5 ms·

> "I understand that publishers and authors have to make a profit, but most of the material I am trying to access is written by people who are dead and whose pu

> "I understand that publishers and authors have to make a profit, but most of the material I am trying to access is written by people who are dead and whose publishers have stopped printing the material," wrote one IA fan from Boston. This really is the crux of the problem. Copyright should be "use it or lose it." If you don't make your books readily available, then you should have no right to demand copies of your book be removed from places like IA. It's not like these publishers are losing any money from books that literally nobody can purchase.

vineyardmike 2y ago
> Copyright should be "use it or lose it." Which is basically how trademarks are. So we even already have a system in place to manage something like this.
CSMastermind 2y ago
>If you don't make your books readily available, then you should have no right to demand copies of your book be removed from places like IA What if an author explicitly doesn't want to distribute their works or to distribute an alternative version of their works? There was the recent case of the company that owns the rights to Dr. Suess choosing not to publish old versions of books they felt had racist depictions. And who sets the standard for readily available? If I offer my book for sale for $100 is it readily available? At what price is something no longer readily available? Does it depend on the type of book? What if it's for sale broadly but not in the state where you live? What if it's free but must be read in person and cannot be taken home with you?
- cwillu 2y ago
  Authors should have that inalienable right, and it should not transferable via contract or any other means. Publishers, on the other hand, should have no such rights: they own the presses, their inalienable right should be to refrain from using them.
  - CSMastermind 2y ago
    Should I be allowed to commission a work under the understanding that I own the rights after it's created? If yes, then how do you regulate who is or is not allowed to transfer ownership of rights to or from whom?
    - hmry 2y ago
      That part is already solved. Under current international law, if you commission a work then you own the economic rights, but the original author retains the moral rights. In fact, selling your moral rights is not possible. It sounds like the suggestion is that retracting / completely discontinuing a book should only be part of the moral rights, not the economic rights. I'm not sure how feasible that is, but it's not totally unprecedented. For example, one of the moral rights recognized by many countries is the right not to have your works destroyed. E.g. even if someone else owns the physical object of your painting, they are not allowed to set it on fire, and you could sue them if they did.
      - account42 2y ago
        > It sounds like the suggestion is that retracting / completely discontinuing a book should only be part of the moral rights, not the economic rights. It shouldn't be part of any rights. At best the author should be able to demand to not have his name associated with the work.
  - account42 2y ago
    > Authors should have that inalienable right Why? What do we as a society gain by allowing individuals continued control over parts of our culture include the ability to erase them.
- Dylan16807 2y ago
  > What if an author explicitly doesn't want to distribute their works or to distribute an alternative version of their works? Too bad. Once you publish it the first time, the cat is out of the bag. Eventually it's going to go into the public domain whether you like it or not. > And who sets the standard for readily available? If I offer my book for sale for $100 is it readily available? At what price is something no longer readily available? Does it depend on the type of book? What if it's for sale broadly but not in the state where you live? What if it's free but must be read in person and cannot be taken home with you? Good question but can definitely be decided. $100 is probably fine. Regulators can decide. Yes. Not good enough. Not good enough. We have frameworks for mandatory music licensing, we can do more things like that.
  - mardifoufs 2y ago
    Should we apply that logic to gplv3 code too? Just basically disregard the license since knowledge should be completely free? Or maybe impose some burden on the maintainers to keep the code active and constantly changed so that the codebase doesn't lose its license after an arbitrary period of time? I'm genuinely wondering , because to me there's a clear parallel yet in tech circles we almost always see defense of copyleft code (which I totally agree with, I'm extremely pro GPL) and a very heavy bias towards maintainers. I know GPL code is already free but we are talking automatically putting copyrighted/licensed material in the public domain which isn't GPL compatible.
    - mlyle 2y ago
