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Senator Is Seemingly Obsessed with Threatening the Internet Archive

55 points by elsewhen 6y ago

phendrenad2 6y ago
The Internet Archive's behavior recently is really fascinating to me. It seems as if they know they have a monopoly on website snapshots, so it's unlikely that they'll get shut down, so they're emboldened to push the envelope when it comes to copyright. The treatment it gets from Vox here shows how beloved IA is. The article could have been titled "Senator warns IA that they're in violation of copyright law". If you read the letter, it seems pretty reasonable ( https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/6948318/Tillis2.pdf https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/6948318/Tillis2.p... ). A notable quote (carefully typed by hand by me, because IA linked the letter as an image): "I am concerned that the Internet Archive thinks that it - not Congress - gets to decide the scope of copyright law". I agree with this characterization. Another one: "The Internet Archive seems to be daring copyright owners to sue to enforce their rights, or else forfeit them - something many copyright holders, particular individuals and smaller enterprises, cannot afford to do" I'm not making money from any copyright I hold, so I can't claim to speak for anyone harmed by IA's behavior, but I can definitely see that there may be merit to this Senator's letters.
- eganist 6y ago
  If they become an agent of change against today's absurdly long and onerous copyright regulations in the US, I think that's fine. Whereas the senator is reasonably concerned about compliance with the letter of the law, there's a much better argument to be made that copyright laws as they stand today are burdensome and impede both competition as well as the creation of novel services, such as digital libraries.
- salawat 6y ago
  As reasonable as the Senator may be in that sense, he should maybe get away from the lobbyists for a while and really think about the country for once. Every last child in the entire country is suffering for lack of ready access to reading and educational material over and above what was deemed a "reasonable baseline" before when to copy a book meant a paper printer had to be engaged. It seems to me the Internet Archive may be doing what Congress refuses to prioritize; namely reevaluation of the nature of copyright in a day and age where publishing can be essentially free, and where physical logistics come with inherent avoidable risk. I'm all for copyright holders getting their due, but the abuse of the usual suspects does a rather good job of tainting the well of sympathy by making the gift of copyright protection a bit lopsided in comparison to the delay in the advancement of ideas and foundational material within the public domain it creates. If Congress were smart, they'd realize what the IA is doing in performing this public service, and do something like set up a stipend for those who donate/license their copyright for the duration of the period of time the NEL is needed. But the publishing industry doesn't want that. It wants to gatekeep and get it's cut.
- redis_mlc 6y ago
  It appears you're trying to be balanced, but if you invert everything you wrote, that would be mostly the truth. Disney actually decides what copyright law is, not Congress or other rights holders. Currently, if a small song copyright owner doesn't cross every "t", a commercial organization just keeps their royalties until the small owner sues, wins and has each corporation add an entry in their database of owners. They still won't get back royalties, but they will get future - years later, of course. I don't see any complaint by the Senator for that behavior. The only owner that has substantial rights and the ability to collect at this point is the songwriter, because they have powerful laws in their favor. The performers are lucky to get anything, really, from any streaming platform, including Youtube. And corporations who aggregate performance revenue collection, and "forget" to cut a check to the actual owners. (No practical penalty for not paying the artist.) What I tell songwriters is to register your songs with Songtrust and DistroKid, and don't sign anything with anybody else. Actually, give the corporate lawyers the finger, since their whole goal is to steal from the artists. https://www.songtrust.com/ https://www.songtrust.com/ https://techcrunch.com/2013/10/10/philip-kaplan-officially-launches-distrokid-a-cheap-efficient-way-to-distribute-lots-of-music/ https://techcrunch.com/2013/10/10/philip-kaplan-officially-l...
  - xhkkffbf 6y ago
    I totally agree that the corporations can be downright criminal when screwing over the creators, but the solution is NOT to weaken copyright. Heck, the threat of a copyright lawsuit is the only thing that makes the corporations pay the artists in the first place. If we weaken copyright any more, the corporations will come in and say, "Gosh, let's all be hippies. I'm just going to 'borrow' your song. It's all cool. I don't owe you anything because copyright is for jerks. I know you wouldn't copyright your cool song."
db48x 6y ago
Who needs the separation of powers anyway?

