9 ms·

The publishers should stop now that they've taken them down, but this was grossly irresponsible of the Internet Archive to do this, and they brought it on thems

The publishers should stop now that they've taken them down, but this was grossly irresponsible of the Internet Archive to do this, and they brought it on themselves. Releasing all of these copyrighted books for free hurt authors who rely on royalties to live, and it was inevitable that publishers would sue. I honestly don't understand why they did it. They have a responsibility as custodians of the archive to not put it at risk of destruction.

MrStonedOne 6y ago
>I honestly don't understand why they did it. Its right there in the article. >In March, as the COVID-19 pandemic led to the shutdown of public libraries, the Internet Archive created the National Emergency Library and temporarily suspended book waitlists Public libraries got shut down, they opened a replacement. Makes perfect sense to me.
- ascorbic 6y ago
  Most public libraries have ebook lending, and there are lots of free sources that don't pose an existential threat to the archive
  - efreak 6y ago
    I know only a comparatively small number of people who own library cards. You cannot check out an ebook from the library without a library card. You cannot get a lovely card without physically entering the library. If you did not have a library card when the library closed, or you left it unused until it expired, then you cannot check out ebooks from the public library. Last I checked, there was, I think, 3 public libraries in California that allowed you to get a library card without being present. One of them required verification in some other method (fax? I can't remember), the other two had a second level card that didn't give access to ebooks or other library resources.
    - vinay427 6y ago
      A tangent, but I'm really glad California allows any state resident to use any public library in the state. In the state where I grew up, I was fortunate to live in a town with excellent library resources, but it was not something everyone in the state could enjoy even if they were willing to travel to another town. There's still a very noticeable difference between the library systems in different towns in CA, but at least one can still register and utilize online resources (assuming they visit in-person once if that's needed to register).
    - ascorbic 6y ago
      Right, bit the justification for this was that libraries were closed because of covid. If people weren't using them before then it doesn't affect them
      - macintux 6y ago
        There are a lot of people who use libraries without a card. Admittedly, many of them only use the computers, but in most locales anyone can wander in and read as much as they want.
    - nfriedly 6y ago
      In Ohio, many (maybe all?) libraries allow you to apply online for a virtual library card that can be used to check out ebooks/audiobooks/etc. A librarian reviews the application and approves or denies it within a day or so, and you get an email either way. No need to ever visit a library in person. I'm not 100% sure that this was in place before COVID-19, but I think it was. To check out physical books, you have to visit a library in person and upgrade the virtual library card to a physical library card.
      - csixty4 6y ago
        The Boston Public Library has done virtual cards for years as well, and a BPL card is available online for any Massachusetts resident.
- nmstoker 6y ago
  If they had increased their lending by a finite amount, matching the number of copies in closed libraries they'd been in touch with, then I could sort of understand an increase in keen lending over their normal levels, as it would not be putting the publishers in a worse overall position. However, as it stands the unlimited lending seems naïve and ill thought through.
  - waheoo 6y ago
    So does extending copyright term lengths indefinitely but here we are. You lot realise IP law is supposed to encourage innovation for the good of society right? Not stifle and opress it.
- jessriedel 6y ago
  >>I honestly don't understand why they did it. >Its right there in the article. The grandparent isn't questioning the motivation for breaking the law, they are asking why the organization would possibly think it's a good idea given the likely consequences. Q: "Why do you rob banks?" A: "Because that's where the money is."
  - zucker42 6y ago
    To pick an analogy that is biased in favor of the IA, isn't it a better comparison to say, Q: "Why did you violate that segregation law?" A: "Because it's immoral and bad for society."
    - jessriedel 6y ago
