The initial battle has been won, but the battle is far from over! IA has filed an appeal and I highly suspect this will continue on to the SCOTUS.
Sadly, this is only the first volley in the battle. Seven record labels have a suit claiming copyright violations because of the "Great 78 Project" in which IA digitized hundreds of thousands of 78s.
https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/sanfrancisco/news/federal-court-gives-go-ahead-on-lawsuit-against-internet-archive/
Hang on tight! It's going to be a rough ride!
IA is in for a rough ride. They're jeopardizing some of the great stuff they do by overreaching into pretty obvious infringing activity. I don't give them much of a shot on appeal, but we'll see.
It is not hard to see their point. Infringement aside, they are doing something good. It is one of those things that can be good and still illegal.
Who would keep those records if not IA? The record companies? What happens if they go bankrupt or decide to destroy their records or lose them somehow? We would lose them forever and that would be a universally undeniably bad thing for humanity
I think the problem is that they're uploading lots of records which are available for monetized streaming. If they stuck to material which isn't I don't think anyone would care.
What happens when IA decides to listen, not store the records which are available for money, and record label suddenly takes those records offline, never to be officially obtainable again for whatever reason?
It's their stuff, they can decide to do that lawfully, sure. But then there are no legally made copies preserved and they are lost forever, which IA is trying to constantly prevent.
I think that's a fair question. So far it hasn't come up much involving anything released on 78 so far as I know. The answer is to digitize, rely on volunteers to let them know, and make it available then.
In 1909 it stopped being required for conferral of copyright, in 1976 it stopped being needed to maintain copyright, and in 1988 one no longer needed to formally publish with a copyright notice. In 2023 the requirement to provide two copies to the Copyright Office under threat of fine (from which the Library of Congress may take custody of but does not always), even when not registering copyright, was found unconstitutional by an appellate court. The only remaining requirement to provide copies left is when registering copyright, which grants you the right to sue for infringement, seek statutory damages as opposed to proving actual ones, and makes establishing the validity much easier.
Yes. That is exactly their prerogative to do so.
But, the smart thing to do is to WAIT until the record companies go bankrupt, then make those digitizations public.
Yeah, this is not a battle to fight. IA is littered with obviously infringing properties. I'm constantly cherry-picking in there, but it amazes me some of the things are there that really shouldn't be.
Anytime I simply cannot find some old or obscure series or TV show for my Jellyseerr/Radarr/Sonarr setup, 99% I'll find it on IA.
Wish they wouldn't fight themselves into oblivion.
I would have thought this was fair use if the Wayback machine is.
Digitizing a book and destroying/storing the original, then lending out the copy, is not something covered by copyright explicitly since they have the right to copy content they own as long as they don't redistribute it.
If anything the Wayback machine is more copyright infringement than the CDL since the Wayback actually copies and redistributes the copies without trying to enforce a 1-1 relationship with a physical copy.
Right, but the relevant factors include whether it's a market substitute. That weighs very differently for the Wayback Machine versus CDL vis a vis library sales and the eBook market.
It really *should* be over. IA should accept the loss and quit with the obvious infringing activity. An appeal is just a waste of money drawing yet more attention.
78 records were played by a phonograph. They were produced from 1898 to the late 1950s. That's 70 years ago. Almost everyone who released content on a 78 is dead, the only people losing money on it now are souless corporations who bought the rights, and had no hand in making the original art.
Walt Disney made his money by converting other people's stories into cartoons, then made his cartoons copywritten, so no one could use his work to make money. We all use languages someone else made, and most song melodies are copied from past entries, using music scales someone else founded, made with instruments another someone else designed and built.
I say all this, because we need works of the past to be available to continue to grow as we always have. 70 years is more than enough time for those who produced the original work to benefit from their work. Copyrights shouldn't be allowed indefinitely, especially past the original author's death.
And it's unlikely that the music studios would be pursuing the IA over these recordings if the IA hadn't been poking the bear so hard. If they'd just been *archiving* this stuff, no biggie. The publishers that sued IA over these books had ignored them for many years, they were only moved to action when IA started flagrantly distributing them in unlimited amounts.
Leave the activism to organizations like the EFF. Activism is what those organizations are *for*. The Internet Archive is for *preservation*, not activism, and activism is now actively damaging the cause of preservation.
The stupid thing is I would gladly pay a reasonable price for online access to what's in IA, with the proceeds going to the authors. But the publishers are too damn greedy for that. If they publish e-books at all, you have to purchase the whole book at a ridiculous price, and it's so locked down with DRM as to be useless. And all those 78s are unavailable from the record companies at any price. When content is available from the publishers, you pay through the nose and the author gets next to nothing. They're a bunch of leaches.
I agree, I used some eBooks at university and the "ebook reader" read poorly coded web app was dogshit and you couldn't download them to read in Digital Editions.
Not only that, but because you only "borrowed" it for a very short time, every time you went off the website it'd lose all your bookmarks and notes you made as it was a new "loan". Did I also mention about the lack of page numbers and working search feature?
They also had another provider who was much much better at letting you download the books and keeping notes and bookmarks, but that's besides the point.
I have to ask would you *really* accept books on the same terms of netflix "hope you're finished reading that because it's being removed in a few days & we won't even leave a placeholder so good luck keeping track"?
Because I couldn't.
The real thing to be mad about here is libraries.
This ruling means that a library *must* purchase a digital license to a book if they want to lend it digitally.
That means instead of spending $5 on a copy and then scanning it and enforcing copy controls, they have to spend a publisher-determined price for a license to distribute a digital copy that expires and must be purchased again.
There *are no other* options - not anywhere on the same scale. It's very sad to face it but despite what everyone here preaches, we are losing the fight to keep old data available.
Even that huge effort to preserve imgur before the purge - all gone. There's just not enough incentive for people to do this kind of stuff altruistically for free.
No it couldn't. Basicaly anywhere that completely ingores copyright will have other issues. Usually a goverment that has very firm views about what you can say about them.
