6 ms·

This reminds me of the vidangel case[1]. The company would buy physical copies of movies and then rent a digital stream of it. Every digital stream was backed b

This reminds me of the vidangel case[1]. The company would buy physical copies of movies and then rent a digital stream of it. Every digital stream was backed by a physical copy of the media, which is not true in the IA case. They lost the case and were found in violation of copyright. If they couldn’t win, I don’t see how IA can. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disney_v._VidAngel https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disney_v._VidAngel

spondylosaurus 4y ago
Doesn't the Internet Archive do the exact same thing, scanning a physical book that they actually own? Per the article linked above: > Although creating its own unsanctioned e-books triggered the lawsuit, Gratz argued that IA’s digital lending is fair use, precisely because it makes copies of the physical books in its Open Library collection. That, he said, is “transformative” fair use, utilizing technologies to transform millions of physical books in order to improve the efficiency of lending without encroaching on publishers’ or authors’ rights. Gratz said that IA avoids the conflict by only lending out e-books to one user at a time, causing no harm because it honors traditional lending in brick-and-mortar libraries that has been practiced for years without impacting publishers’ bottom lines. > The only exception to this one-to-one ratio was when IA launched the “National Emergency Library” for 12 weeks when the pandemic started, offering “an enormous universe of scanned books to an unlimited number of individuals simultaneously,” the plaintiff's complaint said.
- squeaky-clean 4y ago
  The difference is VidAngel owned 1 copy for each concurrent live stream. You can rip a movie or scan a book you own and share it with a million people at once. VidAngel wasn't doing that. Every stream was 1-to-1 with a real physical copy. If they had 1000 people streaming the movies at once, it meant they had 1000 physical copies as well.
  - boomboomsubban 4y ago
    That is how the IA's controlled digital lending works. For every copy lent out, there's a physical copy of the book sitting unused somewhere owned by the IA or affiliates. The only time that wasn't true was during the National Emergency Library.
    - ocdtrekkie 4y ago
      A key point is that IA suspended CDL and decided to lend out unlimited copies during the pandemic. They were probably treading the line with CDL but by demonstrating a willingness to throw out the limitations at any given world event they wanted makes it a pretty slam dunk case for the publishers.
      - boomboomsubban 4y ago
        The publishers have a slam dunk case against the National Emergency Library, but this case is about CDL as a whole.
dylan604 4y ago
There was the company restreaming broadcast video where they were installing antennas per subscriber to argue that they were no different than having that many TVs tuned in to a broadcast. I don't think it worked for them either, but I can't even remember the name of the service, so I could have it all mis-remembered
- kmeisthax 4y ago
  Aereo, and the thing that killed their case was that the Supreme Court already agreed with their logic in the 1970s and Congress created a brand new regime of retransmission rights specifically to say "no, cable TV REALLY needs to pay for things that are free". Even if they won, Congress would overturn the case. You might also be thinking of Locast, which tried to take advantage of a very specific loophole Congress put in that same law that killed Aereo. Basically they didn't want to criminalize existing community antenna systems, so they said that ones that were operated as non-profits could still operate. They could recoup costs but that's it. This regime is so very specific that the judge was able to cut Locast out of it by merely pointing out that they used money recouped for costs to expand their operations.
  - dylan604 4y ago
    >Congress would overturn the case. how can Congress overturn a case? Are you implying that they would create new legislation that specifically makes rules to attempt to fix the loop hole the judges allowed in the first case? Clearly, that would start the march to the Supreme Court over to challenge the new law. However, I would disagree with the phrase "Congress would overturn the case" as anything accurate
    - fiddlerwoaroof 4y ago
      A Supreme Court case doesn’t make law, it interprets a specific set of circumstances according to existing law. So, if Congress passes a new law that invalidates the interpretation the Supreme Court uses in the case, then the case no longer applies (unless the case was decided on Constitutional grounds).
Wingman4l7 4y ago
There was a company that didn't even do the "middle" part VidAngel did (the DRM breaking) which probably muddied VidAngel's case -- Zediva. You just rented an actual DVD player with the actual DVD in it, which they streamed to you. They got sued into oblivion on some (IMO total BS) "public performance" reasoning: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warner_Bros._Entertainment_Inc._v._WTV_Systems,_Inc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warner_Bros._Entertainment_Inc....
thaumaturgy 4y ago
The publishers have chosen to make Controlled Digital Lending (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controlled_digital_lending https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controlled_digital_lending) the scope of this case, and the Archive does maintain a vast warehouse of the physical materials that they digitize (http://blog.archive.org/2014/05/23/its-a-party-at-the-archives-new-warehouse/ http://blog.archive.org/2014/05/23/its-a-party-at-the-archiv...) (2014). CDL is the interpretation of law that many libraries rely upon to make digital copies available, and if the IA is on shaky ground here legally, then so is our library system.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
cloudsec9 4y ago
Well, in earlier (and better?) times, copyright infringement enforcement was in line with the profit one made from infringing. When copyright was drafted, the idea was to protect a publisher (and his pipeline) from someone just selling cheaper copies. This was changed when our friends at the RIAA would win cases against music infringers but then were able to collect $0.00 because the infringers weren't charging or making a profit. This needed to change to discourage infringing (rather than, adopting a more reasonable pricing structure). Looking at it through that lens, VidAngel was a commercial entity looking to profit on the (performance?) of the streamed videos, where the Internet Archive (to my knowledge) doesn't charge patrons for materials, akin to a library. IANAL, but it seems feasible to me that the judge could agree that IA is in complete infringing territory, but COULD assess a fine of $0.00 as that was the "damage" caused. I think the preferred outcome is that he finds for their theory of fair use, as that allows all libraries to continue as they are today without fear another venue could assess a non-zero fine.

