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CDL is how physical libraries work: They buy a book and then lend it out multiple times to multiple people, on a one-in one-out basis, who then do not have to b
by msla 2y ago
CDL is how physical libraries work: They buy a book and then lend it out multiple times to multiple people, on a one-in one-out basis, who then do not have to buy the book themselves. They even repair books to avoid purchasing new ones again. Do you think physical libraries harm the people who bring books into being?
- tptacek 2y agoPhysical libraries lend actual physical objects. They don't copy anything. This is a copyright case.
- msla 2y agoThe effect on authors is the same: A book is circulated multiple times after being bought once.
- tptacek 2y agoThat's not how the law works. Again: this is a copyright case.
- doctorpangloss 2y ago“The only moral laws are my laws.”
- pessimizer 2y agoWho is this a quote from, and who is talking about "moral laws?"
- JoshTriplett 2y agoI don't think people here are confused about how the law works. I think many people here feel the law shouldn't work that way. Stating it explicitly: while the NEL was dubious, CDL should have been 100% legal, and it's a massive disappointment to see it ruled against.
- tptacek 2y agoMaybe a case with a better fact pattern (for instance: lending only books without competing publisher epubs) might have had a better chance, but I think people are getting themselves tied up in knots about IA's intent, which is just one factor in a fair-use analysis. The law cares deeply about copies, not about circulation or access. Further: it seems weird to blame judges for applying what is in fact very straightforward law. Seems like your problem is with Congress!
- JoshTriplett 2y agoFair use is not "very straightforward law", and is deliberately a fuzzy line; I do in fact think CDL should have passed a fair-use analysis. Separately I also think the law should improve.
- tptacek 2y agoIn which part of this case were the judges required to stretch at all? The decision is conveniently broken down across the 4-part fair use test.
- JoshTriplett 2y agoIt seems like you're making a "what happened" argument in response to a "what should have happened" argument. It's possible to make an argument in favor of this being fair use, and it's possible to make an argument against fair use. The (subjective) decision here was the latter; it doesn't preclude the possibility of the former. I'm not arguing that it was a stretch to say "no"; I'm arguing that it also wasn't a stretch to say "yes". In terms of the fair use argument that could have been made, the Internet Archive's CDL obviously failed "nature of" and "amount and substantiality of", but I think it did not inherently fail "purpose and character" or "effect of the use", despite the decision saying it did. In terms of concrete legal changes that could and should happen: "right of first sale" should be updated for digital, and include both "right to do format-shifting" (e.g. scanning physical to digital) and "right to lend copies digitally" (just like first-sale already explicitly allows physically).
- doctorpangloss 2y agoAre you suggesting that the law reflects an entrenched, emotional celebration of an antique, traditional notion of a library, and not something rational and consistent about lending, copyright and the economics of writing? Apostasy! I want this conversation to only be strictly about what the case law says, so that I may tell you about it “again” and again!
- tptacek 2y agoNo, the problem is that the preceding analysis is a category error, in that it assumes the law has a purpose of minimizing the circulation of an individual book. It does not, which is why traditional libraries weren't threatened by it.
- doctorpangloss 2y agoI don’t know, it doesn’t take a genius or a law degree to understand that maintaining a one to one ratio of physical copies to digitally lent books is the same shit as a regular library but more convenient. It stands to reason that the law shouldn’t preclude technological advances that make libraries more convenient. The reason traditional libraries aren’t threatened by the law is cultural. There are states that ban books my dude, it’s all cultural. I wonder why judges are anti-library. Although I can understand why they are generally anti-technology: the law school people have a lot of beefs, and beefs with the compsci people rank highly. And before you start telling me all the reasons why “beefs” aren’t a central part of the character of judges and therefore law in this country, you should maybe read more about guys like Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito.
- tptacek 2y agoJudges aren't anti-library. People care a lot less about "compsci" culture than "compsci" people think they do. We simply aren't that important.
- doctorpangloss 2y ago
- codedokode 2y agoWhat's wrong with lenging digital copies over the Internet? It is actually better because it allows people from remote areas to access the books, it allows lending books at night, so it makes using the library more convenient, saves user's time and library's money. Also, copying is ok in some cases; for example, the court found that Google scanning books for Google Books did it legally; 17 US Code 108 and 109 provide some exemptions from copyright.
- tptacek 2y agoIt's good to want things. The contours of the Google case are discussed in this decision: Google Books scanning is "fair use" because books aren't made available in their entirety, and the IA's library feature is (unless SCOTUS disagrees, which seems extraordinarily unlikely) emphatically not.
- codedokode 2y agoGoogle Books case establishes that scanning a copyrighted work is not always illegal; you cannot use that solely to prove the infringement. Regarding "books made available for free": libraries allow to read books for free.
- tptacek 2y agoIt was never anybody's claim that scanning a copyrighted work is always illegal. This is an easy, straightforward decision to read; I think you'd be better off just reading it.
- codedokode 2y agoThe decision is that lending of digital books causes "market harm for the publishers". It outweighs anything else. So the court only cares about profits of publishers and not right of the buyers, including "first-sale doctrine" and right to lend a legally obtained book. The court sees the case as merely making illegal copies and doesn't want to make analogies with libraries lending out books. It is obvious. You can apply most of those arguments to a library lending out (distributing) physical books without authorization and causing same harm to the publisher.
- usr1106 2y agoBut judges and/or legislators might not have fully arrived in the internet age yet? I would also see a difference whether the activity is for profit (Google earning money with news scraped from Newspapers) and non-profit (IA and physical libraries).
- IncreasePosts 2y ago> Do you think physical libraries harm the people who bring books into being? Yes, actually, I do. But the public benefits of libraries outweigh the harm it does to authors. But, the fact that I can buy a book once, and pass it between 50 friends to read feels unfair to the author who effectively makes no money off of the work.
- andybak 2y agoSo, lending a book to a friend is wrong? Or just doing that when your have more then x friends? I'm genuinely not sure what you're saying here.
- aezart 2y agoIf I buy a hammer and then lend it to a friend, is that unfair to the hammer manufacturer?
- _factor 2y agoIn our disturbing legal climate, many judges would say yes.
- EarlKing 2y agoA physical library does not involve making a copy, but lending out an existing physical copy. One book, one reader. "Controlled Digital Lending" literally involves making and transmitting a copy to another physical medium electronically. Brewster has endangered the good work done by people at the archive for a case he was never going to win and which was of dubious value. If he wants to be the next Anna's Archive then he should drop all pretense and go do that... but leave the archive to do what the archive is meant to do.
- Kerrick 2y agoDoes this case's effect on CDL mean that a library could still buy a huge stack of ultra-cheap eBook readers, load each one up with their one copy of a given book, and then lend out the physical readers?
- tptacek 2y agoPresumably not, because the same copies would be created. This wasn't a case that hinged on DRM or content protection. IA was making copies, lots of copies, and that's an action governed by copyright law; it's right there in the name. All that aside: if you have 1:1 physical books anyways, what is the reader accomplishing here? Just loan out the book.
- kmeisthax 2y agoNo, but I suspect the licensing on the ebooks already forbids transferring the physical reader the book is on to another person.
- cmiles74 2y agoStill, under the CDL it is only one book, one person. This is significantly different from a site like Anna's Archive.
- EarlKing 2y agoNo, it isn't. They're issuing a copy to the reader for the duration of their checkout. Your argument might hold some weight if they scanned a book, destroyed the book, and then deleted the book from their own servers every time it was lent out... but that's not how CDL works. What they're doing is unambiguously copying.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]