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Judge decides against Internet Archive

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Re: Judge decides against Internet Archive

#711

Post by dahart »

endisneigh wrote: post #660
dahart wrote: post #657

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question isn’t whether it’s technically possible, the question is whether they even tried, and one of the reasons they lost is not just because they didn’t try at all, they instead looked the other way when they knew the borrowers didn’t “return” the book.

my point is that even if they did try, the outcome would've been the same and CDL was doomed from the beginning. their inane emergency CDL plan simply accelerated this outcome

Maybe, but that’s speculation, and others have won fair use claims. The decision in this case explicitly cited the defendant’s lack of effort to control their loaned copies while being aware of infringement.

Re: Judge decides against Internet Archive

#712

Post by lucb1e »

navane wrote: post #706

It's weird how a bank can loan out 8-20 times what is deposited, but if I can lend out a single copy of a book I have? The banking system runs the backbone of the economy, but god forbid if everyone has access to all books? What if we use books as a payment method, can we then use the same leverage banks do?

That's not how that works. Non-central banks don't print money the way that servers send out bytes.

There is also no copyright on bank notes that prohibits you from selling copies of them online. It's also not the bank's fault that you feel copyright law is unjust, it's got nothing to do with each other.

Re: Judge decides against Internet Archive

#713

Post by dahart »

cbozeman wrote: post #692
Apfel wrote: post #629

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not particularly keen to get in an abortion debate on HN of all places. That being said, regardless of anyone's political stance, you saying 'because you made bad decisions' is inflammatory, and clearly based on the assumption that the pregnancy was a result of fully consensual sex. Don't be that guy.

Even in the 1970s, women had condoms and birth control pills. You're going to be hard-pressed to find a reasonable, thinking individual who would not allow for abortion exemptions for rape / incest / endangerment of the mother. We're on Hacker News. A place where - supposedly - thinking people comment. You "Don't be that guy." It shouldn't even be necessary for me to have had to type this.

It’s not hard at all to find examples counter to your claim. In Alabama “there are no exceptions for rape or incest”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_in_Alabama

If you’re argument hinges on “reasonable, thinking” individuals, and you’re claiming that Alabama law didn’t meet that standard, then I would argue your “thinking” standard is completely irrelevant. The only relevant criteria is what makes it into law and affects people.

Re: Judge decides against Internet Archive

#714

Post by posterboy »

irjustin wrote: post #381
agalunar wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe I understand what you're saying, but I feel we're talking about different things, so I may have miscommunicated my point. I'm not talking about ownership as recognized or enforced by people (in fact, I never used the word "own" or "ownership"). All I mean is that if something is over here by me, it can't be over there by you, because things can't be in two places at once. On the other hand, the exact same s…

Agreed that you're talking about physics, but how does that translate into society? At some point you have to move away from physical requirements. The barter system simply doesn't scale.

The monopoly on violence is a fundamental concept of state theory. Formulaicly, the people constitute the state and exert power based on democratic principles.

Since intelectual property rights do not reflect a democratic process and were rather restricted because they threatened the power of the estate, their merrit is questionable.

Re: Judge decides against Internet Archive

#715

Post by jacobolus »

ghaff wrote: post #673
dahart wrote: post #614

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The current law is broken I think many agree that copyright needs to be shortened, but what does “broken” mean, exactly? I have good feelings for the Internet Archive, but in this case it’s about a handful of books that are being copied and distributed a mere 5 years after initial publication, which I think a lot of people who want copyright shortened would still agree is quite a bit too short. Books frequently get…

Really the main (even only?) thing "broken" about copyright is the terms. (ADDED: I generally favor orphan works legislation but I also get the argument that this is also more likely to favor corporations than individuals.) And basically all the schemes to make copyright more expensive, difficult, requiring jumping through hoops and paying increasing amounts of money to renew? That just basically screws individual cr…

The point of copyright is “To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts”, not to be fair or to guarantee a lifetime of income to popular authors and their children. To that end, the exclusive copyright is supposed to be of limited time.

Having no-effort century-long copyright might narrowly benefit a tiny number of small-time creators, but it robs the public of our collective culture.

Re: Judge decides against Internet Archive

#716

Post by leoc »

granzymes wrote: post #681
jhanschoo wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose the difference is that publishers aren't suing such libraries and such archival isn't accessible enough to harm publishers' markets.

