13 ms·

> With this suit, the publishers are saying that in the digital world, we cannot buy books anymore, we can only license and on their terms; we can only preserve

• thatcat 6y ago
  The First Sale doctrine can be applied to the digital domain.
  • Spivak 6y ago
    I mean you could try but you still wouldn't be allowed to duplicate the work. So you would only be allowed to sell your purchased version if you deleted any copy you had.
    • supermatt 6y ago
      That’s what DRM is supposedly for...
  • phkahler 6y ago
    Is there precedent for that? DVDs sure - see Netflix. But that's still physical goods.
    • gowld 6y ago
      Precedent? It's the law. https://www.justice.gov/archives/jm/criminal-resource-manual-1854-copyright-infringement-first-sale-doctrine https://www.justice.gov/archives/jm/criminal-resource-manual...
• mytailorisrich 6y ago
  I would agree. No lawyer at all, just my 2c: When I buy a book, I buy the physical item but I only buy a license for its content. I own the book but I do not own the content. That also makes it difficult to make copies. In the digital world world there are not longer physical artifacts, only content and making copies is trivial. In fact, 'buying' digital content involves making a digital copy, not transferring ownership of a single physical item. My understanding is that these differences result in different areas of copyright law being exercised and that the First Sale Doctrine applies to physical items (and it requires ownership of the copy).
• aahhahahaaa 6y ago
  It's in their best interest to settle in a capitulating way that will hurt them but not kill them. This might have to include a public apology that admits they're in the wrong because publishers can be petty about this type of thing. It doesn't seem like they're willing to do that, and while I agree with their viewpoint and the troubling future with licensing... it may be the hill they die on and I'm not sure it's worth the trade off in this specific case. IMO the Internet Archive is incredibly valuable to humanity. I admire them for taking the stance, but worry about their future. Hopefully they're playing tough publicly and aren't as willing to die by the sword in private.
  • mrpopo 6y ago
    In the long term if they accept all kinds of trade offs I am afraid that they will become less and less relevant, and that's why they are taking a stance here.
    • aahhahahaaa 6y ago
      Yeah like any legal battle it's a lot of posturing and back-and-fourth. It's just anxiety producing to not see what their survival plan is (and of course it wouldn't really benefit them to share that publicly!).
  • nitrogen 6y ago
    I'm astonished and dismayed by all the comments calling for capitulation. It's very clear that the publishers in this case are bullies, plain and simple. You don't kneel to bullies if you want them to stop, you fight back. Not to do so leads to tyranny and feudalism, where the whims of the large become the law.
    • nine_k 6y ago
      I think this does not mesh well with their mission. They are the Internet Archive, the archive of freely (in the past) available stuff that can't be found anywhere else, in most cases. This is much more fragile than old books which likely exists in thousands of copies anyway. I do not admire their stance, and am unhappy that they are recklessly jeopardizing their unique thing to make a case where they have a very big chance to lose, without any circumstances forcing them to do so. This is not how you serve as a warden of a valuable archive. (I know, I know, it's their right and their choice.)
• devwastaken 6y ago
  IA will lose because the precedent set by winning would mean that all online digital sales can just be distributed. Itd evaporate a trillion dollar market overnight. I disagree with book publishers and general copyright law, but judges can understand the difference between physical books and digital ones. Physical books cannot be outright copied atom for atom in 5 milliseconds and distributed to millions in hours. The difficulty of any sort of copying makes it significantly economical to just buy a new one, or have one lended that had to be bought. I'm afraid IA is going to be demolished because of their move here. They shouldn't have done it under the banner of IA. If at all they should have done it under a rogue name and service over TOR.
  • mjevans 6y ago
    The First Sale doctrine SHOULD apply, As someone else replied in a sibling comment. A digital sale should be just that, a perpetual license that can be transferred, inherited, etc.
    • Mindwipe 6y ago
      > A digital sale should be just that, a perpetual license that can be transferred, inherited, etc. Even if that was the case (which it isn't) then the IA would still lose this case.
    • wittyreference 6y ago
      First Sale doctrine evenly applied to digital books would allow you to freely resell the ebook you purchased. It probably wouldn't mean allowing you to make infinite copies and distribute them freely, abolishing the market for the actual book. Yes, that's not the technical definition of FS doctrine, but that doctrine was written before this technological context existed.
      • rocqua 6y ago
        Thing is, the IA did not make infinite copies and distribute them freely. They specifically made limited copies and for every copy the lent out, they took a physical copy out of circulation.
• phkahler 6y ago
  >> It's reasonably well established that when it comes to intellectual property, you can refuse to sell it, and only grant a limited license. With some small carve outs like the First Sale doctrine. Maybe pedantic but there is no "intellectual property" law in play here. Just plain old copyright law, under which they do fully own the books - as opposed to licensing them. What copyright law allows is everything that libraries do. My opinion - One should be able to use a webcam to share a book with someone. That's not far from what IA is doing though it's also technically quite different. On another note, I'm not a fan of using the pandemic to highlight IAs value even though I appreciate their efforts.
  • gowld 6y ago
    Copyright law is intellectual property law. It's the only kind explicitly mentioned in the US Constitution. Regular copyright law says that if you _buy_ a book, digital or not, you can resell it. If you license a book, digital or not, you can't except as specified in the license. IA's point is that digital books (which are many or most books nowadats) aren't sold; instead, they are licensed. https://www.justice.gov/archives/jm/criminal-resource-manual-1854-copyright-infringement-first-sale-doctrine https://www.justice.gov/archives/jm/criminal-resource-manual... > Further, the privileges created by the first sale principle do not "extend to any person who has acquired possession of the copy or phonorecord from the copyright owner, by rental, lease, loan, or otherwise, without acquiring ownership of it." See 17 U.S.C. § 109(d).
