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The Internet Archive has lost its appeal in Hachette vs. Internet Archive

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Re: The Internet Archive has lost its appeal in Hachette vs. Internet Archive

#711

Post by tiahura »

vesinisa wrote: post #446
lolinder wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you about copyright, but the fact is that the IA never had a chance and we knew it years ago. The top comment on HN a week after their launch of the EL is critical [0], right at the moment when HN would be most expected to rally to their defense. By the time the lawsuit was actually starting to take shape most commenters had become very concerned for the fate of the IA [1]. This is on a forum that reliab…

Ditto. Worth also noting is that IA lost the case by summary judgement. This usually means that the legal matter was so clear that the judge didn't even see a reason to start a trial. This judgement has now been confirmed on appeal. Just about any lawyer could have probably told them this was the inevitable outcome had they listened. I personally have donated previously to IA but now it frankly disgusts me that the p…

Yes and no. SJ is for when the facts aren’t in dispute, just how to apply the law to the facts. In this case nobody disputed the underlying facts, the question was how to apply copyright law.

Trials are for when parties disagree about the facts, e.g. was the light red or green.

Re: The Internet Archive has lost its appeal in Hachette vs. Internet Archive

#712

Post by HDThoreaun »

matwood wrote: post #293
ilamont wrote: post #52

This has been playing out for many years. And it's all because Brewster Kahle decided that an overly broad interpretation of the Internet Archive's mission trumped the rights of authors and publishers, and the laws of the United States. When IA was asked to stop CDL - many times - he continued. The National Writers Union tried to open a dialogue as early as 2010 but was ignored: The Internet Archive says it would rat…

I wish people would stop saying they were doing CDL. CDL means being able to lend out a digital copy of a physical book in place of the physical book . The findings in the case showed that IA had lost complete control of the physical book so at that point they were simply breaking copyright. Add in that they steered people to their own used book store, and this case never had a chance.

The findings in this case also include CDL being illegal.

Re: The Internet Archive has lost its appeal in Hachette vs. Internet Archive

#713

Post by wayathr0w »

hilbert42 wrote: post #432

Things will get worse before they're get better, but ultimately the publishers will pay dearly for this. First, the IA should move to a more favorable copyright jurisdiction to preserve the collection. Second, there's no point fighting the copyright lobby, especially so in the US. We need to build an alternative access to knowledge that bypasses the copyright/ownership of knowledge paradigm.

>We need to build an alternative access to knowledge that bypasses the copyright/ownership of knowledge paradigm.

That's what shadow libraries are doing, as are many other older & less prominent models of information distribution. These projects should be proliferated & promoted to challenge the dominant propaganda that people can only do things the U.S. government says they can.

Re: The Internet Archive has lost its appeal in Hachette vs. Internet Archive

#714

Post by singpolyma3 »

vel0city wrote: post #688
vagrantJin wrote: post #665

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will claim that IA is an overly-sensible org because they fought this in court. That about show a healthy respect to the law, middlemen and authors to argue in the presence of a judge. For Publishers and middlemen, this is a hollow victory. Murky water. Say for instance, I buy a book. I make a scanned copy and lend out the original. The person who borrowed the book, makes a copy and sends it back. I do this for 1 m…

Copying some parts of the book for educational purposes is allowed within fair use. Copying entire works isn't considered fair use. A teacher buys a book which is a collection of worksheets. The teacher photocopies some worksheets out of the book to use in a non-profit educational environment. This is entirely fair use. A teacher buys a copy of a textbook, photocopies the entire textbook , and hands it out to the cla…

Being the entirety of not is not always relevant to fair use. Of course a judge may take amount into account, especially when arguing damages, but fair use is a guideline to a judge not a set of well-defined rules (though collection societies love to print their own policies as being the rules...)

Re: The Internet Archive has lost its appeal in Hachette vs. Internet Archive

#715

Post by vkou »

wly_cdgr wrote: post #669
vagrantJin wrote: post #665

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will claim that IA is an overly-sensible org because they fought this in court. That about show a healthy respect to the law, middlemen and authors to argue in the presence of a judge. For Publishers and middlemen, this is a hollow victory. Murky water. Say for instance, I buy a book. I make a scanned copy and lend out the original. The person who borrowed the book, makes a copy and sends it back. I do this for 1 m…

[flagged]

If we are going to use ridiculous definitions of stealing, I will have to point out that private, non-personal property - anything that you don't have direct personal possession and control over - is theft.

It's copyright infringement. It's not theft. Theft deprives an owner of use of an item.

Re: The Internet Archive has lost its appeal in Hachette vs. Internet Archive

#716

Post by perihelions »

mlyle wrote: post #708
perihelions wrote: post #687

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IA was not served with a court order; Reuters was (in India). (It would still be voluntary even if IA had been ordered to do something in India, because as is the topic of the thread, IA is a US-based nonprofit under the jurisdiction of US courts).

