4 ms·

"Statement from Brewster Kahle, digital librarian of the Internet Archive: “When people want to listen to music they go to Spotify. When people want to study so

by dmbche 3y ago

"Statement from Brewster Kahle, digital librarian of the Internet Archive: “When people want to listen to music they go to Spotify. When people want to study sound recordings as they were originally created, they go to libraries like the Internet Archive. Both are needed. There shouldn’t be conflict here.”" From the article I believe they are arguing that the intent behind the digitization is fair use, as you say, but what I find interesting is they seem to argue that there is no loss of profit from their work, which is a valid point to raise - if this is all hypothetical exceptions can and should be made to the law. Even if they don't have a case, say the copyright law is very tight and clear and there's no way this can skirt around it - they still can bring it to court, fight it, and lose until they get it overturned by the Supreme Court and they get a special status or the copyright law is amended. This is standard - it's how the 19th amendement was passed I believe, I'll look for a link. Edit: to clarify, there is no damage to the copyright holders because the medium holding their work is impossible to be used to listen to their work by anyone but experts, like the IA Edit 1: Here's what I was remembering - it's not an amendment, but it's neat! https://lithub.com/how-ruth-bader-ginsburg-and-gloria-steinem-fought-for-your-right-to-get-a-beer/ https://lithub.com/how-ruth-bader-ginsburg-and-gloria-steine...

ggm 3y ago
I think there's both a legal defence (its for legitimate research) and a law-change-advocacy (we think copyright in these works is silly) component to what they're doing. I don't think you are wrong about the risks to them in fighting the case with what looks to be such abundently clear IPR over the mechanical recording. But, I do think the wider fight about what "should" be the IPR here, is worth fighting. That advocacy lies in the part of your comment which heads off the "RIAA is bad" fu.
jonhohle 3y ago
Shellac 78s are old but equipment to play them is commercially available and they can be played on turntables that support 78 rpm with the right cartridge. I misplaced the 78 belt for my Pro-ject turntable during a move a few years ago and in the mean time found a copy of New World Symphony that I’ve been wanting to listen to.
- dmbche 3y ago
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shellac https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shellac Just learned shellac is resin produced by south asian bugs - used to do not only record but food glaze and varnishes.
  - amno 3y ago
    Shellac can be made out of different things, and has been a common polish for wooden instruments for example, before we got chemical protections like nitrocellulose lacquer. For handmade instruments [shellac and french polishing](https://www.lmii.com/blog/2017/10/07/finishing-options-for-musical-instruments/ https://www.lmii.com/blog/2017/10/07/finishing-options-for-m...) is still often preferred due to being environment and human friendly (chemical lacks are often non-healthy for the human who works with them), relatively inexpensive (cook your oyster shell :)), and for being do-it-yourself solution which many luthiers prefer. Some people claims a guitar polished with shellac sounds better than one with a cellulose lack, but I am not sure if I agree that is a deciding factor for the sound, probably more of a psychological factor.
- SoftTalker 3y ago
  I have a collection of several dozen 78 rpm shellac records that I inherited from my father, who inherited them from his father. I have a turntable but it won't play 78s. Been wanting to check with my local university to see if they could digitize them and maybe take the originals as a donation. I have also thought about looking for an old Victrola at an antique market and keeping them to play as a novelty, but it would really be just that.
  - flotwig 3y ago
    If a local university doesn't take them, the IA will - they accept donations of physical materials and will digitize and index them: https://help.archive.org/help/how-do-i-make-a-physical-donation-to-the-internet-archive/ https://help.archive.org/help/how-do-i-make-a-physical-donat...
- AnthonyMouse 3y ago
JakeAl 3y ago
They are indeed making copies in the strictest sense, but the real problem is if the copyright holders don't enforce their copyrights in the strictest sense they can forfeit their copyright. For example, if I let the public use an image copyrighted by me long enough without strict guidelines and I try to take someone to court, the court can say yes well you let the horse out of the barn and now you are trying to put it back in after it's everywhere. The solution is always licensing, and licenses can be free. So IA and the copyright holders instead of playing hard lawyer ball can cooperate; the copyright holder can grant them a free license for works that would otherwise not be getting exposure of make them money which they can revoke at any time should they decide to try and make money off of a work again. They can also provide strict usage guidelines in that license for IA as well as IA's users so it's clear this is meant for a narrow use and using it outside those guidelines can result in legal/financial penalties. To me this is a win-win because it could open the door for companies like Spotify to subsequently license works that gain popularity from exposure for a fee.
- dredmorbius 3y ago
  Trademarks require enforcement (as others have noted), copyrights do not. There is the doctrine of laches which might be applied in general to an excessive delay in asserting an equitable right, but there is no failure-of-defence loss of copyright under US or generally Berne Convention statutes globally. I've most frequently seen laches raised in the context of patent enforcement. <https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/laches https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/laches> This is rampantly false and misleading information.
- JakeAl 3y ago
  Just a side note/addendum, I worked with entertainment lawyers A LOT in the early days of the web on copyrighted images and while they start from a rigorous position what one simply has to do is find out what the guidelines are that alleviate any issues. For example, with an image or a video clip it often only requires explicit attribution (so every image at the bottom must carry the legal/copyright line, and likewise with a video clip) to satisfy the lawyers. They almost never tell you that, though. That's a tip for YouTubers who get copystruck for movie clips. Run the copyright/legal line at the bottom of every clip while they are on screen and you are covered 99% of the time. That's why when you watch the news and they show a clip you see the line at the bottom of the clip. They know what the legal requirements are.
bryanrasmussen 3y ago
there is another issue here also which applies to video not music, but would probably end up coming up in the future. If people want to watch a video (assuming they don't pirate) they use the video service that provides them that video. If people want to use a clip from that video in some other production (fair use scenario applies here) they can't copy it from the video service because of DRM.