      > doesn't lose its license after an arbitrary period of time? The whole thing that allows copyright in the US is in the Constitution: > 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. The original term was 14 years, with one 14 year renewal allowed. This was probably a little short, in my opinion. 25+20 seems reasonable; most works have no commercial value after 25 years, and 45 years is already a long time to keep things that have become cultural touchstones locked up. The present legal regime of life of the author plus 70 years is clearly excessive. > but we are talking automatically putting copyrighted/licensed material in the public domain This already happens: just after an unreasonably long period of time. > which isn't GPL compatible. Code which is in the public domain is freely compatible with code under the GPL. The whole point is "to promote the progress of science and useful arts". Stuff kept locked away beyond its useful commercial life is no longer promoting progress (the authors have already gotten paid anything they're going to get). Indeed, most of present works borrow deeply from the public domain but the authors seek to only return the same favor to future authors in a few generations. How long should Nintendo be able to rent-seek and convince/force the same people to buy the original Super Mario Bros. over and over again? Should that be done in 2030, or 2080? What about operating systems of the 1980s-- should they be locked up to 2090, even though no one will sell them to you? At some point, there are substantial impediments to legitimate archival and research purposes; to keeping existing important systems working; and to allowing the free exploration and creativity that comes from remixing and building upon past works.
- lolinder 2y ago
  > There was the recent case of the company that owns the rights to Dr. Suess choosing not to publish old versions of books they felt had racist depictions. This is actually exactly why I agree with OP. See also the changes made to Roald Dahl books. Future generations deserve to be able to read the content that their forebears produced as they produced it. I'm supportive of an author's right to not initially publish something that they at the time are uncomfortable with being made public. There should be protections for that. But once something has entered into the public consciousness in a particular form, I'm not okay with a cultural censorship wave being able to memory hole the original copy and replace it with a sanitized version (or wipe it out entirely). They shouldn't be obliged to print content that they find objectionable, but that content needs to be accessible or we lose our history. Messy and uncomfortable as it is, future generations have a right to see us as we were and are, not as the second-generation holder of our too-long copyright wishes we had been.
  - account42 2y ago
    You have really hit the crux of the issue. We shouldn't allow corporations or individuals to control something that has become part of our shared culture. Beyond shortening copyright lengths to the absolute minimum required for the statet purpose of encouraging more creation we probably also need limitations on author rights for works that have gained widespread public adoption similar to how trademarks can become genericised. At some point you shouldn't get to decide if and how your creation is distributed even if you can still demand royalties for a while.
- account42 2y ago
  > What if an author explicitly doesn't want to distribute their works or to distribute an alternative version of their works? Then they should lose the rights of the originals. The point of copyright is to enrich society not to satisfy any want of the author.
KennyBlanken 2y ago
No, it really isn't. That person, and you, don't understand how publishing - or mass production of any kind, it seems - works. A publisher "stopping printing" of a book is completely normal - books are like any other mass-produced good, in that there are fixed and variable costs to production and a factory can't economically crank out more than a certain number of different things at once. Sp, there are "printings" - ie a production run - and then that inventory is sold to distributors. When the inventory is sold out, it is "out of print." That does not mean it's not available - there's still stock at distributors. And likely on shelves. When it sells out at distributors, then it is backordered. It is completely normal for a publisher to wait until they feel there is enough pent-up demand for another printing - increasing the size of the printing to improve per-copy profit (or make it economically viable at all), and then sell it to distributors because the distributors think they can sell the inventory at a high enough rate. Distributors don't want to keep around books that don't sell very fast, because that means they don't have warehouse space for books that do sell quickly. And if they have books that don't sell and need the warehouse space, the books might get remaindered (sold to a low-budget distributor for sale at well below original price) or destroyed (cover stripped as proof of destruction and the rest destroyed/recycled.) Things have changed with digital press technology improvements, opening the door to more print-on-demand books - but printing one copy will never be anywhere close to as cheap as printing, say, 1000 copies. There are also other reasons it might not be for sale, despite the author trying / wanting to sell it. If you know nothing about how book printing, publishing, distribution, buying, and retail works - you probably shouldn't be forming opinions on how it should be subject to radically different regulation, much less offering them up. https://pinestatepublicity.substack.com/p/book-distribution-basic-explainer https://pinestatepublicity.substack.com/p/book-distribution-...
- nanomonkey 2y ago
  Internet Archive isn't printing books, they are lending out digital copies. A publisher would have no reason not to sell a digital copy of their own. There are no production runs necessary on digital copies.
- poikroequ 2y ago
  I never said the books have to be physically printed. Digitize the book and sell it online. Make it available through a kindle unlimited subscription. It doesn't matter, as long as it's readily available. Until then, they should have no right to sue to remove the books from IA. Also keep in mind that, for many of the books, the authors are dead.

vineyardmike 2y ago

> Copyright should be "use it or lose it." Which is basically how trademarks are. So we even already have a system in place to manage something like this.