The second point is crucial. The microfiche copies of e.g. newspapers do not compete with the originals.

IANAL but I think I recall seeing that the US libraries’ initiative to reprint some older books on non-acid-based paper was supported by an explicit carve-out in US copyright law.

Re: Judge decides against Internet Archive

#717

Post by [deleted] »

salawat wrote: post #672
meany wrote: post #561

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the judges should only overrule legislators when their laws violated higher level legislative authority or constitutions, right? Do you think a judge should be able to legislate what the law is independent of elected officials? Why would you trust them, especially since they are appointed by politicians or elected themselves?

...There's a reason the judiciary scared the bajeezus out of Thomas Jefferson. Look at how the 2nd Amendment basically does not exist for some of the most populous states because SCOTUS refuses to reign in the more egregious examples of judicial/legislative reacharound like Wickett v. Filburn, or the vast majority of firearms legislation in places like NY and California. Roe v. Wade is a shining example of how legali…

[deleted]

Re: Judge decides against Internet Archive

#718

Post by A4ET8a8uTh0 »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #228
A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does cohesion of those families matter less?

Is that a real question? You didn't split out essential services, and it seems dead-obvious to me that shutting those down would cause more harm than good even when you value all families exactly the same. There's no way they're saying the families of essential service providers are less important. And it seems pretty clear they're grouping those other things in with essential services, which you could disagree with,…

I am genuinely curious how a person reconciles two seemingly opposing views:

"It gives everyone a guaranteed weekly timeslot to spend time together."

where everyone is everyone except:

"except restaurants, attractions, hospitality and essential services".

I could easily give in on essential services, because a lot will ride on how broadly they are defined, but if the goal is 'family cohesion' building for everyone then as few groups should be excluded as possible ( which also means that businesses that people, who usually have even less leisure time than most of us -- restaurants, attractions, hospitality -- can recharge ).

I will be honest. For me it the line drawing always tends to be the most interesting piece, because it tends to indicate what the individual really values. In this case, and this is not a shot, because it is very human thing to do, they value 'their family cohesion' and 'their ability to participate in various leisure activities' over those who have to serve them, while they bond with their loved ones.

For the record, the line listed by parent is not unreasonable, but can you give me an argument as to why it is not amazingly selfish way of looking at society ( Sunday for me, but not for thee ).

Re: Judge decides against Internet Archive

#719

Post by lagadu »

uda wrote: post #408

Initially I'm enraged against the publishers, the judge and the system in general as many of you, but they are not the issue, while I can't talk on behalf of IA, I don't see this as a fight against the publishers, but a fight against broken business models flourishing because and protected by broken laws meant to protect earlier broken business models The current law is broken, we know that, but most of us don't gras…

Switching from common law to civil law systems should fix a lot of that up. This wouldn't be possible, considering the amount of law that would need to be written to replace an existing common law system but it's an interesting thought experiment.

Re: Judge decides against Internet Archive

#720

Post by dahart »

jacobolus wrote: post #715
ghaff wrote: post #673

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really the main (even only?) thing "broken" about copyright is the terms. (ADDED: I generally favor orphan works legislation but I also get the argument that this is also more likely to favor corporations than individuals.) And basically all the schemes to make copyright more expensive, difficult, requiring jumping through hoops and paying increasing amounts of money to renew? That just basically screws individual cr…

The point of copyright is “To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts”, not to be fair or to guarantee a lifetime of income to popular authors and their children. To that end, the exclusive copyright is supposed to be of limited time . Having no-effort century-long copyright might narrowly benefit a tiny number of small-time creators, but it robs the public of our collective culture.

It’s definitely worth including the full quote and discussing what it means.

“Congress shall have Power . . . 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.”

Part of the intent behind the law is to promote the sciences and the arts through these exclusive rights. The idea is that creators will have an economic incentive to create, because they’ll have some protection from copiers. The idea was not primarily to promote culture by releasing works into the public domain. This framework acknowledges both means of promotion, the short term protection of profits, combined with the long term acknowledgement that society will benefit from works becoming public after some time. So it is trying to be fair to both authors and to the greater social good, and it requires deciding & balancing what the term length should be.

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