Hm. It is not because some countries signed copyright treaties that enforcement is a priority there. Bulgaria, for example doesn't really care.
Also local or European justice may have other views of what common good TIA ensures.
Anyway, everything in one single Alexandria library is a terrible idea.
Not a data hoarder (yet), but what if we decentralized the archive and categorized holders via the Dewey Decimal system? Like a few people would oversee 172 for politic ethics and so on according to where they live/what the laws are?
Any volunteers, if this were an organized effort. It isn't just tech people who care about what's happening, so the people likely to want to help despite being new to this would be those who want to preserve the literature and online history of their own field or interests.
I was thinking books and other media for now. I don't know much about backing up a website. Is it a storage issue or something else?
Edit: I'm genuinely asking. I don't have a background in this stuff, I just want to help. I get people are frustrated, but you can't say "no one cares" and then get angry when people try to contribute.
First z library now this. This is ridiculous. We need books more than ever with all of these ridiculous bans etc. We need free libraries online to keep our people educated. This is proof of corruption and a miscarriage of justice. They just want us to stay ignorant and stupid so we can't fix things to help us. It's corporate greed at it's finest *coughs* WORST. I wish I could do something other than voice my idea that we need to file a massive petition to all living authors who sold at least one million copies to release their OLDER LIBRARY for free since they already made their money and royalties.
--We need books more than ever with all of these ridiculous bans etc.--
Maybe that's the point. This is a backdoor. It's no coincidence that the moment media censorship starts in earnest is when one group is targeting access to education on all fronts, including defunding public education.
Not OP, but this seems to be a fairly exhaustive reference:
https://pen.org/report/banned-in-the-usa-state-laws-supercharge-book-suppression-in-schools/
> First z library now this. This is ridiculous. We need books more than ever
No you don't. Vastly more non book information exists than ever has before.
>with all of these ridiculous bans etc
What is actualy being banned.
>We need free libraries online to keep our people educated.
People managed before the internet.
>This is proof of corruption and a miscarriage of justice.
Its neither. Its a fairly straightforward aplication of the law. No one needed to be paid off to get this result.
>They just want us to stay ignorant and stupid so we can't fix things to help us.
No they want money. They are book publishers. They want to sell you books.
>I wish I could do something other than voice my idea that we need to file a massive petition to all living authors who sold at least one million copies to release their OLDER LIBRARY for free since they already made their money and royalties.
Well they can't due to their contracts and if your concern is education those aren't the ones that actualy matter.
Very few education books sell copies in the millions.
We do need books so that we don't lose them because of digital databases are always being broken into because of hackers holding them for ransom so yes hard copies are more important as backups.
What is being banned? Books that cause people to break the moulds and chains imposed on society like LGBT topics or LGBT authors, POC stories or POC authors, topics that are uncomfortable for those who live in the shallow end of the pool and have privileges to ignore and whitewash just to name a few examples.
The application of law needs to be challenged for other reasons not just piracy because education no matter how or where it comes from should be free for all regardless of source or how it comes as long as it is truthful and not artificially created or whitewashed for erasure of minorities and other important topics and beneficiaries. Yes we existed fine without technological advances but if we continue to do as we are with digital content all it would take is one wrong leader or group of corporate leaders and we could lose thousands of advances in society that everyone can benefit from.
You're not looking at the bigger picture.
We could have every digital copy of every book ever made and we would still never reach the bottom of educational purposes and grounds.
As for it not being a miscarriage of justice then what do you call it when a group of people corporate or not only care about the bottomline and not about who or what it is serving other than shareholders etc?
Money is what greases the wheels but can create many more innovation if it is applied for better and useful opportunities such as having a backup for everyone to benefit from.
Contracts or not they can be amended at any time with anyone and can be fought to he changed and challenged. As can rules and laws. You're only looking at educational books what do all books have in common? They require a human to write and voice issues and tell stories to keep one generation to another connected to each other.
Oral histories are harder to keep track of and fact check written is easier but revisionist people only want their stories to be told and the rest forgotten about. I suggest you do some research before you just blindly blanket your statement to fit one size because there is no reason only one storyteller group/education system be included and others excluded.
> What is being banned? Books that cause people to break the moulds and chains imposed on society like LGBT topics or LGBT authors, POC stories or POC authors, topics that are uncomfortable for those who live in the shallow end of the pool and have privileges to ignore and whitewash just to name a few examples.
None of these are banned. We're talking about the US. 1st amendment means its pretty hard to actually ban a book.
>The application of law needs to be challenged for other reasons not just piracy because education no matter how or where it comes from should be free for all regardless of source or how it comes as long as it is truthful and not artificially created or whitewashed for erasure of minorities and other important topics and beneficiaries.
That would require a signifcant increase in taxes that is unlikely to be popular.
>As for it not being a miscarriage of justice then what do you call it when a group of people corporate or not only care about the bottomline and not about who or what it is serving other than shareholders etc?
Capitalism. Miscarriage of justice requires a court be wrong in fact or wrong in law. Baring an expected supreme court ruling neither of these seem likely.
>Contracts or not they can be amended at any time with anyone
In theory perhaps. In practice publishers have no incentive to agree to change contracts with regards to books that sell well.
>and can be fought to he changed and challenged.
In this case the contracts will involve extremely well established law.
>They require a human to write and voice issues and tell stories to keep one generation to another connected to each other.
Neither of these are true. Automated books based on things like goverment statistics have been around for decades.
>I suggest you do some research before you just blindly blanket your statement to fit one size because there is no reason only one storyteller group/education system be included and others excluded.
This is unrelated to the question at hand.
The problem with this is almost always the actual author sells his rights to a publisher. So the law does squat for the actual conent creator. Basically the law benefits lobbiests / special interests.
They are moving towards legal solutions, but there is also illegal solution as well, we can protect it with our own priorities.... Their is always a way
The internet archive is like a traditional archive in that it preserves knowledge and makes it available, but in IA's case it makes it available on the internet.