      I actually think that even that analogy favors the restraint argued by the original comment. The civil rights movement was highly strategic in their choice of when and where to violate the law. The most successful leaders of those organizations would never have gambled the existence of the orgs on a purposeful violation of a law merely because it was unjust. But really that's besides the point. If someone wants to argue the IA should gamble the entire organization on this issue, they should explain why rather than pretending its obvious and "right there in the article".
- lordlimecat 6y ago
  >Public libraries got shut down, they opened a replacement And they did it in the most blatantly illegal way possible, with a press release that removed any doubt as to whether the infringement was willful. Brilliant! IA could have, for instance, reached out to local libraries to see if IA could "use" their physical copies for proxies of the digital ones IA was loaning. This would likely have been illegal, but far more palatable, justifiable, and importantly not willful infringement.
  - shervinafshar 6y ago
    Not a IP lawyer here, but I speculate that when and if this lawsuit goes to higher courts, the fact that IA was acting in favour of the public in a national emergency would be in their favor.
    - Shivetya 6y ago
      That won't fly because it is just as easy to lay claim that ignoring copyright is against the public because it devalues private property rights of which the creator did not assign to the IA.
      - lordlimecat 6y ago
        The argument being put forward here is as if IA just broken into peoples houses and redistributed 3m masks, and tried to justify it because they're doing good.
        Dylan16807 6y ago
        I agree! Many people are grossly exaggerating the harm so that they can scoff at the justification of "doing good".
        afastow 6y ago
        Fine, but the good has been exaggerated too. Some people who heard about this were able to read a book or two for free during a time when everyone was stuck in their house. That's a good gesture that I'm sure was appreciated, but they didn't change anyone's life here. And it was a gesture that was not theirs to make. Did they ever consider just asking the publishers for permission? They might actually have gotten it. Companies were quite eager to do things to show they were trying to help back in March and April. But I've looked and found nothing saying they asked, so I'm guessing they didn't. Probably because they thought asking would look bad if they were told "no" and did it anyway.
- tzs 6y ago
  That's why they wanted to do it. It doesn't explain why they actually did it. There's a long list of national and even worldwide problems I could solve, if only I was allowed to use other people's resources without their permission and was not required to compensate them in any way for that use. I want to tackle all of those, but they would not get past the "ask a lawyer how much legal trouble it would be" stage, and so I do not actually do them.
Beldin 6y ago
> Releasing all of these copyrighted books for free hurt authors who rely on royalties to live Do you have any data on that?
- ascorbic 6y ago
  Unless you think there were no people at all who downloaded for free rather than paying, then it cost authors royalty payments.
  - cygx 6y ago
    It probably did, but note that the scope was limited: Books released too recently were excluded (if I remember correctly, the cut-off was 5 years?), and they are still DRM protected and have to be returned at the end of the 3 month period, when the waitlist will kick in again. Also note that the publishers' problem is not just the 3 months of waitlist suspension (supposed to offset the closure of physical libraries during the pandemic), but the practice of controlled digital lending of books scanned from physical copies (ie handing out a digital copy for each physical copy you've got sitting on your shelf) without additional royalty payments.
    - Mindwipe 6y ago
      Publishers will also be able to trivially show that the Piracy subreddit found the DRM and geofiltering to be below industry standard and how there were literally thousands of posts there about people downloading books for permanent retention because they could.
      - sukilot 6y ago
        If I lend you my book and you make a persistent copy, am I the copyright violator?
        drawfloat 6y ago
        If you've been warned that what you're doing is enabling others to violate copyright and continue to do so, then in a lot of jurisdictions yes. Same reason torrent trackers keep getting closed down.
themodelplumber 6y ago