    • kd5bjo 6y ago
      > It’s the only kind explicitly mentioned in the Constitution. Patents are explicitly covered there, too; from Art 1, §8: "[the United States Congress shall have power] To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries." (via https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Clause https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Clause )
  • patmorgan23 6y ago
    "Intellectual property law" encompass copyright, trademark, and patent law.
• pwdisswordfish2 6y ago
  The author is obviously not paraphrasing the arguments IA's lawyers will make. See links below for what IA will argue. https://controlleddigitallending.org/ https://controlleddigitallending.org/ https://controlleddigitallending.org/statement https://controlleddigitallending.org/statement https://controlleddigitallending.org/signatories https://controlleddigitallending.org/signatories https://controlleddigitallending.org/whitepaper https://controlleddigitallending.org/whitepaper
• grawprog 6y ago
  It makes me sad we live in a society where profit is the first and foremost consideration for anything. Preserving history, human creativity, the progress of society, the betterment of future generations all comes second to profit. How many things will get or have been lost to time or just lost in general because they didn't make or cut into profit? The internet archive may have its faults, but its value to humanity is something that should be considered. It's sad it won't be. The only consideration will be how they cut into profit and on those grounds they will be penalized. I realize this isn't the audience for this kind of comment, what with being a news site for a profit driven startup culture, but this profit driven culture we have is going to destroy so much before we even realize what we've lost.
  • mulmen 6y ago
    I think that's an unfair take on the law. If you create something you decide what happens with it. That seems reasonable to me. Why are the rest of us entitled to your creation?
    • grawprog 6y ago
      There's a good modern day example we could look at. Reggae music. Jamaica lacks (or did) copyright laws. Because of this, music was reused over and over again. From the 1950's onwards, kids, poor people, anyone with technical knowhow could build a soundsystem, cobbled together from spare parts, get some records and play music. Eventually, many of those people went on to form recording studios and such. Because there was no laws against it, music was widely taken and reused amongst different studios, to the point where these same songs are still being remade today. Because of this, many, many people were lifted from poverty and were able to make careers from this, to the point where reggae has become a global phenomenon, primarily outside north america, where people are still taking these songs and making new versions of them. Over the years, because of this system, not just the original creators, but hundreds if not thousands of people have benefited, profited and bettered their lives because of music originally recorded in the 1950's and 60's by people, in many cases, long dead. Under the north american system, the copyright owner would have made millions of dollars, and entire genres of music would.never have been created in their current form. The value to humanity in that situation far outweighs the profit of the original creators.
• AnthonyMouse 6y ago
  > the First Sale doctrine Isn't that the exact thing they'd be referring to?
• wahern 6y ago
  > If that's the main argument of IA, they'll have a tough time in court. As a non-profit library the plaintiffs effectively have to show that the Internet Archive acted in bad faith[1] in order to receive statutory damages. § 504 (c)(2) says, > The court shall remit statutory damages in any case where an infringer believed and had reasonable grounds for believing that his or her use of the copyrighted work was a fair use under section 107, if the infringer was: (i) an employee or agent of a nonprofit educational institution, library, or archives acting within the scope of his or her employment who, or such institution, library, or archives itself, which infringed by reproducing the work in copies or phonorecords Without full statutory damages I doubt IA would have to pay much of anything--at least, not so much that they become insolvent, unless the judge is mean-spirited--as it's unlikely the plaintiffs could show even a hint of significant economic loss. In fact, the inability to show economic loss in this case is likely to be critical to IA's Fair Use argument. In any event, I suspect it's this mandatory remittitur clause that gave the IA the courage to do what they did. I agree the IA's interpretation of the law is unlikely to succeed given modern courts' sentiments regarding copyright. But is their legal argument so bad as to constitute bad faith? During a global pandemic? Where armies of educators will come out in defense of IA for the social benefit they provided given the exigent circumstances--a near complete, if not wholly complete, inability to gainfully access not only hard copies but electronic copies of these resources as well? In light of the situation, it might even be possible that a trial court either approves of IA's theory or remits almost all damages, and the appellate courts refuse review, electing not to fall into the IA's or the publishing industry's trap of leveraging the pandemic to shape copyright law. In fact, rejecting IA's defense but using remittitur to reduce damages to a token amount is probably what a risk-averse trial judge might do, hoping that both IA and the publishers will accept a detente. [1] I'm being a little lazy. I don't know of any precedent that equivocates the statute's language to the term of art, bad faith. But it seems close enough for loose talk. EDIT: I forgot the wrinkle in that remittitur clause that I belatedly caught the first time I considered it a few weeks ago: it specifically refers to reproduction, not distribution or infringement generally. I dunno what the caselaw looks like, but that's an amateur oversight on my part, which I've apparently made twice. I guess I'm just eager to defend the IA.
  • deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
• zeckalpha 6y ago
  That’s not the case here, these books weren’t licensed, but bought. > We lent books that we own—at the Internet Archive and also the other endorsing libraries. These books were purchased and we knew they were not circulating physically. They were all locked up. In total, 650 million books were locked up just in public libraries alone.