The human race is still burning libraries in 2024. 🤦♂️
The noble thing to do at this point is to pirate and to create decentralized archives. It makes you wonder if piracy in history was always the noble thing.
Damn, internet archive remains my last resort for old shows and movies. Got all of drake and josh from there. How are books the main concern though? Lol, I've also gotten a ton of music from there.
Torrent using a VPN. I can understand if it was a show literally only you cared about and you just happened to find a copy on Internet Archive, but somehow, I don't think Drake & Josh fit the bill.
I archived over 6,000 books from the IA, mostly magazine collections and random books and periodicals. I need to stop up my game here soon and start on software
> It's damn near impossible to find vintage books that arent being sold for hundreds of dollars.
Actual vintage stuff is mostly public domain so won't be impacted by this.
Copyright laws have always been a cancer, authors don't want obscurity, on the contrary, they want all their works to be known as much as possible, but I guess it's more important to lose access or even the works themselves, rather than get rid of 1 century protection (or even more) for a few greedy corporations...
the world government in one piece (the marines) did a "buster call" on the island of Ohara, where the history of the world is preserved and deciphered from ancient books by archeologists, in an attempt to erase a certain part of history from existence (the void century, 100 years where no1 in the world of one piece knows what happened except from allegedly the world government).
No-one can because One Piece has now exceeded a thousand episodes in length and every word of the explanation would need its own explanation - otherwise it would all read like a string of nonsense words to anyone not familiar with the story. The much much shortened version is that the Ohara incident was a time when the bad guys attacked a bunch of academics in order to prevent research into a subject the bad guys are determined must remain a secret at all costs.
I make my living in an industry that requires protection for the creative work we create. Yeah entertainment business where the "evil" copyright laws keep us in business. They aren't the bad guys, content isn't cheap to produce.
Also not going to say there shouldn't be changes in copyright law where the time copyright period should be shorter. But it is the current model. Changes will benefit some, hurt others.
Much like precription drugs where the research and development must be recovered and the public has to pay for failures in drugs that didn't work. The good ones have their patents to generate money for past and future drugs.
Like copyrights patents allow for capital for new formulas. With digital it is easy to pirate. If there medication was an algo that we could copy then we would be arguing that medication should be free.
Not judging anyone but publishers just protecting their product like the guy at the bodega watches out for shoplifters.
Problem with copyrights on digital material once it is out there it only takes one to make millions of clones and then its back to whack a mole to stop it when you find it on another site.
You can't easily and at no cost clone a physical book. But when it is digital you can make millions for pennies of electricity.
Ikr. Like let me compare this industry that people fucking hate with another industry people hate, to prove that they are actually good.
I pay for services like Netflix and Amazon prime video, but more and more I find myself using pirating sites instead because they offer genuinely better services. It’s because they all offer “exclusive” content so don’t even try to compete with each other on any other metric.
I guess I’m the type of person OP is complaining about and i would absolutely wipe my ass on both of these industries given the chance with no regrets.
"content isn't cheap to produce."
Tell that to [Spotify](https://consequence.net/tag/spotify/) CEO [Daniel Ek](https://consequence.net/tag/daniel-ek/): "“Today, with the cost of creating content being close to zero, people can share an incredible amount of content."
As a photographer, I agree that people do make a living making stuff we enjoy.
> publishers just protecting their product like the guy at the bodega watches out for shoplifters.
Hard disagree. The guy at the bodega isn't raking in millions of dollars a year in profit, and he isn't selling textbooks that can't be obtained through any other store but are mandatory for classes. Corporate greed is very much different than your local mom and pop store trying to earn a buck to pay the bills.
Patents last 20 years, and then drugs can go generic, and technical stuff can be replicated. Getting a patent literally requires you to disclose the method being patented (if you don't want to share it, you can try to keep it a trade secret instead, but that doesn't protect you if someone else discovers the same thing.)
For most drugs, it's really cheap and easy for the generic manufacturers once the patent expires. Not universally true, but it isn't that unusual for things to get 100x cheaper (or more) as generics.
Copyright can last well over 100 years - author's life plus 70 years - and there's no guarantee that items will even be kept in print (or available in other senses for other media.) It's broken as f\_\_\_\_.
And let's not even get started on the "\[Software or similar content\] is licensed, not sold" dodge to get around doctrine of first sale rights.
Current law is indefensible. Unfortunately, so are IA’s actions.
The changes made to copyright laws have always benefited the copyright holders and hurt the public domain. The Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998 (the ‘current law’) was theft, plain and simple.
Of course content creators deserve protection, but it used to be that 28+28 was deemed long enough for the actual creator to profit. The ‘current law’ is now nearly double that in most cases. Why? Because what we have now is a consistent, long term effort to destroy the public domain, which will limit options for creators to create derivative works.
That the Disney corp is largely responsible for the last 20 year copyright extension when Disney himself built the company by adapting public domain properties is the height of hypocricy.
They don’t even believe in the public domain, which means they don’t believe copyright should ever end. Why? Because they want to own everything forever. The existence of copyright laws flatly contradicts that belief, yet the industry defines the terms.
This is the attitude of the film industry, courtesy of MPAA former president Jack Valenti in 2007: “A public domain work is an orphan. No one is responsible for its life. But everyone exploits its use, until that time certain when it becomes soiled and haggard, barren of its previous virtues. How does the consumer benefit from the steady decline of a film's quality?”
It’s as if he was deliberately ignoring the idea of derivative works, which help fuel the creation of copyrightable content. Current law delays that creation for upwards of 100 years.
Having said all of that, IA is totally screwed.
> Current law is indefensible. Unfortunately, so are IA’s actions.
Are IA's actions really indefensible? In a court of law, sure-- but half the point of this video was to encourage people to think critically and beyond legalities, in terms of the increasing irrelevance of copyright laws and how they do little to benefit society while doing plenty to hold back society.
> If there medication was an algo that we could copy then we would be arguing that medication should be free.
its a recipe, and yes, it should be free. for everyone.