spondylosaurus 4y ago

Doesn't the Internet Archive do the exact same thing, scanning a physical book that they actually own? Per the article linked above: > Although creating its own unsanctioned e-books triggered the lawsuit, Gratz argued that IA’s digital lending is fair use, precisely because it makes copies of the physical books in its Open Library collection. That, he said, is “transformative” fair use, utilizing technologies to transform millions of physical books in order to improve the efficiency of lending without encroaching on publishers’ or authors’ rights. Gratz said that IA avoids the conflict by only lending out e-books to one user at a time, causing no harm because it honors traditional lending in brick-and-mortar libraries that has been practiced for years without impacting publishers’ bottom lines. > The only exception to this one-to-one ratio was when IA launched the “National Emergency Library” for 12 weeks when the pandemic started, offering “an enormous universe of scanned books to an unlimited number of individuals simultaneously,” the plaintiff's complaint said.

squeaky-clean 4y ago
The difference is VidAngel owned 1 copy for each concurrent live stream. You can rip a movie or scan a book you own and share it with a million people at once. VidAngel wasn't doing that. Every stream was 1-to-1 with a real physical copy. If they had 1000 people streaming the movies at once, it meant they had 1000 physical copies as well.
- boomboomsubban 4y ago
  That is how the IA's controlled digital lending works. For every copy lent out, there's a physical copy of the book sitting unused somewhere owned by the IA or affiliates. The only time that wasn't true was during the National Emergency Library.
  - ocdtrekkie 4y ago
    A key point is that IA suspended CDL and decided to lend out unlimited copies during the pandemic. They were probably treading the line with CDL but by demonstrating a willingness to throw out the limitations at any given world event they wanted makes it a pretty slam dunk case for the publishers.
    - boomboomsubban 4y ago
      The publishers have a slam dunk case against the National Emergency Library, but this case is about CDL as a whole.

dylan604 4y ago

There was the company restreaming broadcast video where they were installing antennas per subscriber to argue that they were no different than having that many TVs tuned in to a broadcast. I don't think it worked for them either, but I can't even remember the name of the service, so I could have it all mis-remembered

kmeisthax 4y ago
Aereo, and the thing that killed their case was that the Supreme Court already agreed with their logic in the 1970s and Congress created a brand new regime of retransmission rights specifically to say "no, cable TV REALLY needs to pay for things that are free". Even if they won, Congress would overturn the case. You might also be thinking of Locast, which tried to take advantage of a very specific loophole Congress put in that same law that killed Aereo. Basically they didn't want to criminalize existing community antenna systems, so they said that ones that were operated as non-profits could still operate. They could recoup costs but that's it. This regime is so very specific that the judge was able to cut Locast out of it by merely pointing out that they used money recouped for costs to expand their operations.
- dylan604 4y ago
  >Congress would overturn the case. how can Congress overturn a case? Are you implying that they would create new legislation that specifically makes rules to attempt to fix the loop hole the judges allowed in the first case? Clearly, that would start the march to the Supreme Court over to challenge the new law. However, I would disagree with the phrase "Congress would overturn the case" as anything accurate
  - fiddlerwoaroof 4y ago
    A Supreme Court case doesn’t make law, it interprets a specific set of circumstances according to existing law. So, if Congress passes a new law that invalidates the interpretation the Supreme Court uses in the case, then the case no longer applies (unless the case was decided on Constitutional grounds).

Wingman4l7 4y ago

There was a company that didn't even do the "middle" part VidAngel did (the DRM breaking) which probably muddied VidAngel's case -- Zediva. You just rented an actual DVD player with the actual DVD in it, which they streamed to you. They got sued into oblivion on some (IMO total BS) "public performance" reasoning: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warner_Bros._Entertainment_Inc._v._WTV_Systems,_Inc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warner_Bros._Entertainment_Inc....

thaumaturgy 4y ago

The publishers have chosen to make Controlled Digital Lending (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controlled_digital_lending https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controlled_digital_lending) the scope of this case, and the Archive does maintain a vast warehouse of the physical materials that they digitize (http://blog.archive.org/2014/05/23/its-a-party-at-the-archives-new-warehouse/ http://blog.archive.org/2014/05/23/its-a-party-at-the-archiv...) (2014). CDL is the interpretation of law that many libraries rely upon to make digital copies available, and if the IA is on shaky ground here legally, then so is our library system.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

cloudsec9 4y ago

Well, in earlier (and better?) times, copyright infringement enforcement was in line with the profit one made from infringing. When copyright was drafted, the idea was to protect a publisher (and his pipeline) from someone just selling cheaper copies. This was changed when our friends at the RIAA would win cases against music infringers but then were able to collect $0.00 because the infringers weren't charging or making a profit. This needed to change to discourage infringing (rather than, adopting a more reasonable pricing structure). Looking at it through that lens, VidAngel was a commercial entity looking to profit on the (performance?) of the streamed videos, where the Internet Archive (to my knowledge) doesn't charge patrons for materials, akin to a library. IANAL, but it seems feasible to me that the judge could agree that IA is in complete infringing territory, but COULD assess a fine of $0.00 as that was the "damage" caused. I think the preferred outcome is that he finds for their theory of fair use, as that allows all libraries to continue as they are today without fear another venue could assess a non-zero fine.