6 ms·

Dear Internet Archive: Not only do I support the measure you have taken and feel that it falls within the bounds of pro-social fair use, but I applaud the meas

by mcherm 7y ago

Dear Internet Archive: Not only do I support the measure you have taken and feel that it falls within the bounds of pro-social fair use, but I applaud the measures you have taken that are so important in this extreme time. Furthermore, if any court finds that your action was not appropriate, I will urge my lawmakers to craft a specific exception to copyright law to support the internet archive lending at all times, not just during a national emergency.

egfx 7y ago
But sucks they neglected gifcities. It hasn’t worked for a while https://gifcities.org/?q=dog https://gifcities.org/?q=dog What happened?
- sp332 7y ago
  There's a contact email at the bottom of https://gifcities.org/?about-gifcities https://gifcities.org/?about-gifcities Maybe just ask them?
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - egfx 7y ago
    I emailed gifcities and now it’s back up! They are working on making it faster.
tzs 7y ago
> Furthermore, if any court finds that your action was not appropriate, I will urge my lawmakers to craft a specific exception to copyright law to support the internet archive lending at all times, not just during a national emergency. Would there be any limits to your proposed exception? Or could they buy a single copy of a book and lend out as many simultaneous copies as readers asked for?
- thescriptkiddie 7y ago
  Congratulations, you have invented the library. Snark aside, how is this any different than going to your local library and feeding quarters to the photocopier? Scale?
  - sp332 7y ago
    I mean, that's also definitely copyright infringement. Scale just gets you attention from the lawyers. There are extremely narrow exceptions, see page 6 here: https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ21.pdf https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ21.pdf
    - thescriptkiddie 7y ago
      Most university libraries keep a copy or two of every textbook on hand, but don't actually allow you to check them out. Students pull it off the shelf long enough to photocopy the pages they need, then put it back. Often groups of students get together and take turns making multiple sets of copies for the whole group. A few times I actually had professors that were nice enough to make copies for the students ahead of time. One professor even went to the trouble of having a local print shop print and bind the copies in paperback. We had to pay something like $10 to cover the costs. Is any or all of that copyright infringement? Is there an exception for universities? Is this just a case of the law being so disconnected from reality that people don't even know they are breaking it?
  - geofft 7y ago
    There's a big difference between "the library" and "the library, where you use a photocopier": when a book is in more demand at the (normal) library, they buy more copies. That translates into more profits for the author. Authors like libraries for this very reason; authors do not like libraries-that-photocopy. Fortunately for them, there seem to be very few libraries where, if you go to check out a book, the librarian offers to photocopy it for you instead. The change the Internet Archive made is that they previously had a model of lending e-books that were backed by physical copies, and now they have a model of letting as many people read the e-book at once, without reference to physical copies. That means they've shifted from the library model to the library-that-photocopies model. Also, the photocopier at every library I've seen has a sign warning against non-fair-use copying of copyrighted material. So, one big difference is in intent, not just scale. Your average library discourages you from feeding quarters to the photocopier. This one has posted a sign arguing that unlimited copying is fair use for the next few months, and is handing you a roll of quarters.
nostromo 7y ago
Declaring this "pro-social" doesn't suddenly make it legal. It's clearly not any more legal then lending out a single copy of a DVD to one million people via BitTorrent. I get that it seems generous to give away these works. But they simply weren't theirs to give away to begin with. If you want to lend out 1,000 copies of book, first you have to buy 1,000 copies of said book. I'm disappointed with Internet Archive. They're opening themselves up to a huge lawsuit, and I'd hate to see their mission derailed because of it.
- geofft 7y ago
  > I'm disappointed with Internet Archive. They're opening themselves up to a huge lawsuit, and I'd hate to see their mission derailed because of it. Not only that - if this goes to court, there's a really good chance that the concept of Controlled Digital Lending (i.e., libraries lending out scans backed one-to-one by physical books, which many libraries including Internet Archive have been doing for a long time before this) ends up in court too, and a judge says, what the Internet Archive did is illegal because the whole idea of Controlled Digital Lending was never legal in the first place. I think it's foolish to trust that the courts (especially the courts today) are going to be sympathetic to fair use and to narrowing copyright.
  - Apocryphon 7y ago
    There's a theory that IA leadership is intentionally trying to force a landmark court case: https://twitter.com/rahaeli/status/1244257620548038656 https://twitter.com/rahaeli/status/1244257620548038656
    - geofft 7y ago
      Hope it goes better than Eldred v. Ashcroft.
    - 40four 7y ago
      That’s a pretty good angry Twitter rant. Here’s the (easier to read) link using threadreaderapp.com, my new found best friend! https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1244257620548038656.html?refreshed=1585629738 https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1244257620548038656.html?... The premise that they would be trying to purposefully shove it into the court system to achieve a ruling one way or the other is interesting. That’s how you play hard in the paint!
xhkkffbf 7y ago
Why stop here? Let's give everyone free food and housing too. They're even more important. Call it "social fair use." Remember: authors have to eat and sleep too. If they don't make money from their work, they'll do something else.
- yakireev 7y ago
  > Let's give everyone free food and housing too. They're even more important. Call it "social fair use." Yes, you're right. Let's do this. This is more or less what governments are supposed to do in the time of trouble like these: make sure that people who lost the means of supporting themselves at no fault of their own don't starve and are not left in the streets en masse. If that implies giving them free food and free shelter, then it should be done. If your government leaves people to die of hunger in the streets instead - you have a really shitty government, please get a new one. Heck, even the most right-wing governments, like the US one, are distributing free money (which converts into free food) right now. Seriously, if you think that letting people read an out-of-print book or two for free while quarantined is somehow bad or immoral, I think you should recalibrate your world views.

