Tell HN: Internet Archive is facing a Big 4 Publishers lawsuit • Hacker News Board

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

#71

Post by eropple » Mon, Jul 18, 2022, 7:08 PM UTC

tenpies wrote: post #68

Quoted post unavailable.

Taylor Lorenz has a track record of some gross stuff.

The Internet Archive regularly does not display archives of content that they've indexed (which also doesn't mean that it's been deleted!) when content creators ask them not to. A `robots.txt` file does for the Wayback Machine is asking the IA that, though in that case I don't know if it's indexed and not displayed; I would assume not, as it's a go-away to a crawler, but I also have seen Google crawl but not display robots'd content so I don't actually know.

Both of these things can be true, and far-right media is doing its best to downplay the latter for culture-war points. I would say that I regret that you have fallen for the reactionary, conspiracist okeydoke--but I've looked at your comment history and I think you like it.

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

#72

Post by Gleaming5975 » Mon, Jul 18, 2022, 7:09 PM UTC

kup0 wrote: post #36

I agree with the Internet Archive on philosophical/ideological grounds and support their actions overall... _However_, they have to operate under the same BS everyone else does, so it seems naïve for them to take reckless actions that could put them in this position

I think you are mistaking blustering arrogance for naivety, but I otherwise agree with you.

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

#73

Post by eslaught » Mon, Jul 18, 2022, 7:09 PM UTC

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…

Disclosures: I've written a book I'm currently trying to get published. Also, almost all of my professionally-written (as well as personal) code is open source. And I have used the Wayback Machine extensively.

To be honest, I'm having a hard time getting upset over this lawsuit. As best I can tell, IA isn't getting sued over having scanned the books. They're not even getting sued over lending them out. Instead, they're getting sued over lending out more digital copies than the number of physical copies they had purchased.

The books would be no less well preserved if IA had not decided to do this. Access would have gone down, temporarily. The pandemic would have sucked that one little bit more (though honestly, a drop in the bucket for what the people most impacted were already experiencing). And... that's it. It really has no long-term ramifications, aside from whatever legal precedent it sets (if any).

I really like being able to write open source code in my day job, and I appreciate information freedom. But I don't think those principles apply here. I really do think this is just a straightforward case of an organization overstepping their bounds and getting slapped down for it.

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

#74

Post by dghlsakjg » Mon, Jul 18, 2022, 7:11 PM UTC

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'…

It doesn't seem as cut and dry as you make it seem.

Archival institutions are allowed to make digitized copies of legitimately owned works, and to allow access to that copy on their own "premises".

In the case of an organization like the internet archive which does not have physical premises, would you accept the argument that their 'premises' is the internet?

The question that they want answered is: where exactly is the line between looking at a scanned/microfiched/non-original archival copy of copyrighted material at the library, and viewing that same material over a network connection.

They weren't just handing out unlimited copies of books. They were distributing owned copies of books for exclusive temporary use. The method of delivery is different, but the end result is the same as checking a book out and leaving the library.

Just because public libraries signed shitty deals to get access to lending ebook licenses doesn't mean that the right to lend archival material over the network doesn't exist.

I would love for the courts to establish a first-sale doctrine that applies to digitized books, or that allows shifting a books format (buying a physical copy of a book and converting it to digital)

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

#75

Post by conradfr » Mon, Jul 18, 2022, 7:12 PM UTC

999900000999 wrote: post #37

I still don't understand what compelled IA to blatantly violate copyright law like that. From what I can tell, even buying a book and then digitally lending it out, isn't exactly a human right. Regardless, IA was doing that without issue for years. IA then decided they were going to "lend out"as many books as they wanted. To What exactly is surprising here ?

We were all a little crazy at the start of the pandemic.

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

#76

Post by Tryk » Mon, Jul 18, 2022, 7:12 PM UTC

kup0 wrote: post #36

I agree with the Internet Archive on philosophical/ideological grounds and support their actions overall... _However_, they have to operate under the same BS everyone else does, so it seems naïve for them to take reckless actions that could put them in this position

If everyone keeps operating under the "same BS" then things will never change.

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

#77

Post by vegetablepotpie » Mon, Jul 18, 2022, 7:14 PM UTC

nemacol wrote: post #34

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 have it in my head that playing fast and loose with the law is just how things are done. I think the problem here is Internet Archive is not making heaps of money for shareholders and (arguably) causing these publishes to lose money. An example is Uber 'invents' smartphone taxi's and says the laws of employment and taxi's don't apply to them. They make a ton of money and here we are. Maybe I am being overly cynical…

I think you’re right.

No one, who is anyone, got to where they’re at because they followed the rules. At a certain point anyone who is successful took a risk in their past and it paid off.

When you take a risk for profit, you can hire the lawyers you need to cover for the sins you committed. Most of the time it’s cheaper for parties to settle out of court and this puts you at the negotiating table and integrates your success into the existing power structures. You live long enough to become the villain.

When you take a risk and innovate for the greater good, you don’t have the profit, you can’t hire the expensive attorneys to cover you, and you get eaten alive by the parties you offended. You die the hero, which is why very few do this.

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

#78

Post by hcs » Mon, Jul 18, 2022, 7:14 PM UTC

daniel_reetz wrote: post #29

capableweb wrote: post #2

I love the Internet Archive and frequently donate to them (2 times so far this year). What I'd love to see improved is the ability to be less "fragile". Currently it's all located in the US and they have a huge focus on the US, both technically and politically. But why not try to replicate it all over the world? There seems to have been some smaller efforts inside the Internet Archive to make it more decentralized, b…

It might not be widely known, but they have in the past had copies of the Archive in Alexandria and other locations. From my brief time there, I know that issues like these are of great concern to the Archive.

I recall they'd announced the intention to set up a mirror in Canada, did that ever materialize? https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/11/worried-about-us...

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

#79

Post by orev » Mon, Jul 18, 2022, 7:14 PM UTC

yellowapple wrote: post #65

liquidise wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Using your same logic, I will single-handedly decide that all software companies (and the developers working there) have received enough compensation for their efforts, and demand all their services and code be made available for free. As long as you got one paycheck from those months of work, now I want it for free.

/s

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

#80

Post by dghlsakjg » Mon, Jul 18, 2022, 7:14 PM UTC

annoyingnoob wrote: post #19

samwillis wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly, they should have reached out to the closed public libraries and come to an agreement where they lent out digital copies 1:1 of copies owned by closed libraries. It would have been an incredible initiative that could have become sustainable well past the pandemic.

> they should have reached out to the closed public libraries How exactly?

Telephone, email, paper letter, door-knocking, carrier pigeon, paper airplane through a window, SMS, IP based messaging systems, linkedin, facebook messenger, verbally.

The same way you get in touch with any other institution composed of people.