I commented elsewhere but I find this a terrific example of a bold prospective move in this space. They took a risk for which the patron reward ratio was potentially huge. Also, publishers should have anticipated this sort of thing and prepared bridges so they didn't have to go on the attack and waste 10 different types of capital. That they are shutting down a public benefit with relevant impact (IA release gives an example) during a pandemic is a dick move in more than one way. This part among others will come back to bite them. IA didn't release copyrighted books for free; at the very least this depends on your definition of "release" and personally after checking out a book I find that I no longer have access after ~2 weeks. This kind of timeline is much more like a library than a bookstore. I think any smart author who cares about their craft, and knowledge in general, would much rather their publishing representative find a way to moderate and proactively track this new approach than turn the whole thing into a war, making a library--of all things--into the enemy.
- Mindwipe 6y ago
  > Also, publishers should have anticipated this sort of thing and prepared bridges so they didn't have to go on the attack and waste 10 different types of capital. Publishers repeatedly asked the IA to stop obviously breaking the law before filing the lawsuit, and were ignored.
  - themodelplumber 6y ago
    If that's all they did, it makes one wonder if the publishing corporate leadership teams understand how laws are made, or rewritten? They completely missed their interface with IA. IA now has a lot of social leverage thanks to these publishers being about as creative and flexible as a concrete patio.
    - drawfloat 6y ago
      Whereas the publishers now have legal leverage. And guess which one actually counts when it comes to getting sued.
pbhjpbhj 6y ago
>Releasing all of these copyrighted books for free hurt authors who rely on royalties to live, // That's not at all self-evident, indeed quite likely false. We had a similar discussion here a few times and content/program creators have said they made more money when their product was also available free - people tried it and bought it. That probably only works for content creators who's stuff is good - publishers still want to sell stuff that's not good but just is packaged as if it were. People who want free literature will find it, regardless of whether publishers consent. As a sidenote, game publishers appear to be using a model of giving away an older game when a sequel is due out - it a similar game from the same company. Naturally one might think that this would eat in to potential profits, but I'm assuming they get more users for the new game, or at least profit more overall this way.
- thatguy0900 6y ago
  With video games there's also dlc to take into account. I bought total war Warhammer in a humble bundle sale for 12$, and enjoyed it so much I bought all the dlc for another 60
- ThrustVectoring 6y ago
  > We had a similar discussion here a few times and content/program creators have said they made more money when their product was also available free - people tried it and bought it. There's a difference between making your work free when most work is non-free and making most work free. When things are generally pay-walled, free content can get extra attention at the expense of paid content. When the expectation is that things are free, well, there isn't any more total attention to go around, so all that changes is that content creators stop being able to charge for their work. More generally, positional goods exist, so you cannot reliably extrapolate from individual interest to group policy goals. When people want a bigger boat than their neighbors, you cannot subsidize boat-buying until everyone has the best boat on the block.
mcguire 6y ago
"Releasing all of these copyrighted books for free hurt authors who rely on royalties to live..." Clearly, we should shut down all the other libraries, too.
- hundchenkatze 6y ago
  Physical libraries can't, easily, purchase a book once and loan it out an infinite number of copies at the same time.
  - m4rtink 6y ago
    With modern technology they can. Isn't it better to enhance this new technology rather than pretend we are stuck back in the middle ages ? We finally have the technology to protect knowledge and culture forever and instead we are trying to invent ways to artificially limit this that could result in important literary works being lost not not mention misused for censorship and suppressing of "unwanted" information.
- ascorbic 6y ago
  Libraries buy the books, and pay further royalties when they're lent out.
  - mcguire 6y ago
    "...pay further royalties when they're lent out." Not in the US. https://stevelaube.com/will-libraries-eventually-pay-authors/ https://stevelaube.com/will-libraries-eventually-pay-authors... In the UK/Ireland, "the author received about 10 cents (U.S.) per use, with a max of $8,500 (U.S.) per year" but "the copyright holder must be a citizen of that country to participate".

