Initially I'm enraged against the publishers, the judge and the system in general as many of you, but they are not the issue, while I can't talk on behalf of IA, I don't see this as a fight against the publishers, but a fight against broken business models flourishing because and protected by broken laws meant to protect earlier broken business models
The current law is broken, we know that, but most of us don't grasp broken laws as a threat until it is challenged (and we as a society usually lose), and then we expect the judge to "save" us from the broken law instead of holding the legislators accountable
This circuit should be shortened, we need to react better to laws as they are being drafted, not wait out their inevitable harm to society like with DMCA and PATRIOT act
If anything has proven this lately is the Roe v. Wade overturn, we really need to stop relying on courts to "save" us and instead fight for better laws, be more involved in the legislation process and actively propose and push for fixes
I think many agree that copyright needs to be shortened, but what does “broken” mean, exactly?
I have good feelings for the Internet Archive, but in this case it’s about a handful of books that are being copied and distributed a mere 5 years after initial publication, which I think a lot of people who want copyright shortened would still agree is quite a bit too short. Books frequently get popular long after initial publication, they’re not anything like blockbuster movies that make most of their income in a few weeks (which used to be true before streaming but might not even be true anymore).
Keep in mind that this isn’t about the Internet Archive specifically. If the court ruled it’s okay for them to copy and rent books, then anyone can copy and rent books, it undermines the entire market for books (and also web sites and images and other media, because this is the Internet Archive). Think about what it means for the company you work for, or the creative works you or your artist friends create, if people can copy their things legally and take away their revenue streams after only 5 years.
I wonder why the Internet Archive doesn’t keep things unpublished on their site until it’s not generally available online, this would keep them clear of the most obvious copyright violations.
Really the main (even only?) thing "broken" about copyright is the terms. (ADDED: I generally favor orphan works legislation but I also get the argument that this is also more likely to favor corporations than individuals.)
And basically all the schemes to make copyright more expensive, difficult, requiring jumping through hoops and paying increasing amounts of money to renew? That just basically screws individual creators (who already don't make much money for the most part) to the benefit of the major content rights holders who are not going to forget or be unable to pay for copyright renewal. Which is probably not the objective of most of the people dreaming these up.
The US actually took a pretty big step towards benefitting more small-time creatives when it aligned with the Berne Convention and did away with explicit notices being required.
The point of copyright is “To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts”, not to be fair or to guarantee a lifetime of income to popular authors and their children. To that end, the exclusive copyright is supposed to be of limited time.
Having no-effort century-long copyright might narrowly benefit a tiny number of small-time creators, but it robs the public of our collective culture.
It’s definitely worth including the full quote and discussing what it means.
“Congress shall have Power . . . To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.”
Part of the intent behind the law is to promote the sciences and the arts through these exclusive rights. The idea is that creators will have an economic incentive to create, because they’ll have some protection from copiers. The idea was not primarily to promote culture by releasing works into the public domain. This framework acknowledges both means of promotion, the short term protection of profits, combined with the long term acknowledgement that society will benefit from works becoming public after some time. So it is trying to be fair to both authors and to the greater social good, and it requires deciding & balancing what the term length should be.
It’s not intended to be “fair” to authors, is my point. It is intended to encourage them to create new works. And I don’t think anyone has ever even tried to argue that a century-long copyright incentivizes authors to produce works they otherwise would not (if the term were only, say, 10, 20, or 50 years).
The original (US) copyright term was 14 years with registration + another 14 years with renewal. That seems to me, in broad strokes, like a good balance between promoting new works vs. giving public access to previous works.
The century-long term only benefits a vanishingly small proportion of creators (which is to say, a vanishingly small proportion of creators' inheritors). The primary beneficiary is a small number of very large monopolistic media/publishing firms, who have e.g. bought up the rights (for peanuts) to the past century of back issues of thousands of scientific journals, and now keep them behind a paywall.
The original terms do sound pretty good relative to today. 28 years, with some action required to renew. What does the Berne Convention say? “the general rule is that protection must be granted until the expiration of the 50th year after the author's death.” Since this is fairly globally adopted and not very US-specific, does that influence your opinion on terms? What is the reason that the Berne Convention allows for terms this long, and if we want them to be shorter, what needs to happen, in order to get lawmakers globally to agree?
I certainly might have misunderstood your comment about being “fair” to authors. I guess you were saying that the US copyright law isn’t doing anything to distinguish between independent authors, small businesses, or large corporations? It certainly does allow for big business to have an easier time of things, and is not at all fair to individuals and small businesses, that’s true.
My point is that fairness or guarantee of author’s natural rights or whatever is not in my understanding the fundamental premise for copyright (in the USA). US copyright, at least as established by the US Constitution, is based on practical/utilitarian considerations, and is primarily concerned with benefit to the public.
In my opinion the Berne convention (which is instead premised on authors’ supposed natural rights, without much concern for the public) is a incredibly harmful and anti-social system which should not have been ratified by the USA. It has become even more harmful in the digital age.
Disclaimer: I am not an expert on copyright history, law, or philosophy.
I guess I don’t know what you mean then. The US copyright law and the Berne Convention are both trying to establish what should be deemed fair, with respect to publishing and copying creative works. They establish (define) the fairness of copying something you didn’t create. They also try to be fair to creators and society by giving authors some rights (time-limited exclusive copyright), and by giving society the right to take the work into public domain eventually. The explicitly stated concerns are about protecting the economic interests of creators, which I’d agree might be characterized as utilitarian, but also with general social good, benefit to the public as you say, which is perhaps a lofty ideal?
* edit, since I didn’t see your edits about the Berne Convention. That’s an interesting take. I thought most copyright progressives viewed Berne as a marked improvement over US copyright pre-Berne. The most important aspect of Berne is that it’s globally adopted, so the discussion about terms really needs to be about Berne more than US copyright law, I think?
The copyright system, just like the patent system, is based on a recognition that if anyone can trivially copy something you make, there is less point in working hard on it for a long time, because you won’t be able to benefit from your labor (and perhaps won’t even be able to support yourself).
Unlike working on something physical (say, a bushel of grain, a shirt, a bookshelf, or a house), when the work is an idea (like a better mousetrap or a catchy song) if someone copies it they can profit from your labor at your expense because they pay none of costs of creation, so can undercut and outcompete you.
Therefore, the thinking goes, creators won’t bother making new intangible creations like textbooks or paintings or inventions if they can’t have some kind of exclusive right over publication or use. (I’m not quite sure what empirical evidence there is for this claim. That seems like an interesting question, but it’s probably pretty tricky to investigate.)
The goal of the copyright and patent system is to encourage creators by granting them limited-time exclusive rights, whereby they can benefit from their hard work. Those creators then do useful work they otherwise would not bother with, and the public benefits.
But the premise is not an abstract ideal of fairness or a guarantee of moral rights for authors and creators. The premise is promotion of science and useful arts. At the point where the copyright term is interfering with (rather than promoting) science and useful arts, it is too long. That is, the fundamental question should be “does this system most benefit the public?” not “is this system the fairest to authors?”
I’ve never met a creator who decided what or whether to create based on their descendants' earning money from exclusive rights to their work 50+ years into the future. Maybe such creators exist, but I would guess those to be vanishingly few.
Besides the lengthy term, another major problem with copyright is how forcefully it has been applied to the personal realm. If it were a limited commercial right that made companies play fair with each other while leaving individuals alone, I wouldn't have nearly as much of a problem with it. But from yesterday's nastygrams near libraries' xerox machines [sic] and stores' blank tape aisles, to today's shakedowns of torrenters and kneecappings of software developers, the way it has been conceived as some absolute property right is utterly draconian.
Oh I don’t think either the main or only problem is terms, I’m simply asking parent for clarification. Declaring it wholesale broken needs a Chesterton’s Fence justification; we can’t fix it until we acknowledge why it’s there, and identify what parts are worth preserving.
I only recently learned that the US has a bit of a Berne Convention loophole in the sense that you are required to register works with the copyright office before you can seek damages for copyright infringement (otherwise you can only demand they cease and desist). That fine print seems like it undermines the spirit of the Berne Convention just a bit, and most other countries that adhere do not have this extra hoop.
>Books frequently get popular long after initial publication.
Is that relevant?
To me copyright is there to encourage the creation of new works. I doubt any publisher takes into account book sales more than 5 years out when deciding whether to publish a new book.
I have artist friends. Current copyright acts as more of an inhibitor than enabler of their creativity.
I think books (or any works) staying popular on a long time scale, or becoming popular long after creation, is extremely relevant to how long copyright terms should be, yes. That seems apparent, so why do you ask?
You’re right that copyright is there to encourage creation of new works, and the stated mechanism for doing this is by granting the creator a limited-time monopoly, so they have a chance to make money.
Why do you doubt that publishers aren’t considering more than 5 years, and to turn your question back on you - why exactly is that relevant? There certainly can be a difference between why they decide to publish a book, and whether they should have the exclusive right to make money from a book after 5 years, can there not? Since you’re making a broad generalization, think about all book types, text books, reference books, novels, literature, non-fiction, etc. Aren’t some of those slower to publish and slower to go out of date? Think about walking through Barnes & Noble and tell me you believe that everything in the store in less than 5 years old.
And how does copyright inhibit your artist friends? Copyright doesn’t enable creativity, it just protects it, right? Are you sure your artist friends would even get paid for their work without copyright laws in place? If you are sure, then why?
Yes. This would really hurt the ability for authors to make a living if everyone could do what the IA claims the right to do. It just won't work for sales to be cut off after a few physical copies by digital copies everywhere.
Good question. I would guess four things that make a meaningful difference are 1) libraries are attempting to adhere to first sale doctrine, and attempting to have the ebook “returned” before lending it out again; 2) libraries aren’t trying to use Fair Use as their justification for ebook lending; 3) libraries aren’t scanning books, they’re only offering existing ebooks; and 4) libraries are publicly funded and not a private, for-profit company. Combined, I would guess these things put library lending on a stronger legal foundation.
> and then we expect the judge to "save" us from the broken law instead of holding the legislators accountable
Why can't it be both? All this does is keep us busy looking where the 'root cause' is and never actually solve anything because the mechanisms to fix those things don't exist... all the while others reap its benefits.
If the Internet Archive's digitizing and distribution of old books is fair use then so is a video game ROM site that distributes digital images of pre-PS360 era games that are no longer available to purchase legally. except at exorbitant rates on eBay. And there's also a strong case for the original Napster being fair use if IA is.
I don't think there was ever any serious doubt that the Internet Archive would lose their case as they are clearly in violation of copyright law. The issue in the case is that the copyright laws are bad laws that have become contrary to their purpose of "promoting the useful arts and sciences" due to the copyright terms being absurdly long (and the lack of any serious deterrent to fraudulent DMCA claims which has allowed for the proliferation of such claims as a censorship and/or doxxing technique) and need to be reformed. It was unwise for the Internet Archive to violate copyright law just as it was unwise for Bowser the ROM site owner[0] to violate copyright law because flagrantly violating copyright law is an effective way to get yourself bankrupted via lawsuits and an ineffective way to get bad intellectual property laws changed.
If the ROMs are out of print then they should fall into the public domain.
One much needed copyright law adjustment would be to limit copyright protection to a period where the work is actually commercially viable meaning the owner is making an effort to sell it. It doesn't benefit anybody to have old works locked up for years and years with no way for the public to acquire them legally.