So, deciding not to comply with the norms of foreign jurisdictions is a risky business. Aggrieved judges from other jurisdictions can and will do things that will make your life miserable-- seeking to seize foreign assets, filter locally, arrest your personnel when they travel there, etc. So just ignoring any action that might happen in India isn't really an option. Of course, letting the most restrictive jurisdictio…

That's fair.

Re: The Internet Archive has lost its appeal in Hachette vs. Internet Archive

#717

Post by trinsic2 »

lolinder wrote: post #698
trinsic2 wrote: post #678

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The free flow of information is slowly being eroded by rights holders. If people don't find a way to stop being influenced by narratives that really only service this establishment, we will find ourselves, renting and not owning works of art. When rights to own and enjoy a creation on your terms gets taken away from you, the control over your life does as well.

As has been mentioned elsewhere, losing an appeal at this level sets precedent that does damage to the free flow of information. The best thing that the IA could have done to advance freedom would have been to bail as soon as it was apparent they had no chance to win (which was before the lawsuit was even filed). That's not just a narrative that serves the establishment, it's a fact of life. We don't get anywhere tow…

Maybe. But this situation points to much larger problem, in my view. That people are starting to become accustom to common people rights erosion. Rights holders should not being wielding this kind of power against the public, at the end of the day they are still accountable to the public good, end of story.

Re: The Internet Archive has lost its appeal in Hachette vs. Internet Archive

#718

Post by Spooky23 »

tptacek wrote: post #247
Spooky23 wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re taking an extreme and ultimately wrong position. The the name of this nonsense, the Internet Archive damaged itself, perhaps mortally and damaged the concepts it stands for. Archives should be run by boards of archivists and librarians, not reckless activists.

People keep saying this, but it's unclear that there will be significant damages assessed in this case. 17 USC 504(c)(2) suggests damages will be waived as IA is recognized as a nonprofit and its copying was noncommercial. Likely the real damage here will be to legal precedent.

Fair, and I hope you’re right.

Re: The Internet Archive has lost its appeal in Hachette vs. Internet Archive

#719

Post by ethbr1 »

trinsic2 wrote: post #693
gibolt wrote: post #670

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comment plus the parent changed my opinion on the case. They still may have gone too far be loaning out copies, but the fight to return to physical book loaning practices is worth it. Ownership and long-term availability matter.

Yea, I don't like the whole loaning out idea either. Loaning implies ownership. Corporate propaganda has done a good job of convincing people otherwise. I came across an article that was really good at explaining the issue of ownership around digital goods that people who want to have a balanced view of the situation should read. https://linustechtips.com/topic/953835-you-own-the-software-...

The biggest piece lost in the conversation around digital/IP rights is awareness of how it worked pre-digital.

First sale doctrine (in the US) said the buyer owned the physical copy and could resell or do what they wanted with that single copy.^

Obviously, that isn't portable to a zero-copy-cost digital realm.

However, the "buyers never actually own anything digital" modern reality is vastly different than the historical norm, in favor of publishers and platforms.

What was missed was the conversation around what baseline we should establish around digital ownership.

We've nibbled around the edges (you have a right to decrypt something you've purchased, in some cases), but we never clarified it sufficiently.

And without clarity, buyers only get whatever rights publishers/platforms decide to grant them.

IMHO, we'd be better served by establishing a clear floor of digital ownership rights, that no publisher or platform had the legal right to remove or obstruct.

That's how we did it previously, and it worked well...

^ There were some exclusions around mass/public broadcasting, but those were pretty limited.

Re: The Internet Archive has lost its appeal in Hachette vs. Internet Archive

#720

Post by Atotalnoob »

mekarpeles wrote: post #684
vesinisa wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ditto. Worth also noting is that IA lost the case by summary judgement. This usually means that the legal matter was so clear that the judge didn't even see a reason to start a trial. This judgement has now been confirmed on appeal. Just about any lawyer could have probably told them this was the inevitable outcome had they listened. I personally have donated previously to IA but now it frankly disgusts me that the p…

> it frankly disgusts me that the project's current management has for the last few years had its focus on fighting windmills in court instead of their core mission - preserving our digital history. Hi, Mek here (speaking as myself). Disclosure that I run OpenLibrary.org at the Internet Archive. I'm sad to hear you're disappointed with how things are going. I share your frustration. I wanted to join in and +1 one of…

Hi Mek,

Why did IA pursue this case? You all lost in summary judgement, did your attorneys not tell you that you all had a terrible case and were likely to lose?

You have damaged your credibility and reputation as well as created negative precedent.

All in all, this seems like a massive blunder and I was hoping you could share what strategy you all are pursuing?

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