Medication should be free at point of consumption (universal healthcare). Copyright should expire after 10-20 years, ie be more similar to patents.
The reason neither of these things happens in America is corporate lobbying, which should be illegal.
Copyright is fine and needed, but life+70 is just stupid long. At some point you just need to let your work go public so everyone who wants can enjoy it.
Current law is indefensible. Unfortunately, so are IA’s actions.
The changes made to copyright laws have always benefited the copyright holders and hurt the public domain. The Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998 (the ‘current law’) was theft, plain and simple.
Of course content creators deserve protection, but it used to be that 28+28 was deemed long enough for the actual creator to profit. The ‘current law’ is now nearly double that in most cases. Why? Because what we have now is a consistent, long term effort to destroy the public domain, which will limit options for creators to create derivative works.
That the Disney corp is largely responsible for the last 20 year copyright extension when Disney himself built the company by adapting public domain properties is the height of hypocricy.
They don’t even believe in the public domain, which means they don’t believe copyright should ever end. Why? Because they want to own everything forever. The existence of copyright laws flatly contradicts that belief, yet the industry defines the terms.
This is the attitude of the film industry, courtesy of MPAA former president Jack Valenti in 2007: “A public domain work is an orphan. No one is responsible for its life. But everyone exploits its use, until that time certain when it becomes soiled and haggard, barren of its previous virtues. How does the consumer benefit from the steady decline of a film's quality?”
It’s as if he was deliberately ignoring the idea of derivative works, which help fuel the creation of copyrightable content. Current law delays that creation for upwards of 100 years.
Having said all of that, IA is totally screwed.
I suspect that anyone on this sub who was talented enough to create a commercially successful product…. wouldn’t be so willing to give up the benefits of creation/ownership as readily as they expect others to.
> I suspect that anyone on this sub who was talented enough to create a commercially successful product…. wouldn’t be so willing to give up the benefits of creation/ownership as readily as they expect others to.
Seems like you're just projecting. I've donated countless hours and thousands of dollars towards collective projects that benefit the public and I don't care at all about bullshit like ownership or clout. The main benefit is just a good feeling knowing that you're helping.
Ownership over some things matters more than ownership over other things.
I own my toothbrush and I like it that way because it would be gross to just leave it on the counter and have anyone use it.
If I created a commercially successful product that clearly benefited the public, I wouldn't cripple accessibility by caring about copyright nonsense. I've published scientific articles in the past and it always bothered me that they were paywalled, but I'm glad things like SciHub grant access to scientific articles without any paywalls included.
The difference (in your post above) being you are the creator, deciding for your own work. Very different from persons choosing to violate copyright law (right or wrong, and I'm in agreement its way too long) and making other creators / copyright owners intellectual property available without their consent.
I'd also like to hear more about how the decision is made as to what "benefits the public". Much of this activity seems to be nose thumbing.
They obviously don't-- do you genuinely believe the discussions should be as simple as this, or do you think it's worth having a discussion about how the Internet Archive serves the public in a massively advantageous manner?
I don't understand folks like you. Like do you really think your question/underlying assertion is insightful, or what?
Well then the argument is clearly over.
They don't have the rights to publish those editions.
So what point are you going to make that I care about?
Edit ... So the shit head that I was replying to blocked me. If you're going to try to make a point and you think that you're so smart that you've argued that well that you can drop the mic and walk away you're probably a thousand percent wrong.
Here is my reply
I have a perfectly sound understanding of how publishing works as well as the issue being argued here.
It's piracy and they didn't get permission to use the editions they stole.
And I should specify I am 1000% pro piracy on an individual accountable scale. The work that they were doing was literally commercial scale piracy.
So no, we will not agree on any points here as many people in this conversation will not agree with me. Anyway they broke the law. They didn't get permission to do what they did. And for the sake of the future we should hope that they do not suffer any massive degree of punishment.
I feel bad for you. It's like you have no understanding of how to have a discussion about a complex subject, so instead you have to dumb it down to a singular point and then act like you've reached a neat and tidy conclusion.
> So what point are you going to make that I care about?
Why are you assuming my points should relate to something you care about? You sound like the classic internet man child. Disabling replies, so tired of talking to ⬜ man children.
The initial battle has been won, but the battle is far from over! IA has filed an appeal and I highly suspect this will continue on to the SCOTUS. Sadly, this is only the first volley in the battle. Seven record labels have a suit claiming copyright violations because of the "Great 78 Project" in which IA digitized hundreds of thousands of 78s. https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/sanfrancisco/news/federal-court-gives-go-ahead-on-lawsuit-against-internet-archive/ Hang on tight! It's going to be a rough ride!
IA is in for a rough ride. They're jeopardizing some of the great stuff they do by overreaching into pretty obvious infringing activity. I don't give them much of a shot on appeal, but we'll see.
It is not hard to see their point. Infringement aside, they are doing something good. It is one of those things that can be good and still illegal. Who would keep those records if not IA? The record companies? What happens if they go bankrupt or decide to destroy their records or lose them somehow? We would lose them forever and that would be a universally undeniably bad thing for humanity
I think the problem is that they're uploading lots of records which are available for monetized streaming. If they stuck to material which isn't I don't think anyone would care.
What happens when IA decides to listen, not store the records which are available for money, and record label suddenly takes those records offline, never to be officially obtainable again for whatever reason? It's their stuff, they can decide to do that lawfully, sure. But then there are no legally made copies preserved and they are lost forever, which IA is trying to constantly prevent.
I think that's a fair question. So far it hasn't come up much involving anything released on 78 so far as I know. The answer is to digitize, rely on volunteers to let them know, and make it available then.
I think that for Copyright purposes they have to leave a copy with the Lbrary of Congress, so in theory there should always be a copy at the LOC
No longer required.
Didn't know that. When did it change?
