4 ms·

Yes, but this case was not about digital presevation but lending out scanned traditional books without proper controls, presented as some sort of a social welfa

Yes, but this case was not about digital presevation but lending out scanned traditional books without proper controls, presented as some sort of a social welfare project. Choose your battles.

rakoo 2y ago
What's the point of having digital preservation if noone can read the archives ? Digital access make sense, it's the logical conclusion to what IA does
- dmonitor 2y ago
  This isn’t about access to the archives. It’s about IA giving away books in violation of a specific agreement they made with authors. The archives are legally nebulous, but the written works are clear cut obviously illegal.
- Nevermark 2y ago
  Both copyright protection and fair use exceptions have valid but contradictory “logical conclusions” that require practical considerations, wisdom and negotiated compromise to balance. Anyone going all in on either side is not on the side of maximizing access, which legitimately depends on maximizing the production of things to access. Anyone making a crusade of only one side, without collaborating with the other, will damage both.
  - account42 2y ago
    Not really. We ha an abundance of creation long before copyright.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - Nevermark 2y ago
      I have never heard anyone claim there wasn’t.
- SllX 2y ago
  In a controlled manner in line with existing laws, yes. The law is still the law, even though the law may not be what you or I would like it to be.
  - canibal 2y ago
    Funnily enough, the courts are the best place to change/challenge that law without a literal act of Congress. (Apologies for any snark, but this is somewhat fueled by another, similar debate had previously) In America there should be no such debate regarding defying law being bandied about as infallible or intransigent.
    - SllX 2y ago
      Courts are a good place to challenge the law only if there is a higher law that contradicts them. If we’re talking Federal law, then the step up from there is the constitutionality of the law, which is not an easy case to make. Usually what gets challenged is the Executive’s interpretation of the law more so than the law itself, which is still not an easy case to make, but easier than challenging a law passed by Congress. Typically these are big cases that make the news, but actual constitutional challenges are statistically rare and successful ones much more so. The Internet Archive didn’t even get dragged into court for an interesting case, and their defiance was ideologically interesting but jurisprudentially uninteresting.
- vesinisa 2y ago
  But that's not what this case was about. Throughout the trial they have been allowed to provide continued digital access to the scanned books, granted they operate like a library (each borrowed book is backed by a physical copy.) The case was launched when during the Covid-19 pandemic they removed the limitations under the veil of "National Emergency Library": https://blog.archive.org/2020/03/30/internet-archive-responds-why-we-released-the-national-emergency-library/ https://blog.archive.org/2020/03/30/internet-archive-respond... This seemed already at the time completely counter-productive and unnecessary step as it basically forced the publishers to react because it made IA's digital lending indistinguishable from casual e-book piracy. They have now created a legal precedent that, in addition to finding the "National Emergency Library" illegal, makes the controlled lending they implemented previously illegal. Ever since the district court ruling they have been able to continue digital lending only by negotiating compensation terms with the publishers. So, instead of expanding everyone's access to the digital archives, they have managed to indefinitely limit it by creating a restricting legal precedent. This was the inevitable outcome of "National Emergency Library" and they knew or should have known it.
  - mezzie2 2y ago
    > This was the inevitable outcome of "National Emergency Library" and they knew or should have known it. They knew. I have an MLIS and took one copyright course and could tell immediately that what they were doing was illegal/wouldn't hold up in court. For them not to know would suggest that their staff is less informed than I am, which can't be true.
  - Amezarak 2y ago
    Under US copyright law controlled digital lending was clearly illegal. This case did not establish any new precedent, it's a plain reading of the law and the decision reflects that. You and I can both not like it, we can wish the law was different, but no court ruling was ever going to go any other way, and the reckless move of opening uncontrolled digital lending doesn't change that. It may make logical sense to think of CDL as indistinguishable from physical book lending in libraries, but because it entailed making a copy, that was never legally the case.
mdp2021 2y ago
> lending out scanned traditional books without proper controls, presented as some sort of a social welfare project. Choose your battles Present a better battle. I can't think of one - just that, enlarged in other fields. The battle against ignorance is the only one battle. Hail to the battle.
Aeolun 2y ago
Do you think any book lent out by the archive would have turned into a sale? It just didn’t materially hurt anyone, and it made a lot of people happy. I think it was great, and while, sure, the battle was probably lost from the beginning, I like it when people challenge existing conventions. I’ve never stopped donating.
- autoexec 2y ago
  > It just didn’t materially hurt anyone, It took a lot of money control from the publishers and third party vendors libraries force people to use for digital lending. Those vendors can force users to create accounts, collect reading history and personal data, push ads, and sell lender's data to publishers and others. It also let publishers restrict what titles were available, remotely censor content, or remove titles whenever they wanted. The IA was creating their own scans which limited the control publishers had and cut out much of that data collection/ad pushing. It was a better deal for readers, but it was a worse deal for publishers and advertisers.
  - Aeolun 2y ago
    I still don’t think that is true, because it assumes people that used the IA library would have used anything else (something that’s not their local library which is also free), and I just don’t think that is true. I didn’t suddenly stop buying books on amazon when I could get them from the IA, the people who used it were the ones that could afford those books from Amazon in the first place. Of course, me ‘thinking’ something is no guarantee, but I don’t have the numbers to say one way or another.
xdennis 2y ago
> Yes, but this case was not about digital presevation but lending out scanned traditional books without proper controls, presented as some sort of a social welfare project. Choose your battles. People were banned from exiting their homes. Libraries were forcibly closed. Emergency lending of digital books is the most noble battle they could have chosen.

