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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

#61

Post by mgdlbp »

I read on HN an insightful rationalization of IA's heeding of requests to hide content: Making data unavailable without protest - while continuing to silently collect it - minimizes controversy and potential blocking or censorship, a short-term sacrifice for its mission of giving longevity to internet content.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21012643

In that context, NEL was quite a foolish thing to do.

But wait, that's not its mission - https://archive.org/about explains how IA's mission of 'Universal Access to All Knowledge' and status as a library entail 'paying special attention to books'. That'd be the rationale for NEL, then?

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

#62

Post by Gleaming5975 »

Personally, I'm thrilled to hear this. The Internet Archive has already made a choice to self censor material that they had previously made available. To be willing to censor some material, but playing "innocent" when it comes to being required to censor themselves in other ways is hypocritical at best.

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

#63

Post by whatshisface »

metadat wrote: post #15
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.

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…

Seeking to change a law by breaking it has worked before in American history, but only when the supreme court wants to change the law, and a carefully arranged test case is constructed to bring before them. Even then, test cases arranged by well-meaning groups have failed and instead strengthened the precedents they were expected to contribute to overturning.

Taking a copyright infringement case before one of the most textualist and conservative courts we have had in decades is not a good plan for people who want a right to whatever it is that the IA was doing read into the Constitution.

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

#64

Post by dang »

wmf wrote: post #5

It's been discussed extensively: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23379775 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23998115 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23691297 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23485182 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23391662

Thanks! Macroexpanded:

Activists rally to save Internet Archive as lawsuit threatens site (2020) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31703394 - June 2022 (32 comments)

Help preserve the internet with Archiveteam's warrior - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30524842 - March 2022 (51 comments)

Internet Archive responds to publishers’ lawsuit - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23998115 - July 2020 (348 comments)

My thoughts in response to the lawsuit against the Internet Archive - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23931183 - July 2020 (232 comments)

EFF and heavyweight legal team will defend Internet Archive against publishers - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23691297 - June 2020 (263 comments)

Activists rally to save Internet Archive as lawsuit threatens site - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23485182 - June 2020 (393 comments)

Lawsuit over online book lending could bankrupt Internet Archive - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23391662 - June 2020 (260 comments)

Publishers File Suit Against Internet Archive - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23379775 - June 2020 (346 comments)

Internet Archive responds: Why we released the National Emergency Library - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22731472 - March 2020 (145 comments)

Internet Archive’s National Emergency Library Harms Authors - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22716923 - March 2020 (48 comments)

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

#65

Post by yellowapple »

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…

> Also, what you call "rent seeking" others would call "return on investment".

Which they've largely already enjoyed many times over. I have precisely zero sympathy for the poor widdle publishing corporations.

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

#66

Post by molticrystal »

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.

They didn't ignore it, they are very familiar with the terms. What they can do depends on if the government ends up classifying them as a warez site or a library/archive. And, if they are a library/archive, if their actions can be considered part of the copyright exceptions.

The publishers lawyers will argue they are just a warez site, and use everything in their power to do such, jurisdiction, case law, confusing terms and obfuscation, etc.

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

#67

Post by Werewolf255 »

Lots of folks in the comments acting like lawful actions, by their very nature of being lawful, are correct actions. Internet Archive took extraordinary measures during extraordinary times when these same four publishers could have done something similar. They should be nationalized, dismantled, and have their archives released into the public domain, as punishment for trying to hoard our collective knowledge to themselves.

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

#69

Post by ben_w »

samtho wrote: post #49
thomascgalvin wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not wrong, but being morally right has nothing to do with winning a lawsuit.

Laws are only as meaningful as we allow them to be. If our elected representatives no longer represent the will of the people, they must be removed to preserve the integrity of our society. Often they are not, which is unfortunate. Just look at the body of unelected officials that, as a whole, are hell-bent at dismantling precedents in the name of constitutionalism, allowing for states to pass inane laws restricting…

I have a suspicion (shower-thought level, not held strongly) that "morality" is merely the set of rules that are beneficial for a culture. Laws are normally described like that; I would say the difference is that lawmakers are a subculture who make laws to encode what is beneficial for them, and therefore a nation's morality and laws only line up to the extent that the lawmakers represent the interests of the broader society.

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

#70

Post by mypalmike »

metadat wrote: post #15
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.

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…

"Rent seeking" requires a lack of created value.

If you want access to these works, which you seem to be arguing for, then you are saying these works do have value.

I suspect you are just misusing the term.

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