4 ms·

IA haven’t come out with an official argument so there is no need to put words in their mouths. Also if the IA scheme becomes legal it would certainly not be a

IA haven’t come out with an official argument so there is no need to put words in their mouths. Also if the IA scheme becomes legal it would certainly not be a an all out end to copyright. Just the realisation that limiting an unlimited digital asset is stupid and copyright in the digital age should be defined in a new way. Ppl still would not be able to use your work for free. Edit: Like back when we only had physical things it made sense. There was a physical limitation. Now we are trying to apply the same concept in a very different world. I just think that doesn’t hold and we should just have a new definition. E.g: there is no reason to own a physical copy to lend a digital one as the medium should not hold the copyright. Maybe charge a fee for access and then if you want the physical book you only pay for the medium but if you want the digital one there is no additional fee. My point is more the fact that the medium limitation is something that never really gets the focus and that is a very broken part of copyright in the digital age.

jawns 6y ago
Their official argument is: > [Readers] don’t have access to the books that only exist in paper, sitting inaccessible on their library shelves. That’s where our collection fits in — we offer digital access to books, many of which are otherwise unavailable to the public while our schools and libraries are closed http://blog.archive.org/2020/03/24/announcing-a-national-emergency-library-to-provide-digitized-books-to-students-and-the-public/ http://blog.archive.org/2020/03/24/announcing-a-national-eme... They make explicit reference to these inaccessible books to justify why they are distributing more copies than they own. I agree with your point about digital media being intrinsically different than physical media, especially when it comes to marginal costs of publication/dissemination. Ownership and possession of a physical copy of a book is a good proxy for a license to use the book, and copyright law was largely built around that premise. Controlled Digital Lending seems to be a good way to adopt the same principles for the digital age. IA was using CDL prior to its emergency library, and I had no problem with that. I also don't think lenders need to have a physical copy sitting around somewhere to be able to lend a digital copy. Publishers' onerous licensing terms for digital content have been met with deserved criticism. A CDL system that permits ownership of either physical or digital copies seems like the right approach.
- pgalvin 6y ago
  In fairness, I think that line of defense is more a moral, rather than legal, argument.
neaden 6y ago
" Like back when we only had physical things it made sense. There was a physical limitation. Now we are trying to apply the same concept in a very different world. I just think that doesn’t hold and we should just have a new definition." I don't think is true historically though. The idea of copyright for books is that another publisher can't start printing copies of a book someone else wrote and start selling them. This doesn't involve physically taking any of the author's property, and indeed they probably had to buy a copy first before they could make their own copies. I don't see how what the IA is fundamentally different from this, and it seem pretty clear that copyright law was created to stop this sort of thing.
- jancsika 6y ago
  > The idea of copyright for books is that another publisher can't start printing copies of a book someone else wrote and start selling them. But with the historical conceptual constraint that: a) it costs enough to make copies that a physical publishing industry is necessary to produce copies of books at scale b) it is unthinkable that copies may be made for $0 c) were it somehow thinkable that a person could magically receive a book from a neighbor with the neighbor never losing their own copy, the free transfer of copies clearly trumps any benefits or incentives federal copyright may have. Lucky for us Jefferson saw in human ideas the same novel properties that we take for granted with digital data, and he wrote explicitly about his priorities regarding those novel properties: "He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation." So the one relevant historical commentary I know from the time is clearly on the side of the person you're responding to. You can't apply the same copyright logic to non-physical things (or more broadly, things for which a recipient can receive a thing without the giver having lost one). And if you try, then free distribution outweighs exclusive rights.

jawns 6y ago

Their official argument is: > [Readers] don’t have access to the books that only exist in paper, sitting inaccessible on their library shelves. That’s where our collection fits in — we offer digital access to books, many of which are otherwise unavailable to the public while our schools and libraries are closed http://blog.archive.org/2020/03/24/announcing-a-national-emergency-library-to-provide-digitized-books-to-students-and-the-public/ http://blog.archive.org/2020/03/24/announcing-a-national-eme... They make explicit reference to these inaccessible books to justify why they are distributing more copies than they own. I agree with your point about digital media being intrinsically different than physical media, especially when it comes to marginal costs of publication/dissemination. Ownership and possession of a physical copy of a book is a good proxy for a license to use the book, and copyright law was largely built around that premise. Controlled Digital Lending seems to be a good way to adopt the same principles for the digital age. IA was using CDL prior to its emergency library, and I had no problem with that. I also don't think lenders need to have a physical copy sitting around somewhere to be able to lend a digital copy. Publishers' onerous licensing terms for digital content have been met with deserved criticism. A CDL system that permits ownership of either physical or digital copies seems like the right approach.

pgalvin 6y ago
In fairness, I think that line of defense is more a moral, rather than legal, argument.

neaden 6y ago

" Like back when we only had physical things it made sense. There was a physical limitation. Now we are trying to apply the same concept in a very different world. I just think that doesn’t hold and we should just have a new definition." I don't think is true historically though. The idea of copyright for books is that another publisher can't start printing copies of a book someone else wrote and start selling them. This doesn't involve physically taking any of the author's property, and indeed they probably had to buy a copy first before they could make their own copies. I don't see how what the IA is fundamentally different from this, and it seem pretty clear that copyright law was created to stop this sort of thing.

jancsika 6y ago
> The idea of copyright for books is that another publisher can't start printing copies of a book someone else wrote and start selling them. But with the historical conceptual constraint that: a) it costs enough to make copies that a physical publishing industry is necessary to produce copies of books at scale b) it is unthinkable that copies may be made for $0 c) were it somehow thinkable that a person could magically receive a book from a neighbor with the neighbor never losing their own copy, the free transfer of copies clearly trumps any benefits or incentives federal copyright may have. Lucky for us Jefferson saw in human ideas the same novel properties that we take for granted with digital data, and he wrote explicitly about his priorities regarding those novel properties: "He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation." So the one relevant historical commentary I know from the time is clearly on the side of the person you're responding to. You can't apply the same copyright logic to non-physical things (or more broadly, things for which a recipient can receive a thing without the giver having lost one). And if you try, then free distribution outweighs exclusive rights.