Libraries and archives have very little in the way of special rights when it comes to digital distribution of copyrighted works even if they have certain backup/preservation rights.
Judges are there to enforce the law, not to make it. You can't hope that the judge takes your side because then the judge could just as easily take the other side. There is of course an element of interpretation which the judges can use to decide in different directions over the same thing, but that again is an example of a broken law.
> Judges are there to enforce the law, not to make it.
That's not the right characterization of the argument. Judges are there to tell legislators that they can't make certain laws. The abortion dispute is not about judges making abortion legal, it's about judges telling politicians that they cannot make abortion illegal. Without that, politicians would literally have the ability to do anything they want.
I find it both shocking and terrifying that people lack the most fundamental understanding of how a properly separated government system would work, let alone why it should function that way.
It should concern everyone that these types of top down authoritarian mentalities are more prevalent as people without a tradition or culture based in western philosophy that has led to what used to be a clear separation of powers, become more prominent even all over the western/European based world.
It will not end well for most of humanity, even in this community, regardless if how much we believe ourselves to be doing good here, or at least not even considering the destabilizing consequences of what we do here.
> authoritarian mentalities are more prevalent as people without a tradition or culture based in western philosophy
I think you are wrong here. We, the people with “lived experience” in authoritarian countries, look with astonishment at how the American people dismantle the basics of their own political system “based in western philosophy”.
You know, Stalin’s constitution of 1936 was one of the most liberal and progressive at the time. Then 1937 came. So the suggestion that judges should stop looking at the code of law and just eagerly follow the Party line - produce cries of “danger” from my very own carbon-based neural network.
So my estimate is quite opposite - the “native” Americans took the benefits of the political system based on western philosophy so much for granted, that they’ve stopped thinking where these benefits were coming from.
>It should concern everyone that these types of top down authoritarian mentalities are more prevalent as people without a tradition or culture based in western philosophy that has led to what used to be a clear separation of powers, become more prominent even all over the western/European based world.
Do tell, what people specifically are you referring to?
But the judges should only overrule legislators when their laws violated higher level legislative authority or constitutions, right? Do you think a judge should be able to legislate what the law is independent of elected officials? Why would you trust them, especially since they are appointed by politicians or elected themselves?
...There's a reason the judiciary scared the bajeezus out of Thomas Jefferson.
Look at how the 2nd Amendment basically does not exist for some of the most populous states because SCOTUS refuses to reign in the more egregious examples of judicial/legislative reacharound like Wickett v. Filburn, or the vast majority of firearms legislation in places like NY and California.
Roe v. Wade is a shining example of how legalism can get turned on it's head just by changing out the authoritative judge who has the last word, or a new case coming up and being heard that threatens a change in viewpoint of SCOTUS.
The Writ of Certiorari is in my opinion the most overpowered political lever in the entire U.S. in the negative sense in that it's not being granted robs millions of an opportunity for redress of real harms, and in a positive sense in that when it is granted it can completely alter the judicial landscape for decades without legislative action.
I assume you are coming from the standpoint of the judges working out if a law is unconstitutional. My country, the UK, does not have a written constitution, so this kind of thing doesn't come up as often. However, a constitution is still just a bunch of legal principles, set by government. The judges are still making rulings based on a set of rules. If the rules need changing then the people should elect the right people to change them.
Judges do NOT legislate from the bench! That is incredibly anti-democratic, and a collapse of our system. Judges do NOT tell politicians that they cannot make abortion illegal. That right, and yes, it IS a right, is reserved to the electorate. Who gets their will expressed through politicians. Judges judge against the body of legislation (and common law). And, yes politicians LITERALLY have the ability to do anything that the electorate want. That includes Global War.
We have rights as individuals, which can’t be infringed by laws. The courts are there to prevent those laws. It’s what abortion and 2nd amendment lawsuits are all about.
These right declarations aren’t super clear so the political leanings of the court weight heavily.
You assume "rights" exist in a vacuum. The so called "rights" given to "the people" are clearly defined in the constitution and the bill of rights. Judges compare laws to those documents for conflicts, and err on the side of the constitution and the bill of rights. They do not make rights up as they please.
> The so called "rights" given to "the people" are clearly defined in the constitution and the bill of rights.
9th Amendment: The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people
10th Amendment: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
What is clearly defined by the Constitution is that the set of rights claimed by the people is unbounded and explicitly not limited to what is enumerated in the Constitution and Bill of Rights - those rights are assumed to exist 'in a vaccum' in that they are declared to be "inalienable" and "endowed by the Creator," irrespective of one's personal belief in the validity of claims of divine sovereignty.
The Constitution does not define rights, rather it defines the limits of the government's power to abridge those rights.
Nitpick:
>To get pedantic, the executive is there to enforce (and decide how to enforce) the law.
The Executive is there to implement an enforcement mechanism, even if the decision os to implement a null mechanism.
The executive cannot (or normatively should not ex nihilo) just materialize enforcement infrastructure without Congressional approval. The existence of Administrative law, however, rather shopts down the original intent of the Founders in terms of Governmental architecture.
Switching from common law to civil law systems should fix a lot of that up. This wouldn't be possible, considering the amount of law that would need to be written to replace an existing common law system but it's an interesting thought experiment.
What actions can Americans possibly take given the captured two party system and drawing back of voting rights? Not to mention the wildly unrepresentative government, wherein for example more people can vote for Trump in California than Texas in 2020 yet each of those person's votes are functionally meaningless, or, republicans can fail for over two decades to win a popular vote and still elect three presidents in that time. Or the fact that California gets very few senators per person whereas north Dakota gets a much larger power per citizen in the Senate, and the House is similarly unrepresentative.
It seems that working within the system isn't an option for Americans that desire a better world anymore. Perhaps a billionaire has the means to change this within system-allowed parameters such as lobbying and ad buys?
Getting involved, grass roots style. The feeling of powerlessness is exactly the way you become inert to do anything. “What can I do.”
Politics work from the local to the national, so getting involved locally is a good thing, or organizations that work to promote the ideals you want to see in the world.
Getting involved locally is a very non-specific guidance. Part of the problem with “local involvement” is that a lot of folks are in very very gerrymandered areas. Either you’re hopelessly outvoted or preaching to the choir when trying to affect local politics.
But also, I think we are well past affecting change through voting and so forth. Not that you shouldn’t vote. But if we want to see actual change in the United States, we need to start taking some cues from the French and other countries where they go on strike aggressively until they get what they want.
As long as we keep getting fucked and showing up for work anyway the powers that be are just going to keep fucking us.
Even if you do get involved, you're going to get tackled by the quarterback trying to enact the changes that you see are needed. What has been happening in politics over the last several years? Bickering about non-issues that don't really effect people.
What did the senate do this week? Interview the TikTok CEO. Meanwhile our economy is in shambles, inflation is out of control, housing and rent is unaffordable, the middle class is dying.
Why are they over there arguing about wokeness, screaming about communists and facists being on the precipice of taking over the country, and interviewing the tiktok CEO? Because that doesn't require any action. It distracts the public from real problems. The partisan inflammatory and meaningless screeching is enough to get them re-elected, so why do any hard work fixing problems?
And so people who do try to get involved in order to fix real issues like the economy or housing, end up getting blocked by pointless debates. It's system-wide filibustering.
Economic/systemic change has been off the table for quite a while. These poor politicians are just playing the only cards they have available - social tribal chanting - while filling their personal coffers as much as possible while the getting's good.
Odd to open asking what actions Americans can take, and then closing with a bizarre appeal to a noble wealth hoarder.
What can we do? Uncap the House. Repeal the Reapportionment Act of 1929. The billionaires easily bribe 435 reps, several thousand would be harder. And in line with historical representation.
Something many have advocated for decades. But keep in mind that there are tens of thousands of elected offices in the US, most of them nonpartisan, local positions that cost little to contest: yet it's incredibly hard to find people willing to run. Voter apathy is a huge problem here, in part due to historic voter suppression efforts baked into the system, but the dearth of candidates willing to participate in elections is even more serious. There again, legal discouragements, especially in the most significant races (state and federal legislature, executive), are endemic. Still, too many offices at the local level (town and city council, special district boards) go uncontested: leaving one or the other major party -- or venal representatives of the FIRE sector -- in control to mismanage and misappropriate power in areas directly impacting public life.
As an non-USA inhabitant, one thing I see is that you have a lot more voting chances than most countries. I heard e.g. you can vote for officials like sheriffs and stuff.
So don't only vote for a president, vote for everything you can. Become member of both parties, and vote for presidential candidates at both sides.
I think after that, you shouldn't be afraid to 'throw your vote away'. Gerrymandering and other stuff made most voters in the presidentials irrelevant. So the only voice left there is the signal function of 3rd part vote. Make it clear yo don't like the hobson's choice you've left. You did what you could in the previous round.
Don't succumb to nihilisms. The powers that be seem to have dividers in a dumber and smarter half. The dumber half gets very simplistic reasons to vote for some extremist side. The smarter half gets tamed by nihilistic passiveness. Both get all kinds of divisive news as a side dish. Don't fall into this trap. A big enough group of people aligned around a common cause is the biggest danger to any powerfull entity, and they fear them and do anything to break them up.
Become member of both parties, and vote for presidential candidates at both sides.
This usually isn’t allowed. At least in my precinct (in an open primary state), both primaries are on the same day, in the same location, and you select which party’s ballot you want when you arrive. Anybody can vote, you don’t have to be a party member.
Some states have closed primaries, where only party members can vote. Usually you declare party membership in advance. Not sure how these states prevent people from joining both - I suspect there is a state register of party affiliation.
As the parent post alluded to, the US is at a bit of a crossroads. The protections built into the political system that were added to protect minority political groups from the tyranny of the majority has been turned on it’s ear over the last several decades and we’re now stuck with an ever-decreasing population of angry christo-fascists making decisions against the will of the vast majority of the nation.
> Become member of both parties, and vote for presidential candidates at both sides.
That's not permitted in any state which I know.
I am a registered voter in "NO PARTY", which gives me the option to request a ballot from any party in a primary and vote within that party.
Any registered voter can vote any candidate or issue in general elections. I think what would improve our abysmal two-party system would be runner-up benefits, and coalitions, rather than winner-takes-all.
The likely best solution to the 2-party system is a change to balloting from single-choice to something like approval voting (check any number of candidates you could live with) or ranked-choice/instant run-off (number candidates by preference).
If I were king, I’d do away with party primaries completely. Run a jungle primary with all candidates on a single ballot. Ranked choice to pick the top 4-5 for the general. Then ranked choice in the general to select the winner. Something like that.
I’d also ditch the EC for direct election of the president. And legislate the size of a House district be derived from the smallest state population. This adds hundreds of members to the House, and brings voting parity back to CA and TX (who currently have districts substantially larger than Wyoming’s single seat.
I’d wager it’d be even more useless for me to vote for sheriff than president. The sheriff where I live is a populist figure who’s continuously re-elected in power for nearly 20 years at this point. He’s probably going to re-elected till he dies since he has that “celebrity” mentality Americans love.
Entirely open (at best) question, which no smug hacker news commenter is going to answer. What does one do?
(My current longshot hope? Digital democracy, on the backs of open source production economies running on the latest AI for highly-accessible/affordable data processing / labor. If we just start making online group decisions and scale it up, that's a power bloc that can run its own parties and strongarm existing gov processes - assuming the network even wants to interact with them... )
> Digital democracy, on the backs of open source production economies running on the latest AI for highly-accessible/affordable data processing / labor.
