It would help if we knew even just a smidgin of what these titles are.
this post was submitted on 17 Jun 2024
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How many are republishings? Just curious
There's absolutely a good number of duplicates among the list they shared.
The bigger implication is of the 4 publishers in this lawsuit, 3 of them are in The Big Five publishers, who hold rights to the vast majority of books (60-80-ish % of English language books) from this century and probably a good chunk of the last one. If they win, this is the tip of the iceberg.
More like IP of the iceberg unfortunately.older books should be made available and not hidden behind licenses and unavailability because of greed
I largely agree. I don't know the best solution for copyright. On one hand, I don't think that necessarily the creators' kids deserve rights forever. They didn't make the stuff. But on the other hand, who does get the money after the creators are gone? The publisher in this case should get something for publishing physical materials or for marketing their wares that sell, but again, they didn't create it so someone should get something.
I do think that if nobody does anything with a work for x amount of time (maybe 10 years) then it should be fair game for anyone that does.
Even things like old games, if I download a Contra NES ROM, how am I hurting Nintendo or Konami?
If I download LotR, how am I ripping off Tolkien? I'm not stealing a hard copy. I could borrow it from a physical library. Why can't I borrow it from an electronic library? The person that deserves the rights to the literal story is dead. He doesn't care.
As time goes on, we should be simplifying laws, not creating more. The reductionist view is that content should be freely available as long as the IP isn't being developed/marketed still. And in order to prevent practices like Disney's vaulting we need a developed IP rotation of every X years to prevent IP hoarding. At it's root copyright law is rooted in greed, after you are done with the initial release, it just becomes part of everyone's culture.
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Why does that matter?
To determine the impact of losing access to them.
When I want to pirate books I go to Library Genesis for that so this doesn't impact me.
What would impact me is if IA loses enough of these lawsuits that the Wayback Machine goes offline. So maybe stop poking the bear, IA?
Perhaps you only care about the wayback machine, but there's more to the Internet Archive than that, and they shouldn't be expected to roll over and take it whenever some awful company decides to do a bit of digital book burning.
The linked article is specifically asking what impacts me. I am responding by explaining what impacts me.
Yes, IA has more than just the Wayback Machine. I'm not sure what your point is though. All of that is threatened by these lawsuits. Maybe if preserving that data is important IA should focus on preserving that data. Giving out unlimited copies to everyone is an unrelated secondary goal to preserving archives, so if a big company with a strong legal case comes along and says "stop giving out unlimited copies or we'll destroy you" then maybe stop giving out unlimited copies.
That's not "digital book burning." The opposite, in fact. It's acting to preserve digital books.
They don't care about your story of how losing their library of books doesn't impact you. I'm not sure why that wasn't obvious to you.
They asked:
We want to hear from you! How has losing access to these books affected your reading or research? What does it mean to you that these 500,000+ books are no longer available? Please share your story below.
There's no asterisk on that specifying "only answers that favor our lawsuit are desired."
Yes, thank you Captain Literal. I think it's very obvious to most people that they don't want stories that won't help them.
I think its an incredibly fair view point. If IA loses, and the way back machine goes down, because they keep losing these lawsuits, then it has absolutely affected this person.
To be quite honest, I even agree. The IA should be for preservation, not for piracy. Right now they're boarding that line of piracy, and tbh, I disagree with that as well. Id rather go to a pirate website to pirate my books, and go to the IA to see what has been preserved.
That means that if the Internet Archive and its partner libraries have only one copy of a book, then only one patron can borrow it at a time, just like other library lending.
Lending and renting stuff is not piracy! Many corporate suits want people to start believing this. but i remember going to the library and renting books, movies and games. it was not piracy back then, and it wont be now.
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There actually is an asterisk and most of us can see. Does this happen in your life often?
They are trying to say that people aren't using it for piracy, that they're using it for legitimate things like academic study. That's what they want stories from.
They also aren't poking the bear, they're appealing a lawsuit.
The lawsuit was the result of bear-poking. It's a result of their "National Emergency Library" that they briefly rolled out in 2020 where they took all the limits off of their "lending" and let people download as many copies as they wanted. Was "legitimate academic study" not possible before, with the old limits that weren't provoking lawsuits?