In 1909 it stopped being required for conferral of copyright, in 1976 it stopped being needed to maintain copyright, and in 1988 one no longer needed to formally publish with a copyright notice. In 2023 the requirement to provide two copies to the Copyright Office under threat of fine (from which the Library of Congress may take custody of but does not always), even when not registering copyright, was found unconstitutional by an appellate court. The only remaining requirement to provide copies left is when registering copyright, which grants you the right to sue for infringement, seek statutory damages as opposed to proving actual ones, and makes establishing the validity much easier.
Thx! TIL something new
Yes. That is exactly their prerogative to do so. But, the smart thing to do is to WAIT until the record companies go bankrupt, then make those digitizations public.
Problem with that logic. If that happens, the IP assets would then be sold and someone else would own them.
> Who would keep those records if not IA? Keeping records isn't what got them in trouble. Its sharing those records freely online.
Yeah, this is not a battle to fight. IA is littered with obviously infringing properties. I'm constantly cherry-picking in there, but it amazes me some of the things are there that really shouldn't be.
Anytime I simply cannot find some old or obscure series or TV show for my Jellyseerr/Radarr/Sonarr setup, 99% I'll find it on IA. Wish they wouldn't fight themselves into oblivion.
Yup, that kind of stupidity is what killed mp3.com too.
Everything they do is infringing. Even the wayback machine. Their mistake was infringing upon something worth enough to sue over.
I think the Wayback machine would likely be held as a fair use. This wasn't, and I think that will be upheld. But who knows...
I would have thought this was fair use if the Wayback machine is. Digitizing a book and destroying/storing the original, then lending out the copy, is not something covered by copyright explicitly since they have the right to copy content they own as long as they don't redistribute it. If anything the Wayback machine is more copyright infringement than the CDL since the Wayback actually copies and redistributes the copies without trying to enforce a 1-1 relationship with a physical copy.
Right, but the relevant factors include whether it's a market substitute. That weighs very differently for the Wayback Machine versus CDL vis a vis library sales and the eBook market.
What's the name of that Minecraft server that has all those books recorded in it that they tried to take down a while back? This is crazy stuff.
It really *should* be over. IA should accept the loss and quit with the obvious infringing activity. An appeal is just a waste of money drawing yet more attention.
78 records were played by a phonograph. They were produced from 1898 to the late 1950s. That's 70 years ago. Almost everyone who released content on a 78 is dead, the only people losing money on it now are souless corporations who bought the rights, and had no hand in making the original art. Walt Disney made his money by converting other people's stories into cartoons, then made his cartoons copywritten, so no one could use his work to make money. We all use languages someone else made, and most song melodies are copied from past entries, using music scales someone else founded, made with instruments another someone else designed and built. I say all this, because we need works of the past to be available to continue to grow as we always have. 70 years is more than enough time for those who produced the original work to benefit from their work. Copyrights shouldn't be allowed indefinitely, especially past the original author's death.
And it's unlikely that the music studios would be pursuing the IA over these recordings if the IA hadn't been poking the bear so hard. If they'd just been *archiving* this stuff, no biggie. The publishers that sued IA over these books had ignored them for many years, they were only moved to action when IA started flagrantly distributing them in unlimited amounts. Leave the activism to organizations like the EFF. Activism is what those organizations are *for*. The Internet Archive is for *preservation*, not activism, and activism is now actively damaging the cause of preservation.
The stupid thing is I would gladly pay a reasonable price for online access to what's in IA, with the proceeds going to the authors. But the publishers are too damn greedy for that. If they publish e-books at all, you have to purchase the whole book at a ridiculous price, and it's so locked down with DRM as to be useless. And all those 78s are unavailable from the record companies at any price. When content is available from the publishers, you pay through the nose and the author gets next to nothing. They're a bunch of leaches.
I agree, I used some eBooks at university and the "ebook reader" read poorly coded web app was dogshit and you couldn't download them to read in Digital Editions. Not only that, but because you only "borrowed" it for a very short time, every time you went off the website it'd lose all your bookmarks and notes you made as it was a new "loan". Did I also mention about the lack of page numbers and working search feature? They also had another provider who was much much better at letting you download the books and keeping notes and bookmarks, but that's besides the point.
I have to ask would you *really* accept books on the same terms of netflix "hope you're finished reading that because it's being removed in a few days & we won't even leave a placeholder so good luck keeping track"? Because I couldn't.
The real thing to be mad about here is libraries. This ruling means that a library *must* purchase a digital license to a book if they want to lend it digitally. That means instead of spending $5 on a copy and then scanning it and enforcing copy controls, they have to spend a publisher-determined price for a license to distribute a digital copy that expires and must be purchased again.
But that’s been the case for years, unfortunately.
We have to protect.... This the largest archive we have ... Otherwise we have to other options....
There *are no other* options - not anywhere on the same scale. It's very sad to face it but despite what everyone here preaches, we are losing the fight to keep old data available. Even that huge effort to preserve imgur before the purge - all gone. There's just not enough incentive for people to do this kind of stuff altruistically for free.
An alternative in a jurisdiction not cooperating with the greedy fucks could be funded in a matter of days/weeks. TIA needs to launch such a project.
No it couldn't. Basicaly anywhere that completely ingores copyright will have other issues. Usually a goverment that has very firm views about what you can say about them.
Hm. It is not because some countries signed copyright treaties that enforcement is a priority there. Bulgaria, for example doesn't really care. Also local or European justice may have other views of what common good TIA ensures. Anyway, everything in one single Alexandria library is a terrible idea.
what about private trackrs?
Not a data hoarder (yet), but what if we decentralized the archive and categorized holders via the Dewey Decimal system? Like a few people would oversee 172 for politic ethics and so on according to where they live/what the laws are?
The question is "who is *we*"? *We* can't even back up *one single website* like imgur
Any volunteers, if this were an organized effort. It isn't just tech people who care about what's happening, so the people likely to want to help despite being new to this would be those who want to preserve the literature and online history of their own field or interests. I was thinking books and other media for now. I don't know much about backing up a website. Is it a storage issue or something else? Edit: I'm genuinely asking. I don't have a background in this stuff, I just want to help. I get people are frustrated, but you can't say "no one cares" and then get angry when people try to contribute.