Politics is the set of activities associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals.
Throwing technology at these human affairs isn’t an answer.
It also gives a fresh space to develop democratic systems that aren't dominated by previous parties to the extent that there is barely a functioning democracy. Existing systems are ridiculously compromised.
> yet each of those person's votes are functionally meaningless
Not sure what a "functionally meaningless vote" is; is that simply a vote cast for the losing side? If something is to be decided by a vote, then one side of the argument is going to lose, otherwise you don't need a vote.
I'd guess you took what OP meant a bit too literally, I'd say that there's so many things to change, campaign for, convince that even if you say convince enough people to vote to change this law, there's already another rolling your 'win' back being prepared, backed by interest groups with much deeper pockets.
So in the end your individual vote does little, because real power is at the hands of much better resourced interests.
I bet in your county it would take the dedicated organization of maybe 10-25 people to tilt who is out on the ballot in your local government. (If your county is much larger, you may need 50 or so.) register for a minor party and then only nominate members of that minor party that fit your views. A friend of mine in his smaller town was able to, with his local family, put on only democratic candidates under Republican nominations because his family had minor party share.
The slowness and lethargy of the system is by design. For instance, The constitution is really hard to change to prevent tyranny. Checks and balances against power protect all our rights. There is no garauntee that the people in power will choose your path forward. There is also no garauntee that the majority view is yours. Hitler for example was elected. The system was setup to ensure for hundreds of years at the price of short term inefficiency. Read the history of an imploding republic - France, Rome, Weimar - and you will see similar pushes to speed reform for the masses that ended in tyranny. Reading the federalist papers will give good perspective on the rationale for these things. One may disagree with the conclusions, but the concerns and rationales are reasonable
It’s hard for people to appreciate just how much better our lives are, and how much more just life is in western society now than all of the millions of years of human life before. 200 years ago some people were literal property, 150 years ago women couldn’t vote almost anywhere, less than 75 years ago Turing was chemically castrated for being a homosexual. Huge, meaningful strides have been made for equally and fairness very recently.
It may seem terrible and unjust that there are some now that are as rich as a Roman emperor and can buy a great deal of influence, but the world was once thousands of unaccountable tyrants, free to brutalize their peasants and slaves.
Millions of years? If I recall, our societies are quiet a bit younger than that, several hundred thousand sure, but millions?
Anthropologists have been arguing for quite some time that society wasn't "all that bad" here and there over the last twenty thousand years or so. Bad sometimes in some places certainly, but for many, there was general communal comfort and a large degree of sharing resources. As recently in the last 500 years, it was written with a note of surprise by European settlers in north America that the indigenous population never let someone go hungry or homeless.
Recommend reading some David graeber, his latest book is a phenomenal insight on new archaeological findings as well as bad assumptions anthropologists have made in the past.
>wherein for example more people can vote for Trump in California than Texas in 2020 yet each of those person's votes are functionally meaningless.
Executive election and apportionment of electoral votes are specifically a matter for States to determine the implementation details of. Therefore, any complaints on that front are entirely California's problem.
> or, republicans can fail for over two decades and still elect three presidents in that time
...The Chief Executive is determined in a two-fold election pipeline. A popular vote to elect State electors to cast votes for the President
The number of electoral votes is set by a Constitutionally defined function that strikes a balance to ensure the most populous states can't steamroll the less populous. The means of choosing who the electors are are up to the States. Original intrnt was that Electors were unaccountable to anyone, as the Founders wanted a specific check on demagoguery, as they greatly feared the charismatic charlatan who could work a crowd, and believed a second smaller unaccountable party of voters would either eventually reconfirm the majority if it was a genuinely uncontroversial decision, or conscientiously object if they could not in good conscience believe it was in the best interests of the nation to cast that vote. The Founders believed a person was virtuous. People were easily led and prone to being swindled by a charismatic speaker.
The popular vote literally was antithetical to what the Founders set put to do. It was specifically not the system they wanted to get anywhere near.
>Or the fact that California gets very few senators per person whereas north Dakota gets a much larger power per citizen in the Senate,
This is by design. The Senate represents the States. Not the People directly. Each state gets two Senators, no matter how big, no matter how populace. Only the House Scales as a function of Population. The Senate is specifically a check on the House. It was recognized that the House would be the Heart/Vehicle of the People's passions. The Senate was intended to be a smaller, more rational filter to keep the House checked as Reason is the check on Passion.
This kind of comment confuses me. There's always one rigid constitutionalist that shows up and just kind of... Pretends the usa was a determinist system kicked off the second the constitution was signed? Despite the immediate amendment when they needed to add some human rights to the thing?
Actually, America was designed to be a slave state, with laws explicitly laying out why African people are less entitled to rights than European descendants, and laws working around different states' positions on slavery. Working as designed, right?
> The Founders believed a person was virtuous. People were easily led and prone to being swindled by a charismatic speaker.
And yet, the people voted for the less charismatic candidate, and the electoral college elected the swindler. Working as designed, right? Now we have executives directly trying to influence the electoral college, and it seems to be working (supreme court stepping in during bush's election to force stop a recount that would have led to him losing the election, which we know as fact now).
Not only is it absurd to suggest the USA is a deterministic system like constitutionalists claim, there's a very easy retort: ok, it's a bad system then. Americans need a better design.
If America is working by design, then it's designed to be easily exploited by haliburton to send its soldiers to die in foreign countries so as to feed the military industrial complex. It's designed to have one of the largest prison populations on earth and a systemically racist police system. It's designed to have an outsized homeless problem, massive painkiller addiction crisis, and a population of people with no savings, no hope for retirement, and one paycheck from homelessness.
Judges here to apply the law made by the legislators. That's the basis of the separation of powers. If it wasn't the case we wouldn't have a legislation in the first place turning judges into oligarchs.
The way people are supposed to support better laws is by electing better legislators. Easier said than done I admit, but I think that's better than giving judges power beyond their role.
Not particularly keen to get in an abortion debate on HN of all places.
That being said, regardless of anyone's political stance, you saying 'because you made bad decisions' is inflammatory, and clearly based on the assumption that the pregnancy was a result of fully consensual sex.
Even in the 1970s, women had condoms and birth control pills.
You're going to be hard-pressed to find a reasonable, thinking individual who would not allow for abortion exemptions for rape / incest / endangerment of the mother.
We're on Hacker News. A place where - supposedly - thinking people comment.
You "Don't be that guy."
It shouldn't even be necessary for me to have had to type this.
If you’re argument hinges on “reasonable, thinking” individuals, and you’re claiming that Alabama law didn’t meet that standard, then I would argue your “thinking” standard is completely irrelevant. The only relevant criteria is what makes it into law and affects people.
> Everyone at the time recognized that Roe v. Wade was shitty law, but they put their objections on the back burner and kicked the can down the road so they wouldn't have to have the Mother of all Debates.
Well, no. It codified roughly what the public thought was appropriate at the time - the stable achievable policy equilibrium. And in the past 50 years, public sentiment has remained mostly unchanged; it's just trended a tiny bit towards more permissiveness around abortion.
> Two years after the court’s decision, 54 percent of U.S. adults said they supported abortion under certain circumstances and another 21 percent said abortion always should be legal, according to Gallup polling from 1975, while 22 percent of Americans said it should be illegal.
> By 2018, Gallup pollsters found little change [...]
It also can be argued that overturning Woe v. Wade was good, because it put it into the hands of legislators. It was shitty law because it instituted a right where none was. Thus, it kept legislators from legislating on an evolving issue.
There are many who argue that no specific law is necessary, that the Constitution gives the right of privacy and bodily autonomy, and that Roe v Wade correctly asserts that constitutional right.
Do you need a specific law protecting the right to throw a barbecue, own a dog, or read books on dangerous topics? No, because the Constitution is a framework which broadly allows actions by people, and carves out specific things that the government has control over.
(In my 1960s Catholic family, my parents encouraged us four kids to discuss issues of the day at the dinner table. One night the discussion was about abortion, and specifically, when does a fetus become human. My dad joked that he often wondered whether fetuses didn't become human until they could cut their own meat ....)
You don't have the right to kill another person. You don't even have the right to kill most animals without sufficient reason (hence hunting permits, fines for not properly caring for agricultural animals, etc.).
The point, which ought to be obvious to HN readers - and would have been 10 years ago - is that we as a nation never sat down and decided, "What constitutes a person?"
Personally I'm on board for telling you what you can do with your uterus in the same way European nations are - you have 12 weeks to decide. After that, you keep the baby and it's illegal to abort it. I believe every single one of the vaunted Scandinavian nations has a 12 week limit on abortion. Many tech people want to model society after them, so there you go. Start there.
Well, thanks for the strawman. When you debate in strawman arguments, you block constructive debate from moving forward. The issue is one of judicial discernment. It is the ability for a supreme court to make up rights not written into the constitution. This is not difficult to recognize, whether you are pro-choice or pro-life. The correct place for this is in legislation. It is an emotional topic that is constantly evolving. What is going to happen when a fetus can survive in an artificial womb? We are a long way from that, but that is something a council of unelected justices should not have to rule on.
> What is going to happen when a fetus can survive in an artificial womb?
We're going to see a wave of hilariously (in the worst possible way) maladapted babies, because I'm almost certain we'll find that the constant "noise" of the mother's body, plus hormonal changes, are critically important for proper development.
Sure, maybe researchers and scientists will factor all of this into the development of such a technology, but so far Humanity doesn't have a good track record with getting everything right on the first go-round.
Who gave them the right to say it was legal or illegal in the first place? People in here pretending one party is better than the other because they give you back fundamental human rights they have no business controlling the legality of to begin with.
This is the correct answer but it is worth pointing out copyright being spelled out specifically in the first amendment recognizes that this is something that he government would normally not have authority to enact because it goes against more fundamental rights. The first amendment also restricts the authority of the government when it comes to copyright by requiring it to be done "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts" and for the aritificial monoboly to be "for limited Times". It isn't clear that the current implementation of copyright still falls within either of these limitations.
I agree with you until you parroted the propaganda trope about Roe v Wade. Roe has always been known as “bad law” even though it was never law, only illegitimate judicial dictate. It’s always been known as one of the worst rulings in American history.
It’s unfortunate that you would demonstrate such logically compromise in such a blatant manner, ironically, in a post about “bad law”. Ironically, overturning Roe specifically was good law, in that it followed the law the ruling was a blatant violation of.
I'm confused. You act hostile yet you seem to agree with the original comment.
The reason Row v Wade was overturned is that the judges don't want to have to decide if abortion is legal or not. They want legislators to be responsible for that.
You, the judges, and the parent comment are all in agreement here.
Oh, bullshit. The same judges who "want legislators to be responsible" for deciding abortion laws also explicitly don't want legislators deciding campaign finance and firearm laws.
It's political. It's always been political. It always will be. The judges that want abortions illegal will find legal arguments to make that happen and vice versa.
I have no idea what Roe v Wade is about (I'm not American or in the US), but I like GP read the parent comment to theirs as meaning 'these jokers overturned it, that is bad, we cannot rely on them'. Re-reading after seeing your own comment, it is ambiguous really, you could read it either way, but you're probably right (having the context of what it's about) and GP just mistook the meaning as I did.
> If anything has proven this [that 'we need to react better to laws as they are being drafted, not wait out their inevitable harm to society'] lately is the Roe v. Wade overturn, we really need to stop relying on courts to "save" us and instead fight for better laws [...]
