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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

#571

Post by account42 »

nickpp wrote: post #532
johnnyanmac wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That works until you capture the market. That's the entire phenomenon aroind the poorly named "enshittification". Companies have in fact figured you can be too big to fail and wait until they get their to no longer "please other people" and squeeze them. Or at least, get away with otherwise company killing moves for years longer than they should.

I remember when this BS was being pushed about Wintel capturing the market and killing competition. Then mobile happened, Google and now AI - doomers just changed the brands doing the capturing.

Mobile hasn't changed Wintel's stranglehold on the market at all.

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

#572

Post by account42 »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #205
MattGaiser wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> You can publish a book and give it away freely. > But few do. Are you kidding? It's true that few people do this in the same sense that it's true that few people publish books at all, whether they give them away freely or not. But far more people publish books and give them away freely than publish books and offer them for money. Remember Livejournal?

See also: the entirety of human history before copyright.

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

#573

Post by account42 »

ranger_danger wrote: post #253
cft wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Piracy means that something was taken by force from someone. What was it that was taken that's no longer there?

that is not what software piracy means...

Legally speaking, software piracy does not exist.

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

#574

Post by mlyle »

account42 wrote: post #545
mlyle wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> doesn't lose its license after an arbitrary period of time? The whole thing that allows copyright in the US is in the Constitution: > 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 original term was 14 years, with one 14 year renewal allowed. This was probably a little short, in my opini…

> The original term was 14 years, with one 14 year renewal allowed. > This was probably a little short Strongly disagree. And for anything that's distributed digitally it's an eternity. The goal should be that as an adult you can build on the things you grew up with as a child. Anything longer than that is absurd. Remember that copyright is an infringement on your right to free speech so should need extraordinary evi…

> And for anything that's distributed digitally it's an eternity.

On the flip side, there's a fair bit of fiction, etc, where the same author has been acting as steward of the series for 35 years. Having them still get proceeds from book 1 is an important part of the calculus to continue. There's a balance to be struck here.

I do think there should be a significant fee at renewal.

> The current terms that won't even let your grandchildren benefit from the work your generation funded are an outright affront to the spirit of the constitution.

The current terms are absurd, agreed.

> At this point we would be better off scrapping the whole concept of copyright.

Nah; I like there being a market to make expensive works of intellectual property, which depends upon copyright.

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

#575

Post by coliveira »

7thaccount wrote: post #449
coliveira wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Europeans and Americans are now taxing green technology, which they said in the past they want, because it is built in another country...

Tariffs do decrease competition and lead to higher prices for consumers....but...there are certain industries important for national security where a country may wish to subsidize an industry like building renewables or use a tariff against a country like China that is trying to corner the market through nationalized companies. Because those companies are a wing of their government (so to speak) a free market company…

> there are certain industries important for national security where a country may wish to subsidize an industry ... against a country like China that is trying to corner the market through nationalized companies

Your argument doesn't even make sense: in the first part you say yes, we need national support for this sector of the economy, while a few words later you say that China is cheating by giving support to the same sector.

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

#576

Post by badlibrarian »

account42 wrote: post #542
badlibrarian wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You really don't need to be a lawyer to understand the extent to which Internet Archive really screwed up here. For starters they lost on Summary Judgment, which means they couldn't come up with a single issue of fact that the judge thought deserved a trial. Read the Order, the Judge obviously has it straight. Then check archive.org's Form 990s and see how little money they run on, how much they pissed away on legal…

> from a legal perspective, Brewster should be removed and they need to find competent people to put on the board I don't like that the IA risked the actual internet archive with this or that they chose to engage in DRM at all but let's be reall: "competent people" would have sold the IA to the advertisement moloch or another horror of modern civilization long ago. The IA does need a leader that puts principles above…

Stockpiling assets on an active fault line, opening a Credit Union, failed activism, obviously shitty tech... it's time to put a grownup in charge of the thing. They're an archive. It needs consistent funding and boring tech and to focus on three things, max.

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

#578

Post by WillAdams »

account42 wrote: post #554
WillAdams wrote: post #448

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When _Traditional Archery from Six Continents_ went out of print, the price quickly got to 4 digits (feedback loop from Amazon pricing algorithms), so I put up the money for a second print run --- before I picked up the printed copies someone put up an illicit, unauthorized PDF copy --- it took several years for me to sell out the print run and get my living room closet back.

Sounds like you could have just put up a PDF copy yourself.

That was not a distribution mechanism which I negotiated or paid for.

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

#579

Post by throwaway14356 »

WillAdams wrote: post #539
throwaway14356 wrote: post #527

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yes, that should be the goal. They don't fully align with the publisher who seeks his own compensation.

Given typical author contracts what mechanism is there for a publisher making a book available w/o compensating the author?

They can promote a newer book that appeals to a larger audience and/or has better margins. Simple choices have to be made some how.

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

#580

Post by nickpp »

account42 wrote: post #570
nickpp wrote: post #530

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

[citation needed]

I’ll get you one next time I go to the doctor to get an MRI.
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