That is simply a lie.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), with co-counsel Morrison Foerster LLP, is defending the Internet Archive against a lawsuit that threatens its Controlled Digital Lending (CDL) program.
The Internet Archive is a nonprofit digital library, preserving and providing access to cultural artifacts of all kinds in electronic form. CDL allows people to check out digital copies of books for two weeks or less, and only permits patrons to check out as many copies as the Internet Archive and its partner libraries physically own. That means that if the Internet Archive and its partner libraries have only one copy of a book, then only one patron can borrow it at a time, just like other library lending. Through CDL, the Internet Archive is helping to foster research and learning by helping patrons access books and by keeping books in circulation when their publishers have lost interest in them.
Four publishers sued the Archive, alleging that CDL violates their copyrights. In their complaint, Hachette, HarperCollins, Wiley, and Penguin Random House claim CDL has cost their companies millions of dollars and is a threat to their businesses.
https://www.eff.org/cases/hachette-v-internet-archive
Why you told a lie that was so obviously false I don't know.
Here's the Wikipedia article on the lawsuit. From the opening paragraph:
Stemming from the creation of the National Emergency Library (NEL) during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, publishing companies Hachette Book Group, Penguin Random House, HarperCollins, and Wiley alleged that the Internet Archive's Open Library and National Emergency Library facilitated copyright infringement.
IA was using the CDL without any problems or complaints before the National Emergency Library incident, with the one-copy-at-a-time restriction in place. It was only after they took those limiters off that the lawsuit was launched.
What I said was true.
Basically what you're saying is big corporations found an opportunity and took it.
But the lawsuit was about CDL as a whole, not what happened in 2020.
Also, why you're trusting Wikipedia over the EFF is beyond me.
Yes, the lawsuit is about CDL as a whole. They could have sued IA years earlier. They could be suing libraries all over the place for using CDL. But they didn't, because the people using CDL were doing so in order to placate the publishers. It was an unspoken truce.
You can see a similar dynamic going on with fanfiction. A site like fanfiction.net is a gigantic pile of copyright violations, and yet you don't see it beset with lawsuits. That's because fanfiction.net isn't doing anything that would harm the income of the copyright holders or otherwise "poke the bear." You occasionally hear about fan projects getting shut down when they go "too far", however. Like what IA did in the case of the National Emergency Library.
Wikipedia has neutral point of view and verifiability policies. Everything written in their articles should be backed by external sources and if there are multiple sides to a story they should all be fairly represented. The EFF, on the other hand, is taking the IA's side in this and is motivated to make them sound better and the publishers to sound worse.
The Wikipedia article has 32 external sources cited for its contents. The EFF article has only two internal links, one of them leading to their lawyers' homepage and one linking to the motion that the EFF filed.
They sued the Internet Archive for doing the exact same thing libraries do, and only with books that are not in print. Much like why you trust Wikipedia over the EFF, why you think that's something worth defending I don't know.
So why aren't they suing libraries for doing those "exact same things?" Why target the IA specifically, and not other libraries?
Could it be that the IA did not in fact do the "exact same thing" as libraries?
why you think that's something worth defending I don't know.
I am not "defending" the publishers. They are the villains here. I think current copyright laws are insanely overreaching and have long ago lost the plot of what they were originally intended for.
This is like a horror movie where there's a slasher hiding in the house and the dumb protagonists say "let's split up to find him more quickly", and I'm shouting at the idiot who's going down into the dark basement alone. The slasher is the publishing companies and the idiot going down the stairs is the IA. It's entirely justified to shout at them for being an idiot and recommend that they just run away, without being accused of "defending" the slasher.
So why aren’t they suing libraries for doing those “exact same things?”
Because publishers suing every public library in America would take a lot of time since it would involve every separate library system and also wouldn't exactly look good from a PR perspective.
You really don't have a good eye for the obvious.
Exactly, it'd be bad PR. I've argued this before in other threads, the publishers don't want to destroy IA. They just want IA to not flagrantly interfere with their business. They only sued IA when IA poked them too hard for them to ignore.
