5 ms·

Intellectual property is a broken and harmful system that is really holding us back.

• rwmj 2y ago
  But also it's the system that exists, and the Internet Archive were never going to overthrow the system with this case.
  • jampekka 2y ago
    Who is then?
    • rwmj 2y ago
      Through lobbying your representatives to change the law, same as always.
      • deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
      • jampekka 2y ago
        Disney is a lot more effective at lobbying your representatives than you.
        • JumpCrisscross 2y ago
          Librarians are notoriously good at organising. If the IA weren’t on a crusade, they would have coördinated with librarians.
          • jampekka 2y ago
            You mean something like this? https://www.battleforlibraries.com/ https://www.battleforlibraries.com/
            • JumpCrisscross 2y ago
              Yes. Except when they were designing their offering. Not as a bailout.
      • modeless 2y ago
        Nothing short of a generational movement or a revolution could make significant changes to IP law. It's incredibly entrenched. Many huge industries are built on it.
        • jampekka 2y ago
          There is the pirate party movement in Europe at least, although it seems to be dwindling and one-cause parties aren't usually very sustainable. They've had quite a few elected national and EU representatives but the copyright situation has gone (a lot) worse with e.g. the "Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market". Especially at EU level it doesn't matter much who sits in the parliament when it comes to business interests. Such matters are dictated by the lobbyists.
          • JumpCrisscross 2y ago
            Your null hypothesis to people agreeing with you is the system is corrupt?
            • jampekka 2y ago
              My assesment is that the system is quite corrupt, or at least undemocratic, whether people agree with me on the issues or not. Business interests don't spend their lobbying billions for nothing.
      • monkaiju 2y ago
        Same as always? Corporations are the only ones who lobbying is effective for. We'd need a revolution to bring about real change. For this, and many other more important changes, we need people in the streets to bring about change... Same as always.
        • JumpCrisscross 2y ago
          > Corporations are the only ones who lobbying is effective for. We'd need a revolution to bring about real change How many times have you called your elected? I’ve literally added language into state and federal law because I was the only one in my district who called on a niche issue. It was a battleground bill somewhere else. But not where I was.
          • monkaiju 2y ago
            I mean im a trustee on my neighborhood council and regularly talk to my reps in person. That said I am under no illusion of being able to get them to alter anything of material importance because of my, or any number of citizens', input. They are careerists politicians because thats what this system optimizes for, literally no successful politician gives a shit about constituent input beyond when it helps them.
            • JumpCrisscross 2y ago
              > I am under no illusion of being able to get them to alter anything of material importance Define material. If it’s contentious, of course not—no one party can nor should be able to dictate on something like that. But lobbyists don’t make headway on headline issues. They do so in the shadows. That’s also where private interest can have a material impact. Again, I’ve helped redraft legislation because my Congresswoman literally hadn’t read the bill, nobody—lobbyist or voter—had contacted her on it, it was a nothingburger in New York but a big deal to me. Lobbyists are mostly paid persistence. They don’t have superpowers, and the myth of campaign donations swinging electeds’ positions on major issues (versus new entrants) is mostly untrue. > no successful politician gives a shit about constituent input beyond when it helps them Of course. It would be naïve to expect otherwise. If you’re saying “I want x,” that’s N=1. Useless. If you make the case, however, that there is unseen donor or voter or turnout potential in an issue they’d ignored, you can generate a win win.
    • playingalong 2y ago
      Internet Archive is a niche player. Noone except for some nerds like us care for it. Wikipedia is a household brand. They could, but they don't need it for anything.
      • rwmj 2y ago
        I'm sure Wikipedia would like clearer (and wider) exceptions for fair use and orphaned works, so that's a start.
      • pfdietz 2y ago
        Wikipedia links through IA ubiquitously.
      • jampekka 2y ago
        Wikipedia was quite vocal at e.g. opposing the new EU copyright directive but seems to be a niche player too.
    • big-green-man 2y ago
      The library of Alexandria will always be illegal because it represents a threat to power. Whoever it is, they won't be legitimate in the eyes of the institutions.
      • JumpCrisscross 2y ago
        > library of Alexandria will always be illegal because it represents a threat to power What? The IA’s book lending represented a threat to no power. The Wayback Machine does, in that it holds people accountable, but nobody is dinging them for that. Folks are trying to pitch this as a David v Goliath situation. That’s emotionally satisfying. But it isn’t true.
    • TeaBrain 2y ago
      Good question. When they decided to get into digital book lending, they should have created a separate legal entity to do it under. Archive was the wrong entity to challenge book copyright and ebook lending purely from the perspective of the immense amount that they have to lose with the potential loss of the wayback machine, which is now legally connected to the unrelated ebook lending issues. The leadership of Archive should have created an independent llc purely for the library, so that legal issues could be contained.
• deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]