7 ms·

As a matter of legality, that's wrong, of course. This is copyright violation. For whatever that's worth. But I think the bigger point is, if you're a fan of

As a matter of legality, that's wrong, of course. This is copyright violation. For whatever that's worth. But I think the bigger point is, if you're a fan of WTLS, it seems very odd to be so disrespectful of WTLS's desires. I can only conclude the the party who put up the archive is someone who wants to hurt WTLS's feelings, or at least is quite willing to do so.

upupandup 4y ago
You can't take back what you publish in public domain which is what happens when you publish content on the internet. You may own the copyright in technically but it would be freely shared and distributed on the internet with your only recourse being submitting DMCA notices to platforms. Youtube does this very well but only because they are required to by large corporations that can litigate. The average HN user who posts blog content and deletes it is not going to be able to stop it from being distributed. Technically they own the copyright to its content but the end result would be identical to if he or she had announced it to be in public domain. Anybody anywhere could freely share and publish its content on platforms without any consequences unless you notify the platform with DMCA notice and it would be largely up to the discretion of the platform to comply or not as many hosting services explicitly advertise such "bulletproof" hosting. Your own take on what's moral and not has no bearing here since we don't know how the author feels about his work being shared. Yeah I get it that he has copyright to it but its not exactly enforceable on the internet.
- shadowgovt 4y ago
  The scale of the Internet makes it, in the general case, impossible to prevent such re-hosting somewhere, at some level of publicity. Of course, as per the laws of most countries it is also a copyright violation and the copyright holder can absolutely sue for such behavior, with penalties ranging from a legal obligation to cease to host the content to damages.
  - bitwize 4y ago
    I think _why is only slightly more likely to sue over these materials than William Gibson is to sue over the text of Agrippa, the "ephemeral poem" whose text was recovered and sent all over the internet shortly after its release.
- qbasic_forever 4y ago
  Everything on the internet is not assumed to be public domain. In fact if you don't put any license on it then it is assumed to be de facto copyright material and other people can't republish it without your explicit permission.
  - burntsushi 4y ago
    Things like the Internet Archive have an opt-out process rather than opt-in. The extent to how the IA operates within the law isn't clear to me, but it does suggest that the case isn't as open-and-shut as you make it seem.
    - jyxent 4y ago
      I think they are opt-out because Wayback Machine would be very incomplete if it required opting in. They are just willing to deal with legal issues that occur due to this policy. They have removed web sites before due to copyright claims and have a DMCA claim process.
      - burntsushi 4y ago
        Whether the IA is incomplete or not doesn't sound like a legal argument though. My point is that this is not a black & white issue. :)
    - upupandup 4y ago
      Bill Clinton signed the DMCA law into effect at the start of the internet boom because somebody could have power to shutdown a platform because their doodle got shared. Then they could go after the host, and even the software providers. To prevent these recursive litigations that could easily have malicious intent (competition uploading copyright material to your platform to shut you down), the DMCA safe harbour was born. Internet Archive operates the same way, if they receive DMCA notice, they need to comply in order to keep the safe harbour process. As to whether WTL will file a DMCA to take down his material, it looks unlikely. For whatever reason he suddenly wanted to be out of limelight and I get the feeling that he doesn't care much whether his work is shared or not but who knows, maybe he will come out of the woodwork to raise his voice (which would be in contrast to his reclusive state). He really is a mysterious figure and even more mysterious is the sheer amount of effort he put into his work and passion to share it suddenly relinquished overnight, out of whim? stress? depression? We can only guess.
- ska 4y ago
  > No implicit agreement between True; instead it is explicit. This isn't controversial at all, in typical jurisdiction unless explicitly released into public domain the author retains all copyright - your consuming one of those copies gives you no further rights at all. As a matter of practicality, it probably wont be acted on. Unless there is enough money involved to go after such copyright violations, it's unlikely anyone will bother...

upupandup 4y ago

You can't take back what you publish in public domain which is what happens when you publish content on the internet. You may own the copyright in technically but it would be freely shared and distributed on the internet with your only recourse being submitting DMCA notices to platforms. Youtube does this very well but only because they are required to by large corporations that can litigate. The average HN user who posts blog content and deletes it is not going to be able to stop it from being distributed. Technically they own the copyright to its content but the end result would be identical to if he or she had announced it to be in public domain. Anybody anywhere could freely share and publish its content on platforms without any consequences unless you notify the platform with DMCA notice and it would be largely up to the discretion of the platform to comply or not as many hosting services explicitly advertise such "bulletproof" hosting. Your own take on what's moral and not has no bearing here since we don't know how the author feels about his work being shared. Yeah I get it that he has copyright to it but its not exactly enforceable on the internet.

shadowgovt 4y ago
The scale of the Internet makes it, in the general case, impossible to prevent such re-hosting somewhere, at some level of publicity. Of course, as per the laws of most countries it is also a copyright violation and the copyright holder can absolutely sue for such behavior, with penalties ranging from a legal obligation to cease to host the content to damages.
- bitwize 4y ago
  I think _why is only slightly more likely to sue over these materials than William Gibson is to sue over the text of Agrippa, the "ephemeral poem" whose text was recovered and sent all over the internet shortly after its release.
qbasic_forever 4y ago
Everything on the internet is not assumed to be public domain. In fact if you don't put any license on it then it is assumed to be de facto copyright material and other people can't republish it without your explicit permission.
- burntsushi 4y ago
  Things like the Internet Archive have an opt-out process rather than opt-in. The extent to how the IA operates within the law isn't clear to me, but it does suggest that the case isn't as open-and-shut as you make it seem.
  - jyxent 4y ago
    I think they are opt-out because Wayback Machine would be very incomplete if it required opting in. They are just willing to deal with legal issues that occur due to this policy. They have removed web sites before due to copyright claims and have a DMCA claim process.
    - burntsushi 4y ago
      Whether the IA is incomplete or not doesn't sound like a legal argument though. My point is that this is not a black & white issue. :)
  - upupandup 4y ago
    Bill Clinton signed the DMCA law into effect at the start of the internet boom because somebody could have power to shutdown a platform because their doodle got shared. Then they could go after the host, and even the software providers. To prevent these recursive litigations that could easily have malicious intent (competition uploading copyright material to your platform to shut you down), the DMCA safe harbour was born. Internet Archive operates the same way, if they receive DMCA notice, they need to comply in order to keep the safe harbour process. As to whether WTL will file a DMCA to take down his material, it looks unlikely. For whatever reason he suddenly wanted to be out of limelight and I get the feeling that he doesn't care much whether his work is shared or not but who knows, maybe he will come out of the woodwork to raise his voice (which would be in contrast to his reclusive state). He really is a mysterious figure and even more mysterious is the sheer amount of effort he put into his work and passion to share it suddenly relinquished overnight, out of whim? stress? depression? We can only guess.
ska 4y ago
> No implicit agreement between True; instead it is explicit. This isn't controversial at all, in typical jurisdiction unless explicitly released into public domain the author retains all copyright - your consuming one of those copies gives you no further rights at all. As a matter of practicality, it probably wont be acted on. Unless there is enough money involved to go after such copyright violations, it's unlikely anyone will bother...