You may note that the settlement agreement they reached with IA lets IA continue to host books that the publishers haven't released as ebooks themselves, for example. Even now they're not being as harsh as they could be.
As the husband of a librarian who is now a library administrator, you cannot be more wrong. If publishing companies had a way of shutting down all the public libraries in America or charge everyone a per-lending fee, they would absolutely do that. They hate public libraries. They are as hostile to them as they can be without getting lawyers involved.
So why aren't they? If libraries are doing exactly what IA is doing, why not sue them too? The judge issued a summary judgement in their favor so it's pretty open-and-shut, isn't it?
It's because the libraries know where the line is and they're careful not to cross it. IA jumped merrily across the line and shouted about it from the rooftops.
So why aren’t they?
See above re: PR.
Also, libraries cross that line all the time.
Exactly, PR. The IA was fine as long as they weren't flagrantly bragging about how they were letting everyone download as many copies of everything as they wanted. If they'd stuck to their original pattern (shared with libraries) of only letting one digital copy out at a time then the publishers would have grumbled and not done anything about it because it would have been bad PR to attack IA under those conditions.
Also, libraries cross that line all the time. https://www.nypl.org/research
Are you referring me to the Digital Research Books beta?
All the materials in Digital Research Books Beta are completely free to read and most of them you can download and keep, with no library card required. The books are either in the public domain, with no restrictions on your use of them, or under Creative Commons licences that may have some conditions, but only on redistribution or adaptation.
Where on the NYPL can I download unlimited copies of books that are currently in print from these major publishers under non-free licenses?
that are currently in print
The IA did not have books that were currently in print and they also told publishers that if they found any that were in print that were uploaded, they would be removed.
or under Creative Commons licences that may have some conditions, but only on redistribution or adaptation.
Too bad that U.S. copyright law doesn't recognize CCLs or you'd have a point. They are violating copyright law by allowing them to be downloaded an unlimited number times and saying they are under a CCL is irrelevant. On top of that, the creator may grant a CCL but a publisher can claim they own the rights and then it is up to the NYPL to decide who is right until it goes to court, so even suggesting that somehow a CCL makes it legal doesn't actually mean the CCL itself is granted by someone who doesn't actually own the rights to grant it.
The IA did not have books that were currently in print and they also told publishers that if they found any that were in print that were uploaded, they would be removed.
Again from Wikipedia:
The 127 publishers' books in the suit are also available as ebooks from the publishers.
And from the section on the settlement reached:
On August 11, 2023, the parties reached a negotiated judgment. The agreement prescribes a permanent injunction against the Internet Archive preventing it from distributing the plaintiffs' books, except those for which no e-book is currently available,[3] as well as an undisclosed payment to the plaintiffs.
If you're going to accuse me of lying I would appreciate if you took a little more care to ensure your own statements were truthful.
Too bad that U.S. copyright law doesn't recognize CCLs or you'd have a point.
That's a flat "what." From me. Creative Commons licenses depend on copyright to function. In what way does US copyright law "not recognize" Creative Commons licenses?
It does not recognize CCLs because there is no legal mechanism in place to recognize them. They depend on copyright to function in the sense that copyright allows them to function in the nebulous grey area in which they exist and it hasn't been challenged yet.
Because, again, terrible PR.
Also, I accused you of lying when you said this:
The lawsuit was the result of bear-poking. It’s a result of their “National Emergency Library” that they briefly rolled out in 2020 where they took all the limits off of their “lending” and let people download as many copies as they wanted. Was “legitimate academic study” not possible before, with the old limits that weren’t provoking lawsuits?
Because the lawsuit wasn't the result of that, the lawsuit created a window of opportunity for publishers to do something they wanted to for years and sue them for something unrelated to that. Which you claim you knew. It's victim-blaming because I'm sure you also know that they would have been sued eventually regardless of what they did or did not do.
So yeah, that makes what you said a lie by your own admission.
It's victim-blaming because I'm sure you also know that they would have been sued eventually regardless of what they did or did not do.
No, I "know" no such thing. How do you "know" that?
