4 ms·

The publishers waited until someone made a massive over-reach beyond any plausible deniability or defense, and that makes them despicable? I mean... a little b

The publishers waited until someone made a massive over-reach beyond any plausible deniability or defense, and that makes them despicable? I mean... a little blame goes to the folks that made the massive over-reach beyond any plausible deniability or defense, right? Maybe most of the blame? All of the blame? IA lofted the jolly roger and thought fear of bad press would protect them, and it's the publisher's fault for not saying, "never mind, you guys destroy the entire economic foundation of the publishing industry, no worries"? I'm rarely in the anti-pirate camp, but defending IA in this context is pretty extreme.

toomuchtodo 6y ago
Trying to use a crisis to return sanity to copyright law isn't an overreach. The blame lies squarely on those who have spent decades creating draconian copyright law, and those today who defend it. "I'm an author" or "Think of the publishers!" is no excuse for supporting unjust laws.
- chipotle_coyote 6y ago
  The argument is whether actions like this are the best way to "return sanity to copyright law," though, right? It seems to me there's a lot of space between "eternally extending copyright to keep the first Mickey Mouse cartoons from entering the public domain" and "anyone should be able to do whatever they want with other people's work at any point regardless of the creator's objections."
  - toomuchtodo 6y ago
    There is a lot of space, which is why you anchor with the opening salvo and then find middle ground. Keep in mind, the Internet Archive only opened the “National Emergency Library” during a global pandemic. Under business as usual, they put limits on access to scanned works. Copyright isn’t an inalienable right. It was established for the public good, and up for renegotiation at any time. Now is one of those times.
    - fphhotchips 6y ago
      An "opening salvo" has to be more than just throwing ammunition at your enemies. The "but global pandemic" argument will not be very convincing when they roll out authors that also wanted to eat during the pandemic. No matter what you consider to be the morally correct outcome here, this seems to have been a very risky way to go about things.
      - toomuchtodo 6y ago
        > when they roll out authors that also wanted to eat during the pandemic. This is a tired argument. Please prove authors experienced lost sales due to the emergency library IA offered.
        fphhotchips 6y ago
        I don't have to. The publishers do. And I'll bet they can make a better legal argument than "oh we just wanted to because pandemic".
- ApolloFortyNine 6y ago
  I'm not sure what the point of owning a digital copy of a book is if I can, at any time, "loan" one from the IA in <15 seconds. In a way it's even more convenient than owning a copy, your basically using IA as cloud storage. >"I'm an author" or "Think of the publishers!" is no excuse for supporting unjust laws. Authors want to get paid, this stops them from getting paid...
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- syshum 6y ago
  >> "I'm an author" or "Think of the publishers!" is no excuse for supporting unjust laws. What is sad is most of the people that use that excuse do not believe copyright laws are draconian enough, they want STRONGER copyright laws for publishers, they want it to not only be civil but criminal, they want to put people in jail in a cage if you happen to share your favorite song with a friend. In short, copyright maximalists are insane
- stubish 6y ago
  Seems to be overreaching to me. They have put themselves into a position where they are likely to be sued into the ground, and force others into a position where the only choice is to lose their income or sue them into the ground. They weren't forced into creating this standoff, so at least share the blame.
ghaff 6y ago
It's so uncharacteristic of the way the IA normally behaves. Whatever special rights a lot of people think they have as a library, a lot of their archiving operations are on somewhat shaky ground. BUT they're a non-profit, don't monetize with advertising, bend over backwards (further than many think they should) to take down anything anyone with a legitimate claim wants taken down even retroactively, and generally don't do anything that makes them a particularly attractive legal target. Yeah, you can argue about them collecting so much content on essentially an opt-out basis. But, at the end of the day, they do provide an opt-out so it's probably not very attractive to sue them when you can get the same result by asking for a takedown.
matheusmoreira 6y ago
The real overreach is copyright law's hundred year plus monopolies on imaginary property and their lip service to fair use and the public domain.
- arkades 6y ago
  And the solution to broken copyright law is to ignore it, at the expense of working-class authors, rather than ... working on the law? You realize this undermines the ability of our society to produce the actual written works that we're arguing so damn valuable that we can't abide locking them behind a paywall?
  - matheusmoreira 6y ago
    > And the solution to broken copyright law is to ignore it Civil disobedience is a form of peaceful protest. > You realize this undermines the ability of our society to produce the actual written works Creators aren't going to stop. They'll find a way. The solution is to somehow get paid for the act of creating rather than the finished work. Patronage and crowdfunding could be the answer.
  - vertex-four 6y ago
    People write for free constantly. We're doing it right now, Tumblr was absolutely full of freely available fiction, and there were plenty of stories and technical knowledge written and passed between people before copyright was even a concept in anyone's minds. The primary thing the copyright industry gets us in regards to writing is that some people can get paid doing things others will do for free, and a large body of advertising is created around the non-free works.
    - stubish 6y ago
      If you stop paying people to write, the only people who write are those who can afford the time. Writing a novel can take years of your life. Books are not fungible, and some books you would want to read will never get written if the author cannot afford to write it.

