipe that gets that result instead of cutting corners in order to maximize profit.

Re: Internet Archive forced to remove 500k books after publishers' court win

#569

Post by account42 »

WalterBright wrote: post #312
FpUser wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most financially successful humans only care how to increase their already huge amount of money. they do not give a flying fuck about advancing humanity as a whole.

The neato thing about free markets is in order to make more money you have to please other people so those people will freely give you their money.

The other neat thing about free markets is that they don't exist in the real world.

Re: Internet Archive forced to remove 500k books after publishers' court win

#570

Post by account42 »

nickpp wrote: post #530
johnnyanmac wrote: post #502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not getting it are you? Do what I did with Nvidia and see how much money 80% of those companies are making. >You'd think the theory that capitalist businesses grow to take over the world would have been repeatedly verified by now. It's not about taking over the world. Ceos aren't twirling their mustaches with a bowler hat. It's about what it's been about for all of humanity: making sure to keep some other part…

> humanity Humanity is much better off with companies making all those products and services for us than without, though.

[citation needed]
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