CSMastermind 2y ago

>If you don't make your books readily available, then you should have no right to demand copies of your book be removed from places like IA What if an author explicitly doesn't want to distribute their works or to distribute an alternative version of their works? There was the recent case of the company that owns the rights to Dr. Suess choosing not to publish old versions of books they felt had racist depictions. And who sets the standard for readily available? If I offer my book for sale for $100 is it readily available? At what price is something no longer readily available? Does it depend on the type of book? What if it's for sale broadly but not in the state where you live? What if it's free but must be read in person and cannot be taken home with you?

cwillu 2y ago
Authors should have that inalienable right, and it should not transferable via contract or any other means. Publishers, on the other hand, should have no such rights: they own the presses, their inalienable right should be to refrain from using them.
- CSMastermind 2y ago
  Should I be allowed to commission a work under the understanding that I own the rights after it's created? If yes, then how do you regulate who is or is not allowed to transfer ownership of rights to or from whom?
  - hmry 2y ago
    That part is already solved. Under current international law, if you commission a work then you own the economic rights, but the original author retains the moral rights. In fact, selling your moral rights is not possible. It sounds like the suggestion is that retracting / completely discontinuing a book should only be part of the moral rights, not the economic rights. I'm not sure how feasible that is, but it's not totally unprecedented. For example, one of the moral rights recognized by many countries is the right not to have your works destroyed. E.g. even if someone else owns the physical object of your painting, they are not allowed to set it on fire, and you could sue them if they did.
    - account42 2y ago
      > It sounds like the suggestion is that retracting / completely discontinuing a book should only be part of the moral rights, not the economic rights. It shouldn't be part of any rights. At best the author should be able to demand to not have his name associated with the work.
- account42 2y ago
  > Authors should have that inalienable right Why? What do we as a society gain by allowing individuals continued control over parts of our culture include the ability to erase them.
Dylan16807 2y ago
> What if an author explicitly doesn't want to distribute their works or to distribute an alternative version of their works? Too bad. Once you publish it the first time, the cat is out of the bag. Eventually it's going to go into the public domain whether you like it or not. > And who sets the standard for readily available? If I offer my book for sale for $100 is it readily available? At what price is something no longer readily available? Does it depend on the type of book? What if it's for sale broadly but not in the state where you live? What if it's free but must be read in person and cannot be taken home with you? Good question but can definitely be decided. $100 is probably fine. Regulators can decide. Yes. Not good enough. Not good enough. We have frameworks for mandatory music licensing, we can do more things like that.
- mardifoufs 2y ago
  Should we apply that logic to gplv3 code too? Just basically disregard the license since knowledge should be completely free? Or maybe impose some burden on the maintainers to keep the code active and constantly changed so that the codebase doesn't lose its license after an arbitrary period of time? I'm genuinely wondering , because to me there's a clear parallel yet in tech circles we almost always see defense of copyleft code (which I totally agree with, I'm extremely pro GPL) and a very heavy bias towards maintainers. I know GPL code is already free but we are talking automatically putting copyrighted/licensed material in the public domain which isn't GPL compatible.
  - mlyle 2y ago
    > doesn't lose its license after an arbitrary period of time? The whole thing that allows copyright in the US is in the Constitution: > 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. The original term was 14 years, with one 14 year renewal allowed. This was probably a little short, in my opinion. 25+20 seems reasonable; most works have no commercial value after 25 years, and 45 years is already a long time to keep things that have become cultural touchstones locked up. The present legal regime of life of the author plus 70 years is clearly excessive. > but we are talking automatically putting copyrighted/licensed material in the public domain This already happens: just after an unreasonably long period of time. > which isn't GPL compatible. Code which is in the public domain is freely compatible with code under the GPL. The whole point is "to promote the progress of science and useful arts". Stuff kept locked away beyond its useful commercial life is no longer promoting progress (the authors have already gotten paid anything they're going to get). Indeed, most of present works borrow deeply from the public domain but the authors seek to only return the same favor to future authors in a few generations. How long should Nintendo be able to rent-seek and convince/force the same people to buy the original Super Mario Bros. over and over again? Should that be done in 2030, or 2080? What about operating systems of the 1980s-- should they be locked up to 2090, even though no one will sell them to you? At some point, there are substantial impediments to legitimate archival and research purposes; to keeping existing important systems working; and to allowing the free exploration and creativity that comes from remixing and building upon past works.
lolinder 2y ago
> There was the recent case of the company that owns the rights to Dr. Suess choosing not to publish old versions of books they felt had racist depictions. This is actually exactly why I agree with OP. See also the changes made to Roald Dahl books. Future generations deserve to be able to read the content that their forebears produced as they produced it. I'm supportive of an author's right to not initially publish something that they at the time are uncomfortable with being made public. There should be protections for that. But once something has entered into the public consciousness in a particular form, I'm not okay with a cultural censorship wave being able to memory hole the original copy and replace it with a sanitized version (or wipe it out entirely). They shouldn't be obliged to print content that they find objectionable, but that content needs to be accessible or we lose our history. Messy and uncomfortable as it is, future generations have a right to see us as we were and are, not as the second-generation holder of our too-long copyright wishes we had been.
- account42 2y ago
  You have really hit the crux of the issue. We shouldn't allow corporations or individuals to control something that has become part of our shared culture. Beyond shortening copyright lengths to the absolute minimum required for the statet purpose of encouraging more creation we probably also need limitations on author rights for works that have gained widespread public adoption similar to how trademarks can become genericised. At some point you shouldn't get to decide if and how your creation is distributed even if you can still demand royalties for a while.
account42 2y ago
> What if an author explicitly doesn't want to distribute their works or to distribute an alternative version of their works? Then they should lose the rights of the originals. The point of copyright is to enrich society not to satisfy any want of the author.