MrStonedOne 6y ago

>I honestly don't understand why they did it. Its right there in the article. >In March, as the COVID-19 pandemic led to the shutdown of public libraries, the Internet Archive created the National Emergency Library and temporarily suspended book waitlists Public libraries got shut down, they opened a replacement. Makes perfect sense to me.

ascorbic 6y ago
Most public libraries have ebook lending, and there are lots of free sources that don't pose an existential threat to the archive
- efreak 6y ago
  I know only a comparatively small number of people who own library cards. You cannot check out an ebook from the library without a library card. You cannot get a lovely card without physically entering the library. If you did not have a library card when the library closed, or you left it unused until it expired, then you cannot check out ebooks from the public library. Last I checked, there was, I think, 3 public libraries in California that allowed you to get a library card without being present. One of them required verification in some other method (fax? I can't remember), the other two had a second level card that didn't give access to ebooks or other library resources.
  - vinay427 6y ago
    A tangent, but I'm really glad California allows any state resident to use any public library in the state. In the state where I grew up, I was fortunate to live in a town with excellent library resources, but it was not something everyone in the state could enjoy even if they were willing to travel to another town. There's still a very noticeable difference between the library systems in different towns in CA, but at least one can still register and utilize online resources (assuming they visit in-person once if that's needed to register).
  - ascorbic 6y ago
    Right, bit the justification for this was that libraries were closed because of covid. If people weren't using them before then it doesn't affect them
    - macintux 6y ago
      There are a lot of people who use libraries without a card. Admittedly, many of them only use the computers, but in most locales anyone can wander in and read as much as they want.
  - nfriedly 6y ago
    In Ohio, many (maybe all?) libraries allow you to apply online for a virtual library card that can be used to check out ebooks/audiobooks/etc. A librarian reviews the application and approves or denies it within a day or so, and you get an email either way. No need to ever visit a library in person. I'm not 100% sure that this was in place before COVID-19, but I think it was. To check out physical books, you have to visit a library in person and upgrade the virtual library card to a physical library card.
    - csixty4 6y ago
      The Boston Public Library has done virtual cards for years as well, and a BPL card is available online for any Massachusetts resident.
nmstoker 6y ago
If they had increased their lending by a finite amount, matching the number of copies in closed libraries they'd been in touch with, then I could sort of understand an increase in keen lending over their normal levels, as it would not be putting the publishers in a worse overall position. However, as it stands the unlimited lending seems naïve and ill thought through.
- waheoo 6y ago
  So does extending copyright term lengths indefinitely but here we are. You lot realise IP law is supposed to encourage innovation for the good of society right? Not stifle and opress it.
jessriedel 6y ago
>>I honestly don't understand why they did it. >Its right there in the article. The grandparent isn't questioning the motivation for breaking the law, they are asking why the organization would possibly think it's a good idea given the likely consequences. Q: "Why do you rob banks?" A: "Because that's where the money is."
- zucker42 6y ago
  To pick an analogy that is biased in favor of the IA, isn't it a better comparison to say, Q: "Why did you violate that segregation law?" A: "Because it's immoral and bad for society."
  - jessriedel 6y ago
    I actually think that even that analogy favors the restraint argued by the original comment. The civil rights movement was highly strategic in their choice of when and where to violate the law. The most successful leaders of those organizations would never have gambled the existence of the orgs on a purposeful violation of a law merely because it was unjust. But really that's besides the point. If someone wants to argue the IA should gamble the entire organization on this issue, they should explain why rather than pretending its obvious and "right there in the article".
lordlimecat 6y ago
>Public libraries got shut down, they opened a replacement And they did it in the most blatantly illegal way possible, with a press release that removed any doubt as to whether the infringement was willful. Brilliant! IA could have, for instance, reached out to local libraries to see if IA could "use" their physical copies for proxies of the digital ones IA was loaning. This would likely have been illegal, but far more palatable, justifiable, and importantly not willful infringement.
- shervinafshar 6y ago
  Not a IP lawyer here, but I speculate that when and if this lawsuit goes to higher courts, the fact that IA was acting in favour of the public in a national emergency would be in their favor.
  - Shivetya 6y ago
    That won't fly because it is just as easy to lay claim that ignoring copyright is against the public because it devalues private property rights of which the creator did not assign to the IA.
    - lordlimecat 6y ago
      The argument being put forward here is as if IA just broken into peoples houses and redistributed 3m masks, and tried to justify it because they're doing good.
      - Dylan16807 6y ago
        I agree! Many people are grossly exaggerating the harm so that they can scoff at the justification of "doing good".
        afastow 6y ago
        Fine, but the good has been exaggerated too. Some people who heard about this were able to read a book or two for free during a time when everyone was stuck in their house. That's a good gesture that I'm sure was appreciated, but they didn't change anyone's life here. And it was a gesture that was not theirs to make. Did they ever consider just asking the publishers for permission? They might actually have gotten it. Companies were quite eager to do things to show they were trying to help back in March and April. But I've looked and found nothing saying they asked, so I'm guessing they didn't. Probably because they thought asking would look bad if they were told "no" and did it anyway.
tzs 6y ago
That's why they wanted to do it. It doesn't explain why they actually did it. There's a long list of national and even worldwide problems I could solve, if only I was allowed to use other people's resources without their permission and was not required to compensate them in any way for that use. I want to tackle all of those, but they would not get past the "ask a lawyer how much legal trouble it would be" stage, and so I do not actually do them.

Beldin 6y ago

> Releasing all of these copyrighted books for free hurt authors who rely on royalties to live Do you have any data on that?

ascorbic 6y ago
Unless you think there were no people at all who downloaded for free rather than paying, then it cost authors royalty payments.
- cygx 6y ago
  It probably did, but note that the scope was limited: Books released too recently were excluded (if I remember correctly, the cut-off was 5 years?), and they are still DRM protected and have to be returned at the end of the 3 month period, when the waitlist will kick in again. Also note that the publishers' problem is not just the 3 months of waitlist suspension (supposed to offset the closure of physical libraries during the pandemic), but the practice of controlled digital lending of books scanned from physical copies (ie handing out a digital copy for each physical copy you've got sitting on your shelf) without additional royalty payments.
  - Mindwipe 6y ago
    Publishers will also be able to trivially show that the Piracy subreddit found the DRM and geofiltering to be below industry standard and how there were literally thousands of posts there about people downloading books for permanent retention because they could.
    - sukilot 6y ago
      If I lend you my book and you make a persistent copy, am I the copyright violator?
      - drawfloat 6y ago
        If you've been warned that what you're doing is enabling others to violate copyright and continue to do so, then in a lot of jurisdictions yes. Same reason torrent trackers keep getting closed down.