Your first reading was correct. The ambiguity is whether the comment was referring 'we'(author is part of referenced group), or 'them'(author is describing disgruntled group), possessing the viewpoint that the overturning was bad.
It all boils down to people fighting for the right to do whatever they want to an unborn soul including shutting down its life processes at will. They all have different justifications and excuses. It boils down to the local morality hence why judges kicked it back to the local governments.
> The reason Row v Wade was overturned is that the judges don't want to have to decide if abortion is legal or not.
No. The reason Roe v Wade was overturned is because conservative middle-aged/old white-guys with money are not happy about people, and by people I mean women, having reproductive choice.
It's one of the areas that fundamental islam and conservative "Christians" have significant overlap, and that's not a good thing.
Intellectual property is an unnatural, made up construct that will one day be seen as ridiculous as absolute monarchy is today. If we are going to allow it and penalize people who are doing natural human things like sharing with friends, there has to be a specific benefit to society in every instance. For example, pay taxes on copyrights and patents, increasing every year to reflect disturbance caused to society.
"Intellectual property is an unnatural, made up construct"
So, what laws and constructs of civilized life are not an unnatural made up constructs? You seem to be suggesting there is some natural law that excludes things like intellectual property. Which natural laws, specifically, are you talking about?
If I have a physical object, you can't also have that physical object. That's natural in the sense that it follows from natural law (physics).
If I have an idea, or a digital copy of something, you can also use that idea, or also get a digital copy, without depriving me of it. The only reason you can't use my idea or own a digital copy is because society decided that it would punish you for doing so – and that's unnatural in the sense that it doesn't follow from any inherent feature of reality.
> If I have a physical object, you can't also have that physical object.
The parent was asking which laws are not constructs, and your example I don't think works as an answer to that question. In what sense do you "have" that physical object? For example, what does it mean to say "I have a phone"? "Having" in that sense is a construct, not a natural thing. You might be holding the phone, you might put it down, I might hold it while you are holding it, I might pick it up when you put it down, I might look at it while you aren't, etc. But there's nothing in any of those real natural world descriptions that correspond to having, until you start to include our social constructs around possession.
Sure, and also I am bigger and stronger than you. Therefore I take your physical object and you can't stop me. That's natural in the sense that it follows from natural law (physics). Natural laws are brutish and don't support the kind of society that most of us want to live in.
I'm not entirely sure what point you're making. That's not physical law in the same sense – nothing compels you to take something from me (or prevents you from taking something from me if you're sneaky or strong enough, as you said).
On the other hand, you and I can't both have the same object even if we wanted; it has nothing to do with ability or circumstance.
edit: I should clarify that you and I can share something in the sense that we can freely give it back and forth, but if we have one shovel, we can't both be shovelling at the same time (and can't share it at all if we live far apart). And if we're talking about food, well, we can't both take the same bite of bread.
My point is that you are picking and choosing which parts of nature you value. The idea of "having", of ownership, is not natural. Many people like Locke have tried to connect it nature, but with limited success — it's still a human construct. In the natural world ownership is defended purely by force or guile. So you are taking this idea of ownership, protected by human constructs of law, and then adding a caveat that it only applies to physical objects. But that's not a natural consequence of the idea of ownership. We make up laws based on the outcomes we desire. One of those outcomes, to promote the progress of science and useful arts, is explicitly called out in the US Constitution. Maybe you don't think promoting those things are important, or maybe you don't think copyright is effective at doing that, but you are not making that argument. You are making some novel, unsupportable argument about natural law and physics that frankly doesn't stand up to any sort of rigorous argument.
I believe I understand what you're saying, but I feel we're talking about different things, so I may have miscommunicated my point. I'm not talking about ownership as recognized or enforced by people (in fact, I never used the word "own" or "ownership"). All I mean is that if something is over here by me, it can't be over there by you, because things can't be in two places at once.
On the other hand, the exact same spatial arrangement can be in two places at once (e.g. the state of bits on a disk, or the idea of a shovel, i.e. the pattern of a shovel as exemplified by two distinct shovels).
All of that's obvious. I think what OP was trying to suggest is:
Despite the obvious difference between physical things and ideas, we often treat them similarly (specifically, we treat ideas like physical objects). And perhaps that would seem a bit strange if we weren't so used to it.
>Despite the obvious difference between physical things and ideas, we often treat them similarly (specifically, we treat ideas like physical objects). And perhaps that would seem a bit strange if we weren't so used to it.
ok but they way that we treat them the same are both constructs, we don't treat them the same in that if A has the idea you can't have it (in the same way that if A takes the bite of bread you cannot have that bite of bread), we treat them the same that if A has the idea they have a right to profit from it by selling you the idea in the form of a book etc. just as if A has the bread they have a right to profit from it by selling you a bite. And you don't have the right to take the bread from A just because you can.
As noted while it is physically impossible for an object to exist in two places at the same time it is the social construct of ownership that we transfer from physical objects to non-physical objects.
The monopoly on violence is a fundamental concept of state theory. Formulaicly, the people constitute the state and exert power based on democratic principles.
Since intelectual property rights do not reflect a democratic process and were rather restricted because they threatened the power of the estate, their merrit is questionable.
I am similar unclear on where this supposed bright line sites but to try and steal man your argument a bit is it possible you looking for the distinction between excludable and rivalrous goods?
Just reading through, the distinction seems pretty obvious to me. It doesn’t reinforce several of my ideological perspectives, even contradicts some, but the distinction is plain as day. Physical things are subject to the laws of physics (can’t be in two places at once), idea “things” are much more ephemeral and thus much less restricted by those same rules (an idea can propagate basically infinitely and be “had” by basically all who wish to have it, barring arbitrary rules to the contrary). The former has concrete, immutable scarcity, and the latter only has scarcity people assign to it.
The creative effort comprising time and attention that goes into bringing a work into existence is rivalrous. That's what IP law aims to protect/reward. People can insist on pretending not to understand this every time the argument comes up, but it's at their own peril; the world is not going to undergo IP reform as a result of anyone misconstruing or misrepresenting the issue as if it's really about whether or not person A is deprived of their copy of work Z when person B makes a copy of Z for themselves. It's not and never has been. It's about encouraging creators by offering protections in the hopes that doing so will lead to more people opting to create.
I'm skeptical that "encouraging creators by offering protections" is much more than a rationalization. (And I'm not sure whether it's historically accurate, although that's beside the point.) It doesn't seem like the concept of intellectual property and its protection under the law have been effective at encouraging people to create things; they seem to be more effective at encouraging rent seeking. If we want to enable and encourage people to create things, we should pay them to create – not pay them to share something after they've already created it.
For example, we can pay someone to perform the labor to create something we want (contracts), we can finance their endeavours or subsidize their living expenses if we like their work (the patron model), and so on. In fact, we already do these things, but their effectiveness is limited because our current laws favor other business models.
And there's a wonderful reciprocity: if I pay someone to create something, not only do I get what I want, but everyone else gets to benefit from it too. And the things that other people pay to have created I also get to enjoy (and there are a lot more "other people" than there are "me").
[This is the visualization of a goal (or at least an alternative way of going about things) and an argument for its possibility. Unfortunately I can't claim to know its feasibility, how to get there from here, or even which tactics would be effective, but I hope to have good answers some day.]
The idea that patronage isn’t dominant because… it can’t compete with copyright? is a not-even-wrong take.
And there’s an astounding burst of human creativity in the last 300 years. There are several factors you can attribute that to but the correlation with ip laws means you’re not going to have evidence that they inhibit rather than incentivize progress in the useful arts and sciences.
If there’s any empty rationalization in play, it’s yours.
> "Incentives don’t matter" is usually a bad take.
I didn't say that I thought incentives don't matter. (I was trying to say that I thought IP law isn't an especially good way to incentivize creativity, and that there might be better ways.) So I might be misunderstanding what you mean by this.
> The idea that patronage isn't dominant because... it can't compete with copyright? is a not-even-wrong take.
Could you explain why it's not-even-wrong? I can definitely accept that I'm wrong, but I don't see why it's so misguided that it can't even be discussed, affirmed, or denied.
Today, I can (usually) make more money as a software developer writing proprietary software than I can writing libre software. If software couldn't be copyrighted, it doesn't follow as a matter of course that demand for software would plummet. If the demand remains, in this alternate world I ought to still be able to make a living writing (libre) software.
In this alternate world, I would necessarily be paid for the labor I perform (writing code) rather than making money by selling licenses or copies. So, if the only difference between our world today and this alternate world is the existence of software copyright, and in our world today I'm incentivized to sell licenses or copies but in the alternate world I'd be paid for my labor per se, it seems fair to say that the reason I'm incentivized to sell licenses or copies – and the reason why e.g. patronage isn't more dominant – must be "because we recognize and protect copyright the way we do".
As a general rule we don't enforce copyright at the point of having an idea, but rather at the point of putting that idea into some sort of medium that can be transmitted to others, and then we enforce copyright at the transmission point. The transmission has concrete, albeit somewhat mutable scarcity.
The characterization that IP law is only intended to spur creative activity is incorrect. It was designed to balance the interests of the creator with those of society. And that balance is off, IP regulation has become a tool for rent seeking.
You are actually incorrect here as far as the US goes.
Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 of the US constitution states:
To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.
The whole constitutional purpose of IP law is to spur creative activity. The interests of the creator are only a means to this end. This has, unfortunately, been perverted by regulatory capture.
>The characterization that IP law is only intended to spur creative activity is incorrect. It was designed to balance the interests of the creator with those of society.
I will just note that characterization is a very American one, and that different cultures have different characterizations.
Okay. If all ownership is arbitrary, then definitely we can limit IP when its not benefiting society. IP is arbitrary and made up, just like everything else.
Calling out all property ownership as arbitrary doesn't mean IP suddenly deserves more protection. If anything, it gives more permission to be skeptical about its value to society. An IP law that prevents digital libraries isn't an outcome we desire, so... case closed, let's change the law.
You're arguing about whether natural rights exist, but regardless of whether or not there is such a thing as a natural right -- intellectual property is not a natural right. And getting rid of the entire category of natural rights just makes IP even more obviously not a natural right. It's not something that people are universally entitled to regardless of the social impact.
> The idea of "having", of ownership, is not natural.
> In the natural world ownership is defended purely by force or guile
There is a third view which is that human law is a continuum ranging from things we are genetically predisposed to expect as members of a social species to constructs which are mostly cultural.
For example, almost every human civilization has some prohibition on killing and stealing from other members of the community. These are more foundational than laws about how to dress or speak. Even communities of non-human primates recognize stealing as a transgression and may collectively punish a thief. So the idea of personal property has deep roots and is not exclusively human.
"Property" which includes constructs like probhibitions on copying what someone else has done without paying them tribute is an abstraction of personal property, which is much closer to an innate human concept.
>I'm not really sure what point you're making. That's not physical law in the same sense – nothing compels you to take something from me
Tons of thing compel someone to get the thing another has - them being hungry, just fancying it, mere greed, etc. All of those are natural feelings. In nature the stronger getting what they wont is the norm. There are no property rights.
>On the other hand, you and I can't both have the same object even if we wanted; it has nothing to do with ability or circumstance.
So? Physics is not the basis of law in a society. Just a hard limit of what can be done.
But one can e.g. just kill you by hitting you with a rock, and physics is 100% fine with that, as is biology. Physics doesn't care either way. It's just a bunch of equations that describe how matter interacts, not a legal or moral code, and it doesn't get into the baseline state of animal behavior in nature...