by dmbche 3y ago

ggm 3y ago

I think there's both a legal defence (its for legitimate research) and a law-change-advocacy (we think copyright in these works is silly) component to what they're doing. I don't think you are wrong about the risks to them in fighting the case with what looks to be such abundently clear IPR over the mechanical recording. But, I do think the wider fight about what "should" be the IPR here, is worth fighting. That advocacy lies in the part of your comment which heads off the "RIAA is bad" fu.

jonhohle 3y ago

Shellac 78s are old but equipment to play them is commercially available and they can be played on turntables that support 78 rpm with the right cartridge. I misplaced the 78 belt for my Pro-ject turntable during a move a few years ago and in the mean time found a copy of New World Symphony that I’ve been wanting to listen to.

dmbche 3y ago
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shellac https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shellac Just learned shellac is resin produced by south asian bugs - used to do not only record but food glaze and varnishes.
- amno 3y ago
  Shellac can be made out of different things, and has been a common polish for wooden instruments for example, before we got chemical protections like nitrocellulose lacquer. For handmade instruments [shellac and french polishing](https://www.lmii.com/blog/2017/10/07/finishing-options-for-musical-instruments/ https://www.lmii.com/blog/2017/10/07/finishing-options-for-m...) is still often preferred due to being environment and human friendly (chemical lacks are often non-healthy for the human who works with them), relatively inexpensive (cook your oyster shell :)), and for being do-it-yourself solution which many luthiers prefer. Some people claims a guitar polished with shellac sounds better than one with a cellulose lack, but I am not sure if I agree that is a deciding factor for the sound, probably more of a psychological factor.
SoftTalker 3y ago
I have a collection of several dozen 78 rpm shellac records that I inherited from my father, who inherited them from his father. I have a turntable but it won't play 78s. Been wanting to check with my local university to see if they could digitize them and maybe take the originals as a donation. I have also thought about looking for an old Victrola at an antique market and keeping them to play as a novelty, but it would really be just that.
- flotwig 3y ago
  If a local university doesn't take them, the IA will - they accept donations of physical materials and will digitize and index them: https://help.archive.org/help/how-do-i-make-a-physical-donation-to-the-internet-archive/ https://help.archive.org/help/how-do-i-make-a-physical-donat...
AnthonyMouse 3y ago

JakeAl 3y ago

They are indeed making copies in the strictest sense, but the real problem is if the copyright holders don't enforce their copyrights in the strictest sense they can forfeit their copyright. For example, if I let the public use an image copyrighted by me long enough without strict guidelines and I try to take someone to court, the court can say yes well you let the horse out of the barn and now you are trying to put it back in after it's everywhere. The solution is always licensing, and licenses can be free. So IA and the copyright holders instead of playing hard lawyer ball can cooperate; the copyright holder can grant them a free license for works that would otherwise not be getting exposure of make them money which they can revoke at any time should they decide to try and make money off of a work again. They can also provide strict usage guidelines in that license for IA as well as IA's users so it's clear this is meant for a narrow use and using it outside those guidelines can result in legal/financial penalties. To me this is a win-win because it could open the door for companies like Spotify to subsequently license works that gain popularity from exposure for a fee.

dredmorbius 3y ago
Trademarks require enforcement (as others have noted), copyrights do not. There is the doctrine of laches which might be applied in general to an excessive delay in asserting an equitable right, but there is no failure-of-defence loss of copyright under US or generally Berne Convention statutes globally. I've most frequently seen laches raised in the context of patent enforcement. <https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/laches https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/laches> This is rampantly false and misleading information.
JakeAl 3y ago
Just a side note/addendum, I worked with entertainment lawyers A LOT in the early days of the web on copyrighted images and while they start from a rigorous position what one simply has to do is find out what the guidelines are that alleviate any issues. For example, with an image or a video clip it often only requires explicit attribution (so every image at the bottom must carry the legal/copyright line, and likewise with a video clip) to satisfy the lawyers. They almost never tell you that, though. That's a tip for YouTubers who get copystruck for movie clips. Run the copyright/legal line at the bottom of every clip while they are on screen and you are covered 99% of the time. That's why when you watch the news and they show a clip you see the line at the bottom of the clip. They know what the legal requirements are.

bryanrasmussen 3y ago

there is another issue here also which applies to video not music, but would probably end up coming up in the future. If people want to watch a video (assuming they don't pirate) they use the video service that provides them that video. If people want to use a clip from that video in some other production (fair use scenario applies here) they can't copy it from the video service because of DRM.