KennyBlanken 2y ago

No, it really isn't. That person, and you, don't understand how publishing - or mass production of any kind, it seems - works. A publisher "stopping printing" of a book is completely normal - books are like any other mass-produced good, in that there are fixed and variable costs to production and a factory can't economically crank out more than a certain number of different things at once. Sp, there are "printings" - ie a production run - and then that inventory is sold to distributors. When the inventory is sold out, it is "out of print." That does not mean it's not available - there's still stock at distributors. And likely on shelves. When it sells out at distributors, then it is backordered. It is completely normal for a publisher to wait until they feel there is enough pent-up demand for another printing - increasing the size of the printing to improve per-copy profit (or make it economically viable at all), and then sell it to distributors because the distributors think they can sell the inventory at a high enough rate. Distributors don't want to keep around books that don't sell very fast, because that means they don't have warehouse space for books that do sell quickly. And if they have books that don't sell and need the warehouse space, the books might get remaindered (sold to a low-budget distributor for sale at well below original price) or destroyed (cover stripped as proof of destruction and the rest destroyed/recycled.) Things have changed with digital press technology improvements, opening the door to more print-on-demand books - but printing one copy will never be anywhere close to as cheap as printing, say, 1000 copies. There are also other reasons it might not be for sale, despite the author trying / wanting to sell it. If you know nothing about how book printing, publishing, distribution, buying, and retail works - you probably shouldn't be forming opinions on how it should be subject to radically different regulation, much less offering them up. https://pinestatepublicity.substack.com/p/book-distribution-basic-explainer https://pinestatepublicity.substack.com/p/book-distribution-...

nanomonkey 2y ago
Internet Archive isn't printing books, they are lending out digital copies. A publisher would have no reason not to sell a digital copy of their own. There are no production runs necessary on digital copies.
poikroequ 2y ago
I never said the books have to be physically printed. Digitize the book and sell it online. Make it available through a kindle unlimited subscription. It doesn't matter, as long as it's readily available. Until then, they should have no right to sue to remove the books from IA. Also keep in mind that, for many of the books, the authors are dead.