What if you’ve hoarded all the food or all the water, and I need it to survive? Would that be compelling?
I’m with the other guy. These distinctions are arbitrary. They may be useful for a society that attempts to maximize “happiness@ (also arbitrary), but it remains that they are not universally obvious.
Except in that instance you would be depriving him of that thing. Making a digital copy of what he has would no more deprive him of that thing than taking a picture of his painting on the wall.
The golden rule fails as soon as you introduce someone of one culture to another.
Example: my friends and I have a massively western-masculine internal culture. At parties people would ask if we were "ok" because a minute earlier we'd have been shouting at each other how smooth brained and stupid each other was. Of course we'd be fine, that's how we talk to each other. We'd get frustrated if someone tried to talk through implication - one time I asked my friend to put his seatbelt on and he said "wtf just tell me to put my fucking seat belt on don't be all soft about it."
But if we turned that culture on someone else we'd be the most horrible of bullies. Not everyone wants to be "talked to straight" like that, and that's fine.
I'd get mad if someone let me walk around with a booger on my face. "do unto me" is to say to me "lol saving that for later?", But to someone else a much more polite method is probably desirable.
"Do unto me" might mean literally not talking to or approaching someone. It might mean feeling spurned or like someone thinks you're disgusting if a hug or handshake is avoided.
Do unto me is far too simple a rule. We need more communication involved.
You're taking it very literal here, from my perspective it doesn't mean "literally treat others according to your preferences", it means "treat others with the same kind of consideration you'd offer yourself". It's like: wouldn't you want people to treat as best they can you in a way that aligns with your needs and values? So treat them in a way that aligns with their needs and values. I think it also implies that people would have respect and care for themselves, but that's not always the case in reality.
It's really like the semantics of "walk this way".
Sure, you can call it that, but I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss it, I was just talking to my gf about how despite its toxicity, it was a pretty viable social training ground. My theory is that it allowed all of us grown up in it to much better handle awkward, uncomfortable, or dangerous social situations, by giving us the tools to defuse most situations. Meanwhile she was bringing up tools for defusing situations because she heard it from a twitch streamer. I'm not saying one way is better than the other, I'm just saying, it was how we learned, and led to us very rarely feeling uncomfortable in any social situation.
If it was universal the Mongols wouldn't have changed the carbon footprint of the planet by slaughtering so many millions of people.
The one constant as you move through human history objectively is that might makes right... the best you can hope for is a philosopher king who is willing to put his iron gauntlet in a velvet glove and then use that hand to guide society into a better place... and apply pressure when necessary, as opposed to crushing.
> f I have a physical object, you can't also have that physical object. That's natural in the sense that it follows from natural law (physics).
the unnatural, made up construct is that your property is recognised and respected by law, so that you don't have to physically defend it and potentially lose it to someone or some group stronger, perhaps more violent, than yourself
if you only recognise physical ownership, you only own objects as long as you can physically protect them yourself and you explicitly deny any further rights not to have them robbed, as that is also an "unnatural, made up construct" - you were not robbed, there is a just different physical ownership going on now
How do we ensure that creators are well compensated for their creations that are enjoyed by thousands or millions of people, so they can continue creating without ending up having to flip burgers and not creating at all?
Sure I can. The one you were just holding. You are relying on the meaning of the concept of having or owning, thinking that you don’t have to either define that or rely on a preexisting definition. Whoops.
It’s kind of true that idea of IP is entirely made-up, but it’s also important to recognize that it was made up to support and safeguard author’s living.
IP allows authors to require values of content to be preserved, recognized, and financially rewarded(in one-time or recurring payments).
In the absence of IP, printing companies can take manuscripts and contents to profit off of copies free-for-all style, bankrupting manuscript writers.
However, it was NOT designed to protect interest of multinational megacorporates, causing individual contributors to be ignored and paid for presence in its making than input in the product; such use of IP is basically a polar opposite of its intent.
We should stop allowing corporates to take ownership of IPs.
J.K. Rowling enjoying her life is fine, that is intellectual property as intended. “(C)Disney” or “(C)2023 Electronic Arts. All Rights Reserved.” is not. Those latter cases is how and where IP laws are not working as intended.
“it was made up to support and safeguard author’s living”. That’s not really true. It least in the US, its stated purpose is to promote the useful arts and sciences. Incentivizing authors is a means to that end. If incentivizing corporations achieves those ends as well, it would seem to be consistent with the original purpose. Of course, there are probably valid arguments that corporate ownership of IP doesn’t always promote the useful arts and sciences (for example patent trolls).
"patent trolls" is an unhelpful term because it is in the eye of the beholder.
Was Amazon being a patent troll patenting single-click-to-purchase? Was Apple a troll in patenting Swipe to Unlock? They were using those patents in their products.
On the other hand is the Tolkien Estate patent trolls? They're not producing anything new.)
If I have a dozen patents, and some company wants to buy them from me, is that any different to me selling my company? Surely I can sell my assets?
The root issue are not "patent trolls". Being sued by Amazon is no less disruptive than by Trolls r US.
The root issue is the nature of the patents being issued.
The root of copyright issues are (mostly) not about actual copyright, but the length of copyright.
Usually they're called NPEs, non practicing entities and differentiated because their use of patents is to use them to extract tolls rather than to build things.
Which isn't to say that established players don't also use them to create moats around technology of interest, or that the nature of certain patents doesn't lend them to abuse. They could, for example, require that the thing which makes the patent 'novel' also be 'patentable subject matter' for example, rather than letting one patent some novel software running on a non-novel computer and meet the standard one piece at a time.
Also I wasn't aware that Tolkien or his estate had any patents. Copyrights, surely, but patents? That's surprise me.
> The root of copyright issues are (mostly) not about actual copyright, but the length of copyright.
The other issues are getting worse over time. Lack of first sale doctrine. DRM preventing fair use. That Aereo thing where you're not allowed to rent a preconfigured antenna and recorder from someone else.
I wonder if that applies to novels that don’t become bestsellers? A book that simply does okay. People buy it, never a ton of them, but always a few, every few days, for a long time. No idea what the answer is, just something that popped into my head.
>Was Amazon being a patent troll patenting single-click-to-purchase? //
Just on that example. I think Amazon were fine to get a monopoly (in USA) on commercial implementation of one-click. But realistically it's worth a couple of years at most of monopoly for something which arises naturally out of the progress of the web, which Amazon rode the wave of (and contributed to). Locking that up for 20 years doesn't serve society; it's clearly anti-democratic [ie against the best interests of society as a whole] to have that extended term for business methods/software.
In this case it's trivial to work around, but that's not true of all 'small idea' patents.
This is if course my personal opinion, unrelated to my employment.
> I think Amazon were fine to get a monopoly (in USA) on commercial implementation of one-click.
But who benefits from that other than Amazon when, as you say, it arose naturally. Does anyone think one-click purchase is something that would never have existed if not for Amazon?
In the world of copyright and patents, there's a before and an after the USA. Anyone trying to make a different case must be trying to fool themselves.
This. People (naively or dishonestly) think because the text is "To promote the progress of science and useful arts", that it must be the case it does this. Powerful people wouldn't lie, would they?
In reality (c)opywrong and patent law does the opposite. It promotes the collection of money and power to the 1% to the detriment of the progress of science and useful arts.
Disney and Electronic Arts employs hundreds of thousands of employees that gets to enjoy their salary. They are paid through the IP. How is that not IP working as intended?
The employees toil to create amazing stuff and receive a pittance compared to what it's worth. Most of the profit goes to execs who have had no hand in creating anything of value.
War is an ultimate employer of soldiers and workers that make things for war effort, does it therefore mean that we should continue wars or that all these people would otherwise be unemployed?
Without copyright, and especially century long Mickey Mouse copyright, it's easier to open your own smaller amusement park that competes with Disneyland, this will employ a lot of people outside LA or Orlando area. Plus I will still buy my games and movies from reputable sources that are fair to content creators. If some poor college students can't afford that, maybe it's good they can get a break.
The most obvious distinction between intellectual property and ordinary property is their history. Ownership of things has existed for longer than reliable records are available. Copyright and patents, by contrast, were created during the late Renaissance in response to the particular economic circumstances of the time. They have since become the tools of entrenched interests who would rather suggest that things have always been this way and we couldn't live without it.
Is anything humans do natural? The only thing that can make something unnatural, so far as we understand it, is human intervention. Insofar as we conceive of unnaturalness as a recognizable quality of phenomena, it is more acute when the humans responsible are more sophisticated in their methods. We can easily observe a very large difference between the primitiveness of human society when it created the ownership of things and the much more advanced culture that devised what we now call intellectual property. From this construction of what is natural and what is not, we clearly find that intellectual property is much less "natural", though there is still the necessity of accepting that "natural" can be a meaningful idea at all.
Nearly everything humans do is natural. We have just made up clever ruses to hide the vulgarity of much of it and to dissuade ourselves that the disparity caused by the natural order has no chance to be solved.
I’d argue intellectual property existed earlier than that, as soon as states (or guilds) considered certain techniques and skills exclusive to them.
Off the top of my mind, with a solely European view the Venetians moved glass production to Murano in the 13th century at least partially to make a monopoly on luxury glass. World History was awhile ago but other restrictions on technology transfer existed by at least 800 CE and probably in a limited sense well before 1000 BCE.
Guilds would get the right to do something by the government, to the exclusion of others. Such as the haberdasher guild, that had the right to sew and no one else could sew commercially.
Patent was invented to break the guilds. A guild member could reveal a technology publicly, and get a 10 year right to use it. This was to make progress go faster, as guilds kept technology secret.
If people always beat me up and snatch my stuff the moment I am not looking, that's not very good living. Even if I am wealthy enough to hire guards, they can turn on me at any moment and get all my stuff rather than just what I am willing to pay. So we opt for a peaceful, honest society where people are not allowed to hurt each other, steal or break contracts. On the other hand, if I learn from other people and they learn for me, we all become smarter and more productive.
Physical objects cannot be shared. I can’t create a copy of my car. But ideas can and will be shared. Our societies try to criminalise it. That’s not right. It does not help humanity in making advances.
Imagine a world where every human has access to all ideas, papers, books, thoughts. That’ll empower every human being who has access to it.
We need to find other ways to compensate authors and creators.
It's a scale. Laws against murder and theft of food are highly natural (e.g. most social cooperative animals will have something like it), zoning laws are more unnatural.
You have no idea how good the Avengers movies are in the timeline where the US issues Internet bans for piracy and does a comprehensive job of protecting the rights of creators in other countries as well. Our IP situation is anarchy compared to theirs, and our comic book movies are embarrasments.
In that timeline there's a comment chain:
>> So this dev lost his job because he couldn't work during covid after getting Internet banned for pirating some movie. Doesn't that seem excessive?
> Okay, yes, maybe a little. But let me ask you this: How could Disney-XBox Studios have afforded the $2.3T Iron Man vs. Master Chief sequel if they weren't able to protect their investment? I just don't see how that movie gets made without strong IP law.
The Benedict Cumberbatch from their side could probably transport you over, if you want. They're pretty accepting of immigrants, as long as you're willing to get The Implant.
It will continue without IP once people realize that the creative arts benefit from people doing it for the love of the art, as opposed to doing it out of a fear of starvation.
People should get paid to create things, and get paid what the work is worth.