themodelplumber 6y ago

I commented elsewhere but I find this a terrific example of a bold prospective move in this space. They took a risk for which the patron reward ratio was potentially huge. Also, publishers should have anticipated this sort of thing and prepared bridges so they didn't have to go on the attack and waste 10 different types of capital. That they are shutting down a public benefit with relevant impact (IA release gives an example) during a pandemic is a dick move in more than one way. This part among others will come back to bite them. IA didn't release copyrighted books for free; at the very least this depends on your definition of "release" and personally after checking out a book I find that I no longer have access after ~2 weeks. This kind of timeline is much more like a library than a bookstore. I think any smart author who cares about their craft, and knowledge in general, would much rather their publishing representative find a way to moderate and proactively track this new approach than turn the whole thing into a war, making a library--of all things--into the enemy.

Mindwipe 6y ago
> Also, publishers should have anticipated this sort of thing and prepared bridges so they didn't have to go on the attack and waste 10 different types of capital. Publishers repeatedly asked the IA to stop obviously breaking the law before filing the lawsuit, and were ignored.
- themodelplumber 6y ago
  If that's all they did, it makes one wonder if the publishing corporate leadership teams understand how laws are made, or rewritten? They completely missed their interface with IA. IA now has a lot of social leverage thanks to these publishers being about as creative and flexible as a concrete patio.
  - drawfloat 6y ago
    Whereas the publishers now have legal leverage. And guess which one actually counts when it comes to getting sued.

pbhjpbhj 6y ago

>Releasing all of these copyrighted books for free hurt authors who rely on royalties to live, // That's not at all self-evident, indeed quite likely false. We had a similar discussion here a few times and content/program creators have said they made more money when their product was also available free - people tried it and bought it. That probably only works for content creators who's stuff is good - publishers still want to sell stuff that's not good but just is packaged as if it were. People who want free literature will find it, regardless of whether publishers consent. As a sidenote, game publishers appear to be using a model of giving away an older game when a sequel is due out - it a similar game from the same company. Naturally one might think that this would eat in to potential profits, but I'm assuming they get more users for the new game, or at least profit more overall this way.

thatguy0900 6y ago
With video games there's also dlc to take into account. I bought total war Warhammer in a humble bundle sale for 12$, and enjoyed it so much I bought all the dlc for another 60
ThrustVectoring 6y ago
> We had a similar discussion here a few times and content/program creators have said they made more money when their product was also available free - people tried it and bought it. There's a difference between making your work free when most work is non-free and making most work free. When things are generally pay-walled, free content can get extra attention at the expense of paid content. When the expectation is that things are free, well, there isn't any more total attention to go around, so all that changes is that content creators stop being able to charge for their work. More generally, positional goods exist, so you cannot reliably extrapolate from individual interest to group policy goals. When people want a bigger boat than their neighbors, you cannot subsidize boat-buying until everyone has the best boat on the block.

mcguire 6y ago

"Releasing all of these copyrighted books for free hurt authors who rely on royalties to live..." Clearly, we should shut down all the other libraries, too.

hundchenkatze 6y ago
Physical libraries can't, easily, purchase a book once and loan it out an infinite number of copies at the same time.
- m4rtink 6y ago
  With modern technology they can. Isn't it better to enhance this new technology rather than pretend we are stuck back in the middle ages ? We finally have the technology to protect knowledge and culture forever and instead we are trying to invent ways to artificially limit this that could result in important literary works being lost not not mention misused for censorship and suppressing of "unwanted" information.
ascorbic 6y ago
Libraries buy the books, and pay further royalties when they're lent out.
- mcguire 6y ago
  "...pay further royalties when they're lent out." Not in the US. https://stevelaube.com/will-libraries-eventually-pay-authors/ https://stevelaube.com/will-libraries-eventually-pay-authors... In the UK/Ireland, "the author received about 10 cents (U.S.) per use, with a max of $8,500 (U.S.) per year" but "the copyright holder must be a citizen of that country to participate".