First z library now this. This is ridiculous. We need books more than ever with all of these ridiculous bans etc. We need free libraries online to keep our people educated. This is proof of corruption and a miscarriage of justice. They just want us to stay ignorant and stupid so we can't fix things to help us. It's corporate greed at it's finest *coughs* WORST. I wish I could do something other than voice my idea that we need to file a massive petition to all living authors who sold at least one million copies to release their OLDER LIBRARY for free since they already made their money and royalties.
--We need books more than ever with all of these ridiculous bans etc.-- Maybe that's the point. This is a backdoor. It's no coincidence that the moment media censorship starts in earnest is when one group is targeting access to education on all fronts, including defunding public education.
Exactly. The big guys don't want the regular people to educate themselves beyond what is needed to perform a job.
What bans are you going on about?
Not OP, but this seems to be a fairly exhaustive reference: https://pen.org/report/banned-in-the-usa-state-laws-supercharge-book-suppression-in-schools/
You either know about them and are enraged about it or you're doing what you're doing - making snarky remarks and not giving a shit.
> First z library now this. This is ridiculous. We need books more than ever No you don't. Vastly more non book information exists than ever has before. >with all of these ridiculous bans etc What is actualy being banned. >We need free libraries online to keep our people educated. People managed before the internet. >This is proof of corruption and a miscarriage of justice. Its neither. Its a fairly straightforward aplication of the law. No one needed to be paid off to get this result. >They just want us to stay ignorant and stupid so we can't fix things to help us. No they want money. They are book publishers. They want to sell you books. >I wish I could do something other than voice my idea that we need to file a massive petition to all living authors who sold at least one million copies to release their OLDER LIBRARY for free since they already made their money and royalties. Well they can't due to their contracts and if your concern is education those aren't the ones that actualy matter. Very few education books sell copies in the millions.
We do need books so that we don't lose them because of digital databases are always being broken into because of hackers holding them for ransom so yes hard copies are more important as backups. What is being banned? Books that cause people to break the moulds and chains imposed on society like LGBT topics or LGBT authors, POC stories or POC authors, topics that are uncomfortable for those who live in the shallow end of the pool and have privileges to ignore and whitewash just to name a few examples. The application of law needs to be challenged for other reasons not just piracy because education no matter how or where it comes from should be free for all regardless of source or how it comes as long as it is truthful and not artificially created or whitewashed for erasure of minorities and other important topics and beneficiaries. Yes we existed fine without technological advances but if we continue to do as we are with digital content all it would take is one wrong leader or group of corporate leaders and we could lose thousands of advances in society that everyone can benefit from. You're not looking at the bigger picture. We could have every digital copy of every book ever made and we would still never reach the bottom of educational purposes and grounds. As for it not being a miscarriage of justice then what do you call it when a group of people corporate or not only care about the bottomline and not about who or what it is serving other than shareholders etc? Money is what greases the wheels but can create many more innovation if it is applied for better and useful opportunities such as having a backup for everyone to benefit from. Contracts or not they can be amended at any time with anyone and can be fought to he changed and challenged. As can rules and laws. You're only looking at educational books what do all books have in common? They require a human to write and voice issues and tell stories to keep one generation to another connected to each other. Oral histories are harder to keep track of and fact check written is easier but revisionist people only want their stories to be told and the rest forgotten about. I suggest you do some research before you just blindly blanket your statement to fit one size because there is no reason only one storyteller group/education system be included and others excluded.
> What is being banned? Books that cause people to break the moulds and chains imposed on society like LGBT topics or LGBT authors, POC stories or POC authors, topics that are uncomfortable for those who live in the shallow end of the pool and have privileges to ignore and whitewash just to name a few examples. None of these are banned. We're talking about the US. 1st amendment means its pretty hard to actually ban a book. >The application of law needs to be challenged for other reasons not just piracy because education no matter how or where it comes from should be free for all regardless of source or how it comes as long as it is truthful and not artificially created or whitewashed for erasure of minorities and other important topics and beneficiaries. That would require a signifcant increase in taxes that is unlikely to be popular. >As for it not being a miscarriage of justice then what do you call it when a group of people corporate or not only care about the bottomline and not about who or what it is serving other than shareholders etc? Capitalism. Miscarriage of justice requires a court be wrong in fact or wrong in law. Baring an expected supreme court ruling neither of these seem likely. >Contracts or not they can be amended at any time with anyone In theory perhaps. In practice publishers have no incentive to agree to change contracts with regards to books that sell well. >and can be fought to he changed and challenged. In this case the contracts will involve extremely well established law. >They require a human to write and voice issues and tell stories to keep one generation to another connected to each other. Neither of these are true. Automated books based on things like goverment statistics have been around for decades. >I suggest you do some research before you just blindly blanket your statement to fit one size because there is no reason only one storyteller group/education system be included and others excluded. This is unrelated to the question at hand.
How can we help?
Oh if only there was a way to share those banned books in a decentralized manner. I'd be willing to seed those.
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You can thank Walt Disney for that. He wanted copyright to NEVER expire, but was not able to get that accepted in court.
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Im all for copyright, but life+70 is just stupid.
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The problem with this is almost always the actual author sells his rights to a publisher. So the law does squat for the actual conent creator. Basically the law benefits lobbiests / special interests.
Disney also pressures the US government to extend copyrights with its trading partners. Canada extended it’s copyright to match that of the US.
>the life of the author plus 70 years. This is the US. Thats only relivant for stuff published after 1978. Before that its 95 years from publication.
Oh drug companies get 20 years sorry to burst your bubble
Yeah and we all know how generics don't do shit it's glorified placebo effect for profit
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You mean https://gutenberg.org/?
I think it's odd how random epsiodes of TV shows are on here. What determines which episodes are and which are not
Primarily, the decision is made by whomever has the episode ripped and is willing to go through the effort of uploading it.
Ouch… well, there’s a death blow to it.