toomuchtodo 6y ago

Trying to use a crisis to return sanity to copyright law isn't an overreach. The blame lies squarely on those who have spent decades creating draconian copyright law, and those today who defend it. "I'm an author" or "Think of the publishers!" is no excuse for supporting unjust laws.

chipotle_coyote 6y ago
The argument is whether actions like this are the best way to "return sanity to copyright law," though, right? It seems to me there's a lot of space between "eternally extending copyright to keep the first Mickey Mouse cartoons from entering the public domain" and "anyone should be able to do whatever they want with other people's work at any point regardless of the creator's objections."
- toomuchtodo 6y ago
  There is a lot of space, which is why you anchor with the opening salvo and then find middle ground. Keep in mind, the Internet Archive only opened the “National Emergency Library” during a global pandemic. Under business as usual, they put limits on access to scanned works. Copyright isn’t an inalienable right. It was established for the public good, and up for renegotiation at any time. Now is one of those times.
  - fphhotchips 6y ago
    An "opening salvo" has to be more than just throwing ammunition at your enemies. The "but global pandemic" argument will not be very convincing when they roll out authors that also wanted to eat during the pandemic. No matter what you consider to be the morally correct outcome here, this seems to have been a very risky way to go about things.
    - toomuchtodo 6y ago
      > when they roll out authors that also wanted to eat during the pandemic. This is a tired argument. Please prove authors experienced lost sales due to the emergency library IA offered.
      - fphhotchips 6y ago
        I don't have to. The publishers do. And I'll bet they can make a better legal argument than "oh we just wanted to because pandemic".
ApolloFortyNine 6y ago
I'm not sure what the point of owning a digital copy of a book is if I can, at any time, "loan" one from the IA in <15 seconds. In a way it's even more convenient than owning a copy, your basically using IA as cloud storage. >"I'm an author" or "Think of the publishers!" is no excuse for supporting unjust laws. Authors want to get paid, this stops them from getting paid...
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
syshum 6y ago
>> "I'm an author" or "Think of the publishers!" is no excuse for supporting unjust laws. What is sad is most of the people that use that excuse do not believe copyright laws are draconian enough, they want STRONGER copyright laws for publishers, they want it to not only be civil but criminal, they want to put people in jail in a cage if you happen to share your favorite song with a friend. In short, copyright maximalists are insane
stubish 6y ago
Seems to be overreaching to me. They have put themselves into a position where they are likely to be sued into the ground, and force others into a position where the only choice is to lose their income or sue them into the ground. They weren't forced into creating this standoff, so at least share the blame.

ghaff 6y ago

It's so uncharacteristic of the way the IA normally behaves. Whatever special rights a lot of people think they have as a library, a lot of their archiving operations are on somewhat shaky ground. BUT they're a non-profit, don't monetize with advertising, bend over backwards (further than many think they should) to take down anything anyone with a legitimate claim wants taken down even retroactively, and generally don't do anything that makes them a particularly attractive legal target. Yeah, you can argue about them collecting so much content on essentially an opt-out basis. But, at the end of the day, they do provide an opt-out so it's probably not very attractive to sue them when you can get the same result by asking for a takedown.

matheusmoreira 6y ago

The real overreach is copyright law's hundred year plus monopolies on imaginary property and their lip service to fair use and the public domain.

arkades 6y ago
And the solution to broken copyright law is to ignore it, at the expense of working-class authors, rather than ... working on the law? You realize this undermines the ability of our society to produce the actual written works that we're arguing so damn valuable that we can't abide locking them behind a paywall?
- matheusmoreira 6y ago
  > And the solution to broken copyright law is to ignore it Civil disobedience is a form of peaceful protest. > You realize this undermines the ability of our society to produce the actual written works Creators aren't going to stop. They'll find a way. The solution is to somehow get paid for the act of creating rather than the finished work. Patronage and crowdfunding could be the answer.
- vertex-four 6y ago
  People write for free constantly. We're doing it right now, Tumblr was absolutely full of freely available fiction, and there were plenty of stories and technical knowledge written and passed between people before copyright was even a concept in anyone's minds. The primary thing the copyright industry gets us in regards to writing is that some people can get paid doing things others will do for free, and a large body of advertising is created around the non-free works.
  - stubish 6y ago
    If you stop paying people to write, the only people who write are those who can afford the time. Writing a novel can take years of your life. Books are not fungible, and some books you would want to read will never get written if the author cannot afford to write it.