Right now, people get paid a small fraction of what it's worth, while the bigger fraction goes to execs who have had no hand in creating anything of value. And those execs get paid for selling something that their workers have made, not for making it.
Big-budget movies should get made because people democratically decided that we want to collectively spend resources on making such a movie, not because unelected company execs say so who have exclusive control over a huge amount of capital and who can use IP laws to extol more capital from innocent people who just wanna watch a decent movie.
> People should get paid to create things, and get paid what the work is worth.
This is literally how it works today though. No one is intentionally paying employees more than they have to, and if they pay less than they have to, they lose employees.
Basically this is just an anticapitalist rant. Not useful even if one agrees with the premise.
> Big-budget movies should get made because people democratically decided that we want to collectively spend resources on making such a movie, not because unelected company execs say so who have exclusive control over a huge amount of capital and who can use IP laws to extol more capital from innocent people who just wanna watch a decent movie.
Communist countries make weird propaganda films all the time. You can go watch them and see what that looks like.
Copies of GTA 6 won't work online, which is what the vast majority of people are likely going to be buying it for. Lack of copyright also doesn't mean lack of sales. GTA 5 was a huge commercial success despite being cracked in days.
I pay for Tidal and buy 99% of my games despite having access to safe private trackers. On the other hand I pirate 100% of my TV and movies. Make of that what you will but for me it's always a service issue (or lack thereof).
You can, but you'd use more DRM and server components. In the extreme your game would be streaming on something like GeForce Now so only paying customers can access it.
To a large extent we also see that today (because let's be honest, current copyright law is not enforced very consistently) and there are still big-budget movies and games being released.
Oh, were you not alive when Steam started being a thing and piracy sharply reduced? Turns out people like to buy things from people who make things they like.
Hahaha no, but I did forget that it affected HL2. It was interesting how the more egregious DRM actually made the product worse, people downloading the cracked version were legitimately just choosing the superior version.
If there is no IP I can just download your game and sell it on the epic store. In fact, Steam doesn't even need to pay the developers royalties at all.
Real physical scarcity is that law. Intellectual property is logically reducible to ownership of numbers. Some numbers are illegal for man to know. You can't write down some numbers on a piece of paper without someone else's permission. Or maybe you can but you can't give the paper to someone else. That's how stupid all of this is.
>What laws?
All natural rights, life (bodily functions e.g. the right to eat not to have something to eat), speech, association etc. Broadly defined as anything a person can do that doesn't require violence or compulsion.
If someone says something in public then I have the right to say it.
A way to get around this is by making every viewing of copyrighted material a private contract. e.g. "You can only own a license for personal use of this movie if pay and agree not to share it."
But, if somebody does break that contract and shares the movie publicly, going only by natural rights everyone who watched it would be able to share. Since book publishers didn't like this they lobbied for our current "unnatural" copyright laws.
Why people don't like this now generally falls into three camps with some overlap
1) People who want free books, movies and software.
2) People who want all books, movies and software to be libre.
3) People who don't want the government to create a protected class of license holders, for various reasons (anticommunism, traditionalism etc.)
There is, but not one imposed by the laws of physics or some universal given. ]
For example it was moral and ethical (and you were considered a good person regardless of whether you did it) to own slaves when that was the prevalent morality of a societies.
So, there are actions that are unethical based on made up human constructs of morality. Nature and physics doesn't care either way.
Which is the parent's point: what laws and ethical norms aren't "unnatural" and aren't made up? All are. Doesn't mean they are not useful and good for being that.
It was accepted as an economic reality but it was never considered moral or ethical to own slaves any more than it’s considered ethical to own a tool shed today.
Of course it was absolutely considered moral and ethical.
There are tons of old articles, books, and treteases on the matter, describing it as perfectly moral and ethical, and how its beneficial to the slaves, who lack agency, are animal like, and are offered "useful work" from their masters who know better, how they are beastly and need the whip to get sense into them, and so on.
That's of course, on top of the fact that slave owners were among the most respected good-standing members of society, and only controversial figures considered them imoral and unethical for owning slave. In fact abolitionists were considered bad people, not unlike today's terrorists and activists.
Theses idea of the morality of being a slave owner, and the superiority and natural right of the owners vs the slaves, is universal in societies that held slaves (as was in societies were royals and lords were above folks reduced to peasants).
Regarding the South, for example:
"What were Southern pastors, preachers, and religious leaders telling their flock? Southern clergy defended the morality of slavery through an elaborate scriptural defense built on the infallibility of the Bible, which they held up as the universal and objective standard for moral issues.
(...)
Reverend Furman of South Carolina insisted that the right to hold slaves was clearly sanctioned by the Holy Scriptures. A fellow reverend from Virginia agreed that on no other subject “are [the Bible’s] instructions more explicit, or their salutary tendency and influence more thoroughly tested and corroborated by experience than on the subject of slavery.” The Methodist Episcopal Church, South, asserted that slavery “has received the sanction of Jehova.” As a South Carolina Presbyterian concluded: “If the scriptures do not justify slavery, I know not what they do justify.”
As Pastor Dunwody of South Carolina summed up the case: “Thus, God, as he is infinitely wise, just and holy, never could authorize the practice of a moral evil. But god has authorized the practice of slavery, not only by the bare permission of his Providence, but the express provision of his word. Therefore, slavery is not a moral evil.” Since the Bible was the source for moral authority, the case was closed. “Man may err,” said the southern theologian James Thornwell, “but God can never lie.”
The Southern Presbyterian of S.C observed that there was a “religious character to the present struggle. Anti-slavery is essentially infidel. It wars upon the Bible, on the Church of Christ, on the truth of God, on the souls of men.”
During the 1850’s, pro-slavery arguments from the pulpit became especially strident. A preacher in Richmond exalted slavery as “the most blessed and beautiful form of social government known; the only one that solves the problem, how rich and poor may dwell together; a beneficent patriarchate.” The Central Presbyterian affirmed that slavery was “a relation essential to the existence of civilized society.” By 1860, Southern preachers felt comfortable advising their parishioners that “both Christianity and Slavery are from heaven; both are blessings to humanity; both are to be perpetuated to the end of time.”
Same for politicians:
William Harris, Mississippi’s commissioner to Georgia, explained that Lincoln’s election had made the North more defiant than ever. As Harris saw things, “Our fathers made this a government for the white man, rejecting the negro as an ignorant, inferior, barbarian race, incapable of self-government, and not, therefore, entitled to be associated with the white man upon terms of civil, political, or social equality.” Lincoln and his followers, he stated, aimed to “overturn and strike down this great feature of our union and to substitute in its stead their new theory of the universal equality of the black and white races.” For Harris, the choice was clear. Mississippi would “rather see the last of her race, men, women, and children, immolated in one common funeral pyre than see them subjugated to the degradation of civil, political and social equality with the negro race.”
More to the point, he noted, abolition meant “the turning loose upon society, without the salutary restraints to which they are now accustomed, more than four millions of a very poor and ignorant population, to ramble in idleness over the country until their wants should drive most of them, first to petty thefts, and afterwards to the bolder crimes of robbery and murder.”
It was also considered a mental illness for a black person to want to be free. The healthy position of a black person was being enslaved, and a black person attempting to become free was considered sick and needing psychiatric treatment!
(Am agreeing point that, unfortunately, slave holding was considered morally good once upon a time… a biological fact, even!)
I have conflicting thoughts about the state of the law. As someone who has created original IPs, and likes to earn back something for my effort, these laws are basically my only safety net. But they way they are laid out is extremely prohibitive, and blocks creativity. I am all for shortening the copyright period, and introducing a mechanism similar to that of musical covers to all protected works.
Are there any organizations working toward the abolition of intellectual property in the US? I agree with you that it's ridiculous and would love to do something about it.
Assuming such an organization existed, what would stop someone from using their name, logo, etc. to also promote enhancing IP law and undermine they’re entire message? Presumably they wouldn’t be so hypocritical as to sue you for that, would they?
Even besides you mixing up trademarks and copyrights, subverting the existing system in order to achive the opposite is not inherently hypocritical. E.g., the GPL is a copyright license.
Wait a few more months... let's see what the bittorrent and private crypto folks end up doing with AI...
Either way, IP is going to either accept defeat or get very very loose in its claims, as the ability is almost here to just process a feature-length film, slightly modify each scene and replace script, camera angles, environments and actors with generic IP-free amalgamations, all while still capturing the tone and story... Images/text/code are already done for. Who's going to enforce that, and how much similarity do you need to infringe? Who's going to prove you processed that film when nothing about your movie is quite the same?
> Intellectual property is an unnatural, made up construct
Property is an unnatural, made up construct.
> that will one day be seen as ridiculous as absolute monarchy is today.
Maybe, by just asserting untestable claims about future opinions isn’t an argument.
> If we are going to allow it and penalize people who are doing natural human things like sharing with friends, there has to be a specific benefit to society in every instance.
That’s a valid preference. I disagree, I think that a system of property law which provides net benefit in aggregate is adequate, requiring each individual exercise of property rights to be a net benefit in specific is too much overhead.
> For example, pay taxes on copyrights and patents, increasing every year to reflect disturbance caused to society.
I’d rather have both have short, free terms with copyright extendable by a tax, unless you are going to have a more general property tax than just on patents. But note that taxing property isn’t a sign that it is particularly “made up”, real property and some items of tangible personal property also have property taxes.
> I’d rather have both have short, free terms with copyright extendable by a tax,
Why allow extension at all?
The initial term serves as a societal "thank you for that cool idea". I'm not sure I agree that financial success should mean society continues to award you exclusive rights to the idea.
Applying modern intellectual property law to "base" inventions illustrates how ridiculous it is. Should we be paying a tithe to the descendants of the person that built the first wheel? Would humanity have been better off if it had prevented anyone other than that individual from building wheels without their express permission? The answer is clearly no. That individual benefited personally from their invention and from the improvements to efficiency in the rest of their society. Restricting that would only have served to impede further innovation, prosperity, and quality of life.
I think the idea of an extensible copyright is not to allow some people to maintain the monopoly for longer than normal but to have a mechanism for things to enter the public domain earlier if the authors are no longer interested in distributing the works themselves but mainly use the copyright to stifle others.
This way you can set the base copyright duration shorther than you could otherwise without people complaining that some works take a while to become profitable.
That said, I agree that it isn't neccesarily the best idea is it predominantly benefits the already well off who can better afford to gamble on the copyright extension fees.
Personally I think zero copyright is probably the best since society benefits from sharing and remixes from day one. Look at how quickly memes propagate and consider if copyright was actually enforced there. Now consider if the could have the same creative mobility for the kinds of works where copyright is enforced.
But I also don't see zero copyright as attainable within my lifetime as it would upend so many business models. Shorter copyrights (with or without extensions) are much more realistically attainable as for most copyright holders it might change the equation a bit but won't require them to immediately overthink their funding.
> Intellectual property is an unnatural, made up construct
Ownership of land is an unnatural, made up construct. In contrast to intellectual creations, land is limited. Therefore, granting ownership of land to a person is literally robbing other people of this land.
> Dont be shitty to people and listen to their voice are thing that any group of children playing may come up with them selves.
Not my experience at all. There's always a leader, and there's always a bully, and - if you're lucky - they are not the same kid. If you're unlucky, the whole group is a shitshow of gruesome sadism and "playing" that can lead to serious injury and death.
I mean, that's obviously anecdotal, but if children were so rational to invent things like human rights, why would we need caretakers and teachers?