by mcherm 7y ago

egfx 7y ago

But sucks they neglected gifcities. It hasn’t worked for a while https://gifcities.org/?q=dog https://gifcities.org/?q=dog What happened?

sp332 7y ago
There's a contact email at the bottom of https://gifcities.org/?about-gifcities https://gifcities.org/?about-gifcities Maybe just ask them?
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- egfx 7y ago
  I emailed gifcities and now it’s back up! They are working on making it faster.

tzs 7y ago

> Furthermore, if any court finds that your action was not appropriate, I will urge my lawmakers to craft a specific exception to copyright law to support the internet archive lending at all times, not just during a national emergency. Would there be any limits to your proposed exception? Or could they buy a single copy of a book and lend out as many simultaneous copies as readers asked for?

thescriptkiddie 7y ago
Congratulations, you have invented the library. Snark aside, how is this any different than going to your local library and feeding quarters to the photocopier? Scale?
- sp332 7y ago
  I mean, that's also definitely copyright infringement. Scale just gets you attention from the lawyers. There are extremely narrow exceptions, see page 6 here: https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ21.pdf https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ21.pdf
  - thescriptkiddie 7y ago
    Most university libraries keep a copy or two of every textbook on hand, but don't actually allow you to check them out. Students pull it off the shelf long enough to photocopy the pages they need, then put it back. Often groups of students get together and take turns making multiple sets of copies for the whole group. A few times I actually had professors that were nice enough to make copies for the students ahead of time. One professor even went to the trouble of having a local print shop print and bind the copies in paperback. We had to pay something like $10 to cover the costs. Is any or all of that copyright infringement? Is there an exception for universities? Is this just a case of the law being so disconnected from reality that people don't even know they are breaking it?
- geofft 7y ago
  There's a big difference between "the library" and "the library, where you use a photocopier": when a book is in more demand at the (normal) library, they buy more copies. That translates into more profits for the author. Authors like libraries for this very reason; authors do not like libraries-that-photocopy. Fortunately for them, there seem to be very few libraries where, if you go to check out a book, the librarian offers to photocopy it for you instead. The change the Internet Archive made is that they previously had a model of lending e-books that were backed by physical copies, and now they have a model of letting as many people read the e-book at once, without reference to physical copies. That means they've shifted from the library model to the library-that-photocopies model. Also, the photocopier at every library I've seen has a sign warning against non-fair-use copying of copyrighted material. So, one big difference is in intent, not just scale. Your average library discourages you from feeding quarters to the photocopier. This one has posted a sign arguing that unlimited copying is fair use for the next few months, and is handing you a roll of quarters.

nostromo 7y ago

Declaring this "pro-social" doesn't suddenly make it legal. It's clearly not any more legal then lending out a single copy of a DVD to one million people via BitTorrent. I get that it seems generous to give away these works. But they simply weren't theirs to give away to begin with. If you want to lend out 1,000 copies of book, first you have to buy 1,000 copies of said book. I'm disappointed with Internet Archive. They're opening themselves up to a huge lawsuit, and I'd hate to see their mission derailed because of it.

geofft 7y ago
> I'm disappointed with Internet Archive. They're opening themselves up to a huge lawsuit, and I'd hate to see their mission derailed because of it. Not only that - if this goes to court, there's a really good chance that the concept of Controlled Digital Lending (i.e., libraries lending out scans backed one-to-one by physical books, which many libraries including Internet Archive have been doing for a long time before this) ends up in court too, and a judge says, what the Internet Archive did is illegal because the whole idea of Controlled Digital Lending was never legal in the first place. I think it's foolish to trust that the courts (especially the courts today) are going to be sympathetic to fair use and to narrowing copyright.
- Apocryphon 7y ago
  There's a theory that IA leadership is intentionally trying to force a landmark court case: https://twitter.com/rahaeli/status/1244257620548038656 https://twitter.com/rahaeli/status/1244257620548038656
  - geofft 7y ago
    Hope it goes better than Eldred v. Ashcroft.
  - 40four 7y ago
    That’s a pretty good angry Twitter rant. Here’s the (easier to read) link using threadreaderapp.com, my new found best friend! https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1244257620548038656.html?refreshed=1585629738 https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1244257620548038656.html?... The premise that they would be trying to purposefully shove it into the court system to achieve a ruling one way or the other is interesting. That’s how you play hard in the paint!

xhkkffbf 7y ago

Why stop here? Let's give everyone free food and housing too. They're even more important. Call it "social fair use." Remember: authors have to eat and sleep too. If they don't make money from their work, they'll do something else.

yakireev 7y ago
> Let's give everyone free food and housing too. They're even more important. Call it "social fair use." Yes, you're right. Let's do this. This is more or less what governments are supposed to do in the time of trouble like these: make sure that people who lost the means of supporting themselves at no fault of their own don't starve and are not left in the streets en masse. If that implies giving them free food and free shelter, then it should be done. If your government leaves people to die of hunger in the streets instead - you have a really shitty government, please get a new one. Heck, even the most right-wing governments, like the US one, are distributing free money (which converts into free food) right now. Seriously, if you think that letting people read an out-of-print book or two for free while quarantined is somehow bad or immoral, I think you should recalibrate your world views.