55 points by elsewhen 6y ago

The Internet Archive's behavior recently is really fascinating to me. It seems as if they know they have a monopoly on website snapshots, so it's unlikely that they'll get shut down, so they're emboldened to push the envelope when it comes to copyright. The treatment it gets from Vox here shows how beloved IA is. The article could have been titled "Senator warns IA that they're in violation of copyright law". If you read the letter, it seems pretty reasonable ( https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/6948318/Tillis2.pdf https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/6948318/Tillis2.p... ). A notable quote (carefully typed by hand by me, because IA linked the letter as an image): "I am concerned that the Internet Archive thinks that it - not Congress - gets to decide the scope of copyright law". I agree with this characterization. Another one: "The Internet Archive seems to be daring copyright owners to sue to enforce their rights, or else forfeit them - something many copyright holders, particular individuals and smaller enterprises, cannot afford to do" I'm not making money from any copyright I hold, so I can't claim to speak for anyone harmed by IA's behavior, but I can definitely see that there may be merit to this Senator's letters.

eganist 6y ago
If they become an agent of change against today's absurdly long and onerous copyright regulations in the US, I think that's fine. Whereas the senator is reasonably concerned about compliance with the letter of the law, there's a much better argument to be made that copyright laws as they stand today are burdensome and impede both competition as well as the creation of novel services, such as digital libraries.
salawat 6y ago
As reasonable as the Senator may be in that sense, he should maybe get away from the lobbyists for a while and really think about the country for once. Every last child in the entire country is suffering for lack of ready access to reading and educational material over and above what was deemed a "reasonable baseline" before when to copy a book meant a paper printer had to be engaged. It seems to me the Internet Archive may be doing what Congress refuses to prioritize; namely reevaluation of the nature of copyright in a day and age where publishing can be essentially free, and where physical logistics come with inherent avoidable risk. I'm all for copyright holders getting their due, but the abuse of the usual suspects does a rather good job of tainting the well of sympathy by making the gift of copyright protection a bit lopsided in comparison to the delay in the advancement of ideas and foundational material within the public domain it creates. If Congress were smart, they'd realize what the IA is doing in performing this public service, and do something like set up a stipend for those who donate/license their copyright for the duration of the period of time the NEL is needed. But the publishing industry doesn't want that. It wants to gatekeep and get it's cut.
redis_mlc 6y ago
It appears you're trying to be balanced, but if you invert everything you wrote, that would be mostly the truth. Disney actually decides what copyright law is, not Congress or other rights holders. Currently, if a small song copyright owner doesn't cross every "t", a commercial organization just keeps their royalties until the small owner sues, wins and has each corporation add an entry in their database of owners. They still won't get back royalties, but they will get future - years later, of course. I don't see any complaint by the Senator for that behavior. The only owner that has substantial rights and the ability to collect at this point is the songwriter, because they have powerful laws in their favor. The performers are lucky to get anything, really, from any streaming platform, including Youtube. And corporations who aggregate performance revenue collection, and "forget" to cut a check to the actual owners. (No practical penalty for not paying the artist.) What I tell songwriters is to register your songs with Songtrust and DistroKid, and don't sign anything with anybody else. Actually, give the corporate lawyers the finger, since their whole goal is to steal from the artists. https://www.songtrust.com/ https://www.songtrust.com/ https://techcrunch.com/2013/10/10/philip-kaplan-officially-launches-distrokid-a-cheap-efficient-way-to-distribute-lots-of-music/ https://techcrunch.com/2013/10/10/philip-kaplan-officially-l...
- xhkkffbf 6y ago
  I totally agree that the corporations can be downright criminal when screwing over the creators, but the solution is NOT to weaken copyright. Heck, the threat of a copyright lawsuit is the only thing that makes the corporations pay the artists in the first place. If we weaken copyright any more, the corporations will come in and say, "Gosh, let's all be hippies. I'm just going to 'borrow' your song. It's all cool. I don't owe you anything because copyright is for jerks. I know you wouldn't copyright your cool song."

db48x 6y ago

Who needs the separation of powers anyway?