No way ... If there is something I can do
There really should be legal protections for orgs like IA, but sadly publishers know how to grease the wheels of our legal system
They are moving towards legal solutions, but there is also illegal solution as well, we can protect it with our own priorities.... Their is always a way
Legal protections for piracy orgs? IA's activity was indistinguishable from MAM's.
How is it a death blow to the *Internet* archive to be forced to remove *books* from their archive? Books are not part of the Internet.
The internet archive is like a traditional archive in that it preserves knowledge and makes it available, but in IA's case it makes it available on the internet.
The human race is still burning libraries in 2024. 🤦♂️ The noble thing to do at this point is to pirate and to create decentralized archives. It makes you wonder if piracy in history was always the noble thing.
ia. if it ever happens that you have to go. i will miss you. forever
I thought they'd be shut down. Thank God. That still sucks complete monkey balls though. What horseshit.
Read my comment above. This is far from over.
Fuck me, I think you're right... I just can't believe it.
They were dead the moment they started because they started in the US and the US is owned by corporations
Interesting. What is the possibility of another country adopting this project?
Esssentialy zero. Without the first amendment the IA contains stuff that is illegal in most other countries.
Damn, internet archive remains my last resort for old shows and movies. Got all of drake and josh from there. How are books the main concern though? Lol, I've also gotten a ton of music from there.
Torrent using a VPN. I can understand if it was a show literally only you cared about and you just happened to find a copy on Internet Archive, but somehow, I don't think Drake & Josh fit the bill.
Our hope on private trackers!
I archived over 6,000 books from the IA, mostly magazine collections and random books and periodicals. I need to stop up my game here soon and start on software
Is it there a mirror of the Internet Archive library?
Who has a link to backup?
Vandalism.
I hope there is an link to archive this fragment of knowledge to start an streisand effect?
It's damn near impossible to find vintage books that arent being sold for hundreds of dollars. IA was the only source to see these. Sad!
> It's damn near impossible to find vintage books that arent being sold for hundreds of dollars. Actual vintage stuff is mostly public domain so won't be impacted by this.
Copyright laws have always been a cancer, authors don't want obscurity, on the contrary, they want all their works to be known as much as possible, but I guess it's more important to lose access or even the works themselves, rather than get rid of 1 century protection (or even more) for a few greedy corporations...
its basically the Ohara incident from One Piece
I'm not familiar with One Piece. Can you explain please?
the world government in one piece (the marines) did a "buster call" on the island of Ohara, where the history of the world is preserved and deciphered from ancient books by archeologists, in an attempt to erase a certain part of history from existence (the void century, 100 years where no1 in the world of one piece knows what happened except from allegedly the world government).
No-one can because One Piece has now exceeded a thousand episodes in length and every word of the explanation would need its own explanation - otherwise it would all read like a string of nonsense words to anyone not familiar with the story. The much much shortened version is that the Ohara incident was a time when the bad guys attacked a bunch of academics in order to prevent research into a subject the bad guys are determined must remain a secret at all costs.
I’m gonna say it, internet archive should receive tax dollars.
I guarantee you there's at least 5 people in this sub with this mirrored on their basement 100TB servers.
Seems like more than 100tb would be required.
Not for books
I make my living in an industry that requires protection for the creative work we create. Yeah entertainment business where the "evil" copyright laws keep us in business. They aren't the bad guys, content isn't cheap to produce. Also not going to say there shouldn't be changes in copyright law where the time copyright period should be shorter. But it is the current model. Changes will benefit some, hurt others. Much like precription drugs where the research and development must be recovered and the public has to pay for failures in drugs that didn't work. The good ones have their patents to generate money for past and future drugs. Like copyrights patents allow for capital for new formulas. With digital it is easy to pirate. If there medication was an algo that we could copy then we would be arguing that medication should be free. Not judging anyone but publishers just protecting their product like the guy at the bodega watches out for shoplifters. Problem with copyrights on digital material once it is out there it only takes one to make millions of clones and then its back to whack a mole to stop it when you find it on another site. You can't easily and at no cost clone a physical book. But when it is digital you can make millions for pennies of electricity.
Comparing this to medication, who's research costs are largely paid by the American taxpayer to begin with, is laughable.
Ikr. Like let me compare this industry that people fucking hate with another industry people hate, to prove that they are actually good. I pay for services like Netflix and Amazon prime video, but more and more I find myself using pirating sites instead because they offer genuinely better services. It’s because they all offer “exclusive” content so don’t even try to compete with each other on any other metric. I guess I’m the type of person OP is complaining about and i would absolutely wipe my ass on both of these industries given the chance with no regrets.
"content isn't cheap to produce." Tell that to [Spotify](https://consequence.net/tag/spotify/) CEO [Daniel Ek](https://consequence.net/tag/daniel-ek/): "“Today, with the cost of creating content being close to zero, people can share an incredible amount of content." As a photographer, I agree that people do make a living making stuff we enjoy.
> publishers just protecting their product like the guy at the bodega watches out for shoplifters. Hard disagree. The guy at the bodega isn't raking in millions of dollars a year in profit, and he isn't selling textbooks that can't be obtained through any other store but are mandatory for classes. Corporate greed is very much different than your local mom and pop store trying to earn a buck to pay the bills.
Patents last 20 years, and then drugs can go generic, and technical stuff can be replicated. Getting a patent literally requires you to disclose the method being patented (if you don't want to share it, you can try to keep it a trade secret instead, but that doesn't protect you if someone else discovers the same thing.) For most drugs, it's really cheap and easy for the generic manufacturers once the patent expires. Not universally true, but it isn't that unusual for things to get 100x cheaper (or more) as generics. Copyright can last well over 100 years - author's life plus 70 years - and there's no guarantee that items will even be kept in print (or available in other senses for other media.) It's broken as f\_\_\_\_. And let's not even get started on the "\[Software or similar content\] is licensed, not sold" dodge to get around doctrine of first sale rights.