In fact, I think the IA wouldn't have been sued if they'd continued to keep a low profile and stuck to the common practice of limiting their "digital lending" to one copy at a time. I don't "know" it because you can't know the future, only predict it, but I think that's most likely given how many other libraries get away with exactly that same practice and how IA itself was getting away with it for years before they blew it.
So yeah, that makes what you said a lie by your own admission.
You are imagining that I "know" I'm lying, and then using that to claim that I'm lying "by my own admission." This is so blatantly fallacious it's actually kind of remarkable.
You were lying by admission because you admitted you knew that it was a window of opportunity to sue them for something unrelated to that.
Please read more carefully before having such silly knee-jerk reactions.
You were lying by admission because you admitted you knew that it was a window of opportunity to sue them for something unrelated to that.
I honestly have no idea what you mean here.
It wasn't a "window of opportunity", it was a provocation that couldn't be ignored. The publishers have had the opportunity to sue for a long time, as you've said. They just didn't want to for PR reasons, again as you've said.
The lawsuit isn't for "unrelated" reasons. It's for copyright violation due to their practice of distributing ebooks without permission.
You're clearly very passionate about this matter, but you're only paying attention to things that support one view of it and are instantly dismissing anything that might challenge that as being "supporting the enemy" or outright lies. I like the Internet Archive, I want them to survive and flourish. That's not going to happen if the keep tilting at windmills and picking unwinnable fights. I don't cheer them when they're charging headlong into a meatgrinder.
No, I'm paying full attention to your claim that the Internet Archive provoked publishers into suing them for something unrelated to that supposed provocation.
The Internet Archive was distributing unlimited copies of ebooks whose rights were held by major publishers.
The major publishers sued them for distributing copies of ebooks whose rights were held by them.
Yeah, totally unrelated.
Me:
But the lawsuit was about CDL as a whole, not what happened in 2020.
You:
Yes, the lawsuit is about CDL as a whole.
So is it about what happened in 2020 or is it about something public libraries do too?
For example: https://blc.org/controlled-digital-lending
You are both speculating about what triggered the lawsuit because the only people that know for sure what triggered the lawsuit are the publishers and they aren't talking.
If all public libraries are using CDL and the publishers have only sued IA, who flagrantly violated CDL, and they sued them only 2 months after they started violating the CDL, then that certainly seems like a very possible factor in the lawsuit, right?
Libraries do not make unlimited copies of books so everyone can check it out at the same time without wait. Obviously the EFF doesn't want to admit its client did that because it destroys their case, but that's what the judge found the IA stupidly did.
Libraries use CDL all the time.
Libraries buy licenses to do so from the publishers, but that's unrelated to what I said.
I'm saying the judge found that IA violated its own CDL, so even if its interpretation of the law was correct, the IA would still be liable.
Would a compromise be to simply archive them but not make them freely availible until they enter public domain.
For more current book; if they are out of print then they can be made availbe for limited loan, like any other digital library. If a digital copy is avalible for purchase from the original publisher/author, than its not fair game. Unless they come to an agreement, perhaps add supported for freely accessing a book otherwise available for purchase.
If they got rid of the download option, it would make it much more difficult to just use a DRM stripping tool (a friend told me about these terrible pirating tools, I certently don't know how to use then). A lot of digital libraies have a dedicated app that you can only view content from. Utilize whatever anti-screen capture systems banks and Netflix use to protect from simply taking screen shots. Make is easier to access the books legitimatly than it is to pirate them.
Lastly, don't just make everything freely availible next time there's a world crisis.
Please inform yourself. In these comments and on their website, it is covered that they do not provide books freely. Just like any other library books can be borrowed exactly as many times as they own a copy.
Just like any other library they sometimes provide a download for Adobe Digital Edition, which manages your lends on books. But as your friend with DRM stripping tools for sure can confirm: DRM is just an annoyance for legitimate customers, it forces legitimate users to use specific applications, while pirates get the freedom to choose how they interact with the not any more protected media. But this is a discussion for another thread as archive.org treats copyrighted books just like any other library.
Pretty hostile reply
Yes, I told someone to inform themselves before making assumptions. Which, I think, is a reasonable expectation.
The rest of the comment was pointing out how archive.org acts like any other public library and therefore should not be treated differently. This does not carry hostility against the person I am replying to.
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