I didnt say children were perfect or formed model societies, i said IP was nothing like human rights or democracy.
When you experienced bullies etc. did you not have someone you could talk to that would agree the person was being shitty?
the idea that you can own an idea is not something that has an obvious link to basic issues that arise from existance of people, humam rights and democracy are.
Just because some people are shitty doesnt mean we should lower the bar.
There are some reasons for IP but they should not derive from owning an idea.
Ironically, if we built a lord-of-the-flies society (based on child "morality") we'll have an arbitrary concentration of power that'll make our IP rules look like a picnic.
Seems you are arguing a against something i didnt say?
I guess you must believe you have some special ideas that you didnt get from anyone else at all, not based on any of you experiences and conversations with others that we all should pay you to use or refine (or even just repeat). And that you think it right to force these kinds of delusions on your children to stop them growing up stupid and naive?
Absolute monarchy doesn't work at all as an example of a thoroughly discredited intellectual concept. It's the political reality in various countries across the globe right now and frequently polls highly in all others. The word "king" has been dropped and replaced by "president" or "strong leader", but the concept is the same.
And I think that's an important development to keep in mind when arguing against something like intellectual property, because these debates also frequently shift to battles over words instead of realities.
Being political reality doesn't save something from being intellectually discredited. The fact that people need propaganda such as "president" as you mention supports that, because the very idea of monarchy and aristocracy are impossible to sell these days. These systems can only survive through lies and confusion or brute force and neither has anything to with having any intellectual credibility.
So theoretically in your world I can work at a company, copy their code, data set up my own site, then trip on their power cord taking their site down on my last day, oops sorry.
>Intellectual property is an unnatural, made up construct that will one day be seen as ridiculous as absolute monarchy is today.
Not so sure about the monarchy thing, nominally yes, but we're certainly moving to renting everything content-related, and even back to political and corporate feudalism in many aspects, we might as well be peasants whose feudal lords own everything...
as it should be peasant. now get back to work!!! /s
with the concept of 1%ers and how imbalanced the wealth distribution is, it doesn't really seem like it's much different than the days of feudal lords. it just seems like we've been tricked into thinking there was a middle class to keep the revolting to a minimum.
In response to the [dead] sibling comment, who says that the 99% are having a satisfactory life?
Less and less people can even affort to own a home. The has been very little reduction in the average work week and the retirement age is going up in most countries. Do you think e.g. the people currently protesting in France are doing so because they are satisfied with their lives?
I mostly agree with the conclusion, but your premise is shaky. Positive law (as in, laws which are of human creation) are not inherently bad because humans made them. Humans are more than capable of creating good laws which protect the common good against the worst parts of human nature. But they are also capable of creating bad laws.
Do we actually need monetary incentives to get people to create new things. Won't people naturally keep creating new things as long as they aren't constrained by a more fundamental need? So we really just need to create a society where nobody has to worry about their basic needs like housing, food, healthcare, etc...and then people are free to create and are even free to fail while doing so.
The whole Reinassence happened without copyright law and they did just fine.
In fact, a lot of masterpieces we have from that period would have been illegal under current IP law because they were the result of a lot of iteration on the same concepts by different artists.
Piracy (stealing) _has_ to cause loss of revenue. It’s right in the definition. There’s no way around it.
There’s also a moral component to all this.
Regardless of the calculus, if a creator says they don’t want to give their product away for free, that they’d like to be paid for every copy, we should respect that.
> Piracy (stealing) _has_ to cause loss of revenue. It’s right in the definition. There’s no way around it.
No that's not, that's an urban legend, feel free to point me to some aggregated research studies proving this, the copyright lobbies never managed to prove that during multiple decades.
Repeating something over and over again on TV by paid lobbyist doesn't make it true, you have to prove it.
> Regardless of the calculus, if a creator says they don’t want to give their product away for free, that they’d like to be paid for every copy, we should respect that.
If I produce a song and sell 1,000 copies for $1 each, but 1,000 copies are stolen by people who don’t pay me $1 for their copy, I get $1,000 instead of $2,000.
That’s just how the math works out. Same as any other form of theft.
To start with, most of the copyright holders are actually dead since copyright right now is very long. That's going to be hard to state that you are preventing new Beatles songs by pirating the Beatles, they are not going to produce any new songs, regardless of what you do.
Then in economics, free is different from any other price (even 1 cent), they have different behaviour and cannot be used interchangeably as demonstrated again and again during research. So no, your example is wrong, those people wouldn't have bought the song anyway and the total revenue from those people would be zero.
Your entire premise that copyright infringement is theft is wrong. That is not the case, neither morally nor legally.
As a result, your argumentation is flawed. The 1000 "pirated" copies were never copies that you had. Even in a world where you could magically prevent all sharing of information you would not have that many more copies sold.
I think of it like trying to restrict what your neighbor can have for lunch. That’s not a thing we’re allowed to do today and the concept makes no sense to someone today. But you can limit what your neighbor engineers!
Money is also an unnatural construct, most of civilization has succeeded and advanced due to abstract constructs, and this is one of mankind’s strengths. Learn more about this in the book Sapiens.
No I haven’t, but if you’re suggesting that these so-called unnatural constructs can be damaging to the world, that is certainly true, but the flipside is that they also lead to great progress.
Imho Its a really good book, i think the first novel written by a non-noble, or something like that.
Its over 100 years old but still very relevant today. Understanding how things have not changed in that time was powerful in helping me form opinions on what should change.
There is a specific benefit to society. It allows artists to live of creating works meant for wide consumption. It means artists aren't limited to those who cater to the rich and those who are rich themselves.
Not that I support current copyright law, but I do see that it brings some good. That good just doesn't outweigh the bad.
I get your point, but you make yourself an easy prey for literalists by using the words "natural" and "unnatural" like that. I mean, incurable diseases and nasty parasites are also natural, right?
But not because it will be replaced with something "better". Democracy just means everybody has a say on decisions affecting them and the society they are in.
If your replacement is closer to "only informed people should have a say", that is even older then democracy, and is much worse in practice.
If we don't replace the current flavour of democracy with something better there won't be much society in a few years (10s, 100s). The next level beyond democracy is tiered, time-limited, and retractable sortism [1]: some kind of a return to roots (Athenian democracy), but with a twist. A quick way to sketch it would look like this:
(i) no functionaries: run all the administrative jobs not in an office by Margaret and John, but in some cluster of computers;
(ii) no political nominations: instead of having elections between Side A vs Side B (vs Side C in non-US countries), all the decision-making positions are up to vote by name and all the candidates are sorted out randomly from the totality of the populace (no candidate can have more than 2 mandates);
(iii) negative vote: all ballots have a special box "No One" invalidating all the candidates (if the majority votes "No One") or reducing the duration of the mandate;
(iv) the duration of the mandate correlated with voter turnout (if 30% of the populace vote, you don't get 100% of the 4-year mandate, you get 1.2 years of mandate);
(v) the vote no longer a fact (you voted for X one time), but a process (you are maintaining your vote for X today also); when a majority of people retract their vote for a certain decision-maker they automatically lose their position of power.
>If we don't replace the current flavour of democracy with something better there won't be much society in a few years
The current flavour of democracy is already not democratic as practiced in most countries (perhaps Switzerland is an exception).
In the US it's career politicians with little accountability, billionaires and huge coporations with huge influence, paying politicians, media owned by said millionaires or fed BS by the government, a baroque system of chosing President, a failed educational system that doesn't teach kids to be active citizens, fossilized two party system supported by all kinds of powers and structures that the voters aren't allowed to change, and so on. Plus a charade of voting once every five years. If that's democracy, then yes, it should change: to real democracy.
The options you describe would be some of the solutions to that.
Of course those "wise persons in power who know better than us what's good for us" will prevent anything like that.
>fossilized two party system supported by all kinds of powers and structures that the voters aren't allowed to change
The original system wasn't two party. In fact, the first Chief Executive (President of the United States) on leaving Office, specifically warned the populace against anything remotely resembling the formation of political parties.
The populace quickly ignored that advice, and carved up the country between Federalists and Anti-Federalists who either vied to achieve the Supreme Seat of Power to enact their Will, or hold that Seat so no one would be able to avail themselves of it.
I wonder if there's another way. I personally would love to hand the power to informed people. To be clear: I don't consider myself informed. I mean economists deciding about the economy, farmers deciding about the agritulture, programmers deciding about IT, etc. But I have absolutely no idea how that could work in practice. For example, budget is finite and every "interest group" would consider their field of work the most important. This is just not workable.
Our current situation is that (in theory) the elected politicians listen to the general "mood" of the population, and then listen to the experts how to implement the needed changes. I can't think of a better system, we just need to figure out how to make it resistant to abuse.
Quite possibly, society doesn't sit still, but it's still an improvement from before in modern constitutional republic context. Beats going to war to change rulers.
I'm sure some think it is. I think dictating power based on war ability makes way more sense than everyone having a say simply by virtue of breathing.
Egalitarianism is not consistent with nature. But these things go in cycles, the flaws and contradictions will accumulate and the system will collapse eventually, like they all do.
> I think dictating power based on war ability makes way more sense than everyone having a say simply by virtue of breathing.
I honestly can't tell if you're trolling. In what world is it better to instead give all the say to one person? Especially a person selected solely by their prowess for violence (or in leading others to violence)?
> In what world is it better to instead give all the say to one person?
If that one person is wise, virtuous, and really prioritizes the people's best interest, and is willing and capable of delegating and seeking advice from people who understand various domains better than them, and is a good enough judge to choose good people for such delegation and advice, then it could be at least much more efficient than a democracy or republic. Decisions could be made much faster. And such a leader could very well be better at making decisions that are better in the long term, even if they aren't in the short term.
However, how do you find and appoint such a leader? And even if you somehow get such a leader, how do you ensure their successor is just as good? Selecting a leader based on military prowess definitely won't get you such a leader though.
>If that one person is wise, virtuous, and really prioritizes the people's best interest, and is willing and capable of delegating and seeking advice from people who understand various domains better than them, and is a good enough judge to choose good people for such delegation and advice, then it could be at least much more efficient than a democracy or republic.
First, that's a big if. Second, it's the old pipe-dream that there are decisions that are on "best interest" for everybody, that can just be based on "domain knowledge", and not competing interests to be heard and balanced.
>Decisions could be made much faster.
That persons decisions. Not the ones people want. Basically you're described an infantilized population and a parent/nanny that knows what's best for them.
Rulers who conquer tend not to be wise or virtuous, because if they were they wouldn’t conquer. I can’t think of an example of a benevolent autocratic ruler that outperformed the average democracy when it came to the well-being of all their subjects (including the conquered). Some rulers can use the spoils of war to bless some of their subjects, but that just shifts wealth around and causes incredible misery for the deprived.
Productivity requires decentralized decision-making. The more centralized the power structure is, the lower the overall productivity of the subject population.
Nature doesn't have F35 fighter jets, fully autonomous drones that can duty cycle 24/7 for months, hackernews discussion boards built on the internet, that benefited from thousands of years of physics breakthroughs. Nukes, medicine, ect, you know the list of technologies..
Even in a war-economy, the majority of the civilian populace has to provide all the complicated logistics, food, services, entertainment, ect to keep the war effort going. Being a wage slave to a warlord isn't a magic fix to "egalitarianism".
We can already live outside of egalitarianism. I can guarentee you Bill Gates, Stephen Hawkings and Jeff Bezos (and the lowest of society too) have no need for my input on their life, and don't know I exist.