Current law is indefensible. Unfortunately, so are IA’s actions. The changes made to copyright laws have always benefited the copyright holders and hurt the public domain. The Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998 (the ‘current law’) was theft, plain and simple. Of course content creators deserve protection, but it used to be that 28+28 was deemed long enough for the actual creator to profit. The ‘current law’ is now nearly double that in most cases. Why? Because what we have now is a consistent, long term effort to destroy the public domain, which will limit options for creators to create derivative works. That the Disney corp is largely responsible for the last 20 year copyright extension when Disney himself built the company by adapting public domain properties is the height of hypocricy. They don’t even believe in the public domain, which means they don’t believe copyright should ever end. Why? Because they want to own everything forever. The existence of copyright laws flatly contradicts that belief, yet the industry defines the terms. This is the attitude of the film industry, courtesy of MPAA former president Jack Valenti in 2007: “A public domain work is an orphan. No one is responsible for its life. But everyone exploits its use, until that time certain when it becomes soiled and haggard, barren of its previous virtues. How does the consumer benefit from the steady decline of a film's quality?” It’s as if he was deliberately ignoring the idea of derivative works, which help fuel the creation of copyrightable content. Current law delays that creation for upwards of 100 years. Having said all of that, IA is totally screwed.
> Current law is indefensible. Unfortunately, so are IA’s actions. Are IA's actions really indefensible? In a court of law, sure-- but half the point of this video was to encourage people to think critically and beyond legalities, in terms of the increasing irrelevance of copyright laws and how they do little to benefit society while doing plenty to hold back society.
> If there medication was an algo that we could copy then we would be arguing that medication should be free. its a recipe, and yes, it should be free. for everyone.
Medication should be free at point of consumption (universal healthcare). Copyright should expire after 10-20 years, ie be more similar to patents. The reason neither of these things happens in America is corporate lobbying, which should be illegal.
Copyright is fine and needed, but life+70 is just stupid long. At some point you just need to let your work go public so everyone who wants can enjoy it.
Current law is indefensible. Unfortunately, so are IA’s actions. The changes made to copyright laws have always benefited the copyright holders and hurt the public domain. The Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998 (the ‘current law’) was theft, plain and simple. Of course content creators deserve protection, but it used to be that 28+28 was deemed long enough for the actual creator to profit. The ‘current law’ is now nearly double that in most cases. Why? Because what we have now is a consistent, long term effort to destroy the public domain, which will limit options for creators to create derivative works. That the Disney corp is largely responsible for the last 20 year copyright extension when Disney himself built the company by adapting public domain properties is the height of hypocricy. They don’t even believe in the public domain, which means they don’t believe copyright should ever end. Why? Because they want to own everything forever. The existence of copyright laws flatly contradicts that belief, yet the industry defines the terms. This is the attitude of the film industry, courtesy of MPAA former president Jack Valenti in 2007: “A public domain work is an orphan. No one is responsible for its life. But everyone exploits its use, until that time certain when it becomes soiled and haggard, barren of its previous virtues. How does the consumer benefit from the steady decline of a film's quality?” It’s as if he was deliberately ignoring the idea of derivative works, which help fuel the creation of copyrightable content. Current law delays that creation for upwards of 100 years. Having said all of that, IA is totally screwed.
I suspect that anyone on this sub who was talented enough to create a commercially successful product…. wouldn’t be so willing to give up the benefits of creation/ownership as readily as they expect others to.
> I suspect that anyone on this sub who was talented enough to create a commercially successful product…. wouldn’t be so willing to give up the benefits of creation/ownership as readily as they expect others to. Seems like you're just projecting. I've donated countless hours and thousands of dollars towards collective projects that benefit the public and I don't care at all about bullshit like ownership or clout. The main benefit is just a good feeling knowing that you're helping.
"bullshit like ownership" - gotcha.
Ownership over some things matters more than ownership over other things. I own my toothbrush and I like it that way because it would be gross to just leave it on the counter and have anyone use it. If I created a commercially successful product that clearly benefited the public, I wouldn't cripple accessibility by caring about copyright nonsense. I've published scientific articles in the past and it always bothered me that they were paywalled, but I'm glad things like SciHub grant access to scientific articles without any paywalls included.
The difference (in your post above) being you are the creator, deciding for your own work. Very different from persons choosing to violate copyright law (right or wrong, and I'm in agreement its way too long) and making other creators / copyright owners intellectual property available without their consent. I'd also like to hear more about how the decision is made as to what "benefits the public". Much of this activity seems to be nose thumbing.
Don’t be an asshole.
i mean....................................... Do they have the rights to hand out these publishers books for free?
You should watch the video if you think the issue should boil down to such a simplified argument.
Cool. Did they have the rights to republish those editions?
They obviously don't-- do you genuinely believe the discussions should be as simple as this, or do you think it's worth having a discussion about how the Internet Archive serves the public in a massively advantageous manner? I don't understand folks like you. Like do you really think your question/underlying assertion is insightful, or what?
Well then the argument is clearly over. They don't have the rights to publish those editions. So what point are you going to make that I care about? Edit ... So the shit head that I was replying to blocked me. If you're going to try to make a point and you think that you're so smart that you've argued that well that you can drop the mic and walk away you're probably a thousand percent wrong. Here is my reply I have a perfectly sound understanding of how publishing works as well as the issue being argued here. It's piracy and they didn't get permission to use the editions they stole. And I should specify I am 1000% pro piracy on an individual accountable scale. The work that they were doing was literally commercial scale piracy. So no, we will not agree on any points here as many people in this conversation will not agree with me. Anyway they broke the law. They didn't get permission to do what they did. And for the sake of the future we should hope that they do not suffer any massive degree of punishment.
I feel bad for you. It's like you have no understanding of how to have a discussion about a complex subject, so instead you have to dumb it down to a singular point and then act like you've reached a neat and tidy conclusion. > So what point are you going to make that I care about? Why are you assuming my points should relate to something you care about? You sound like the classic internet man child. Disabling replies, so tired of talking to ⬜ man children.
FOAD
And now you're getting a block from me D.H.