Yes, but this case was not about digital presevation but lending out scanned traditional books without proper controls, presented as some sort of a social welfare project. Choose your battles.

rakoo 2y ago

What's the point of having digital preservation if noone can read the archives ? Digital access make sense, it's the logical conclusion to what IA does

dmonitor 2y ago
This isn’t about access to the archives. It’s about IA giving away books in violation of a specific agreement they made with authors. The archives are legally nebulous, but the written works are clear cut obviously illegal.
Nevermark 2y ago
Both copyright protection and fair use exceptions have valid but contradictory “logical conclusions” that require practical considerations, wisdom and negotiated compromise to balance. Anyone going all in on either side is not on the side of maximizing access, which legitimately depends on maximizing the production of things to access. Anyone making a crusade of only one side, without collaborating with the other, will damage both.
- account42 2y ago
  Not really. We ha an abundance of creation long before copyright.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - Nevermark 2y ago
    I have never heard anyone claim there wasn’t.
SllX 2y ago
In a controlled manner in line with existing laws, yes. The law is still the law, even though the law may not be what you or I would like it to be.
- canibal 2y ago
  Funnily enough, the courts are the best place to change/challenge that law without a literal act of Congress. (Apologies for any snark, but this is somewhat fueled by another, similar debate had previously) In America there should be no such debate regarding defying law being bandied about as infallible or intransigent.
  - SllX 2y ago
    Courts are a good place to challenge the law only if there is a higher law that contradicts them. If we’re talking Federal law, then the step up from there is the constitutionality of the law, which is not an easy case to make. Usually what gets challenged is the Executive’s interpretation of the law more so than the law itself, which is still not an easy case to make, but easier than challenging a law passed by Congress. Typically these are big cases that make the news, but actual constitutional challenges are statistically rare and successful ones much more so. The Internet Archive didn’t even get dragged into court for an interesting case, and their defiance was ideologically interesting but jurisprudentially uninteresting.
vesinisa 2y ago
But that's not what this case was about. Throughout the trial they have been allowed to provide continued digital access to the scanned books, granted they operate like a library (each borrowed book is backed by a physical copy.) The case was launched when during the Covid-19 pandemic they removed the limitations under the veil of "National Emergency Library": https://blog.archive.org/2020/03/30/internet-archive-responds-why-we-released-the-national-emergency-library/ https://blog.archive.org/2020/03/30/internet-archive-respond... This seemed already at the time completely counter-productive and unnecessary step as it basically forced the publishers to react because it made IA's digital lending indistinguishable from casual e-book piracy. They have now created a legal precedent that, in addition to finding the "National Emergency Library" illegal, makes the controlled lending they implemented previously illegal. Ever since the district court ruling they have been able to continue digital lending only by negotiating compensation terms with the publishers. So, instead of expanding everyone's access to the digital archives, they have managed to indefinitely limit it by creating a restricting legal precedent. This was the inevitable outcome of "National Emergency Library" and they knew or should have known it.
- mezzie2 2y ago
  > This was the inevitable outcome of "National Emergency Library" and they knew or should have known it. They knew. I have an MLIS and took one copyright course and could tell immediately that what they were doing was illegal/wouldn't hold up in court. For them not to know would suggest that their staff is less informed than I am, which can't be true.
- Amezarak 2y ago
  Under US copyright law controlled digital lending was clearly illegal. This case did not establish any new precedent, it's a plain reading of the law and the decision reflects that. You and I can both not like it, we can wish the law was different, but no court ruling was ever going to go any other way, and the reckless move of opening uncontrolled digital lending doesn't change that. It may make logical sense to think of CDL as indistinguishable from physical book lending in libraries, but because it entailed making a copy, that was never legally the case.

mdp2021 2y ago

> lending out scanned traditional books without proper controls, presented as some sort of a social welfare project. Choose your battles Present a better battle. I can't think of one - just that, enlarged in other fields. The battle against ignorance is the only one battle. Hail to the battle.

Aeolun 2y ago

Do you think any book lent out by the archive would have turned into a sale? It just didn’t materially hurt anyone, and it made a lot of people happy. I think it was great, and while, sure, the battle was probably lost from the beginning, I like it when people challenge existing conventions. I’ve never stopped donating.

autoexec 2y ago
> It just didn’t materially hurt anyone, It took a lot of money control from the publishers and third party vendors libraries force people to use for digital lending. Those vendors can force users to create accounts, collect reading history and personal data, push ads, and sell lender's data to publishers and others. It also let publishers restrict what titles were available, remotely censor content, or remove titles whenever they wanted. The IA was creating their own scans which limited the control publishers had and cut out much of that data collection/ad pushing. It was a better deal for readers, but it was a worse deal for publishers and advertisers.
- Aeolun 2y ago
  I still don’t think that is true, because it assumes people that used the IA library would have used anything else (something that’s not their local library which is also free), and I just don’t think that is true. I didn’t suddenly stop buying books on amazon when I could get them from the IA, the people who used it were the ones that could afford those books from Amazon in the first place. Of course, me ‘thinking’ something is no guarantee, but I don’t have the numbers to say one way or another.

xdennis 2y ago

> Yes, but this case was not about digital presevation but lending out scanned traditional books without proper controls, presented as some sort of a social welfare project. Choose your battles. People were banned from exiting their homes. Libraries were forcibly closed. Emergency lending of digital books is the most noble battle they could have chosen.