How do you run a society that way? Can I get a bigger house by mulching you in your own garden and telling your family to push on? Do we decide whether you can build an extension on your house by how good a shot the counties men are? Do Walmart and Cosco fight wars over the more desirable lots? This is not a serious suggestion.
Perhaps there is a synthesis of the two, where some get more say based on "war ability" (or other such competence) without actually having to engage in micro battles everywhere. Notice I was describing the criteria upon which decision-making and power is apportioned, not necessarily how it happens. There is a long standing tradition of opposition to mass democracy, particularly amongst the founders of my country so I'm in good company there. Ultimately whatever nominal system is in place, a governing elite arises one way or another...so debates about democracy are funny because in many ways power of the masses isn't real [0]. But to the degree democracy becomes "mass" is the degree to which is becomes worse.
I'm not OP, but personally, I can totally get behind that. It is not up to the law to tell me who can be my friend. If I decide that all of humanity are my friends then I should be able to share anything I want with them.
A lot of people in these comments still seem confused about what has happened here.
This ruling is not about the emergency library at all. It's a ruling that controlled digital lending (one physical copy backing each digital copy lent out) is illegal.
That’s a terrible ruling. The first sale doctrine says the copy of the book you bought is yours. Lending the book is clearly not copying it.
So, I guess you just don’t own anything you buy anymore? Like what if I want to lend a tool to someone, and the tool manufacturer wants to rent their tools out? Is that also illegal?
What if the tool contains software?
What if reasonable use of the tool requires accessing a print manual? A pdf manual?
Edit: Reading the ruling, IA should have argued they are simply format shifting a single copy that they own. I wonder if they did make this argument, and then the judge conveniently ignored it (then lied in the summary ruling, when they say IA made no other arguments in their defense), or if IA’s lawyers screwed up.
I don’t disagree with the ruling. IA is not lending their copy that they purchased. They are lending a copy of their copy. While that copy is lent out, they are still free to, I.e. read the copy in their possession.
That’s technically true. But frankly it seems like such people have a giant stick up their ass. The digital version would be infinitely more accessible, while still maintaining effectively 1-1 access restrictions. I’m not even sure if they’re _is_ a physical IA library one could go to. For all I know they’re in a vault somewhere. Even the USD isn’t backed 1-1 with physical tokens. It seems patently ridiculous that books be held to this standard in this day and age.
No, that’s not why they lost. The reason is because they effectively lend it to many people simultaneously, and implement no controls on getting it “returned” (deleted) by the people they lent it to, while even being aware that some of them don’t “return” it.
The technicality that they keep a copy of the book while it’s being lent isn’t really at issue here at all. It’s not because there are two copies, it’s because there are three or more copies, given to two or more parties at the same time. It has become “distribution” in the eyes of copyright law, beyond the lending analogy.
Even if they did what you described they would still lose. There would be no way to implement a control to prevent an additional simultaneous copy. It's not a technical issue, it's simple impossible inherently.
I don't know why companies keep trying this. MP3.com, Aereo, etc. The precedent is clear.
Again, speaking about the wider CDL initiative (one digital copy lent for each physical copy) and not their National Emergency Library, the Internet Archive do implement a DRM on that digital copy, so for the reader to make additional copies of it is not trivial. Regardless, from where do you get a requirement to prevent (with 100% certainty) the reader from making additional copies? When a person borrows a physical book from a library, they could photocopy the entire thing, then return the book they borrowed to the library and still have an additional copy that they made. Does that make library lending illegal? How is that something that can be blamed on the library in the first place?
The question isn’t whether it’s technically possible, the question is whether they even tried, and one of the reasons they lost is not just because they didn’t try at all, they instead looked the other way when they knew the borrowers didn’t “return” the book.
my point is that even if they did try, the outcome would've been the same and CDL was doomed from the beginning. their inane emergency CDL plan simply accelerated this outcome
Maybe, but that’s speculation, and others have won fair use claims. The decision in this case explicitly cited the defendant’s lack of effort to control their loaned copies while being aware of infringement.
I didn’t claim similar, and it seems like we’re losing the point here. Mine is that your claim at the top, that the problem had to do with having two copies, actually has nothing to do with why they lost. The problem, as the judge described, is that they didn’t put the “C” in CDL, and looked the other way when then knew it was missing, and then tried to claim fair use for something that clearly isn’t fair use. They didn’t lose because the judge is being pedantic about how many copies there are, they lost because they’re actually squarely violating existing copyright law.
Do you think it would have made a difference if they bought three copies of the book and then shredded two of them? That way they would have the original they scanned, their digital version they copy to lend, and the loaned digital copy.
The entire article is about fair use and how what IA is doing is not fair use. I would like the IA to exist, but I agree with the ruling that their fair use argument is nonsense. It's not a derivative work.
In the case of a physical object needing to temporarily go digital, it needs to be sent digitally and the records kept, and of course the physical copy has to be kept.
In the case of the GPL there's no physical copy and thus there's no need to consider how to move from one form to the other.
To require that a physical object never be used digitally is bad for society.
And also it's a lot easier to copy a digitally borrowed book than it is to copy a physically borrowed book.
There are practical differences between the two, which mean that the law probably should treat them differently. I expect a lot of HN have difficulty dealing with that because they think "but they both contain the same information".
It reminds me of people trying to encode books into prime numbers or the digits or pi or whatnot to "get around" copyright. Fundamentally missing the point.
You cannot even read an ebook without copying it from storage to RAM, to CPU cache, to video RAM, and so on; by your thinking, all owners of ebooks commit multiple instances of copyright infringement every time they read an ebook.
Replying to your edit: The format shifting argument and first sale doctrine are discussed in the ruling. Notably in the section headed ‘3’ starting on page 28 - but also in other places.
Nor does IA’s promise not to lend simultaneously its
lawfully acquired print copies and its unauthorized reproductions
help its case. As an initial matter, IA has not kept its promise.
Although the Open Library’s print copies of the Works in Suit are
non-circulating, IA concedes that it has no way of verifying
whether Partner Libraries remove their physical copies from
circulation after partnering with IA. Pls.’ 56.1 ¶¶ 495-496. To
the contrary, IA knows that some Partner Libraries do not remove
the physical books from their shelves, and even if a Partner
Library puts a physical book into a non-circulating reference
collection, it could be read in the library while the ebook
equivalent is checked out. Id. ¶¶ 494, 497. IA also does not
inform Partner Libraries when an ebook in its collection is
checked out, and Partner Libraries do not tell IA when their
physical copies are circulating. Id. ¶ 498. IA admits it has
never taken action against a Partner Library that did not
suppress circulation properly. Id. ¶ 499.
I do want IA to win, but this certainly doesn’t help their case, to say the least…
This is such an “ackchully” argument from the ruling. It’s not the spirit of the law and the principles behind the idea of free access to information. Instead it’s narrowing in on the specifics of physical lending of books, grasping for analogies to the 20th century, in a world which has transformed and moved on decades ago.
But even if all those things weren’t true, or important, it’s profound that there’s enough collective incentive to go after IA, instead of say corporations violating GPL, or the hedgies who created “temporary” artificial supply of stocks (which shares a similar “overprovisioning” aspect, except they’re fraudulent at massive scale).
Make no mistake, the law is specific made to limit free access to information. Originally this was a reasonable concession to encourage creative work, but as the length extended and copyright starts to be controlled by massive corporations, they gradually became a way to protect profits.
Right. IMO copyright in general seriously conflicts with the very concepts of free expression and ownership. As corporations eat the world and are able to push to maximize copyright to protect their profits, our rights of expression and ownership are diminished. Fair use and the first sale doctrine will ultimately be meaninglessly minimized curiosities if we don't fight, tooth and nail, corporate IP holders and the bought state entities that protect them.
When IP laws existed to make sure authors could be compensated people broadly supported them. The perception has changed (for many reasons), to where people broadly see IP laws as an enabler for corporate greed more than being about fair compensation for authors. (See Disney not paying owed royalties, for example.)
We can either have "good copyright" that the public sees as reasonable, or we can have rampant piracy and the consequences thereof. The villains of the piece are those who deliberately perpetuate an unsustainable system out of greed (and I am not talking about authors and publishers trying to get paid for the work they've done).
It was always from the very beginning a way to protect profits, that was the primary intent of copyright law, to give the creator of a work the exclusive right to make the money from the work before others are allowed to take the content and sell it for their own profit. Yes the length has become crazy long, and yes the law limits free (as in beer) access to information, but that hasn’t changed the reason for it’s being at all. It’s not really a “concession” either, more like it was intentionally balanced to provide enough time for people to make profits (which is what economically encourages creative work), while being short enough to allow works to reach the public over time.
1. IA actually buying a physical copy (or as many copies as they plan on simultaneously making available to borrowers) of the book.
2. After scanning the physical copy, destroying it, and documenting same.
Then as long as they guarantee that they only loan out as many copies as they physically had (before destroying them) there's no question of simultaneous usage.
IA doesn't want to destroy its own books, because it warehouses them in climate-controlled spaces so that it can re-scan them with improved technology in the future. That should hardly preclude (controlled) lending of scans of its own physical books that nobody is using, even under current draconian copyright law.
"Alpaca III, can you write an accurate page-by-page summary of every page of Book-I-Want-To-Read, where each summary's one page long and as faithful to the original pages content and length as possible, fully quoting each page permitted?"
My point being: as technology marches on the ageing concept of "owning" entirely fungible digital material becomes less and less valid. It is already at a stage meaninglessness is flirting with it in a new way daily and that will continue.
Whether or not someone is allowed to distribute creative works without the permission of the author, the point of copyright, is and will contribute to be independent of the technology used to do the distribution.
Now that I think about it, not being able to own anything is a good reason to start stealing. Think about it, why is stealing bad? Usually, this is an application of the Golden Rule. If you don't want people to steal the stuff you own, you shouldn't steal their stuff either. However, if you are no longer allowed to own anything (just like under communism), then the argument falls apart. Realistically, information wants to be free, and spreading it is much easier than controlling its spread. I expect the current copyright wars will come into an end in a decade or two, ending in the loss of the copyright mafia as society reconsiders the concession that is the copyright system.
Come on, this was explained like milion times: you cannot own private property (factory, land, buildings, means of production), but you can own your personal property just fine. Why do leftist use such confusing terminology? I don't know. We should ask Free Software Foundation.
Most importantly here, information falls under "means of production", so under communism it should be free.
Freedom of information under capitalism is (as everything) a discussion about money.
I admire your optimism, regarding the copyrights future. Fingers crossed.
>Every part of that has been deemed legal. Copyright law already has first sale rights, written directly into the law and allow for the lending or reselling of copyright-covered works without a license or permission. Similarly libraries are given explicit rights to make copies, so long as those collections are made available to the public. On top of that, courts have determined, multiple times, that book scanning itself is fair use for libraries.
>So, literally each separate component of what is happening with Controlled Digital Lending has already been deemed to be legal and exactly what we expect libraries to do.
>To counter this, publishers (and their supporters, which unfortunately include some authors) argue that (1) this interferes with the market for licensed ebooks, and (2) that there is a real difference in lending out the digital scans: that they don’t deteriorate the way that physical books do.
Whether a copy of a work is fair use turns on, amongst other things, the effect of the copy on the potential market for the original. The article acknowledges this.
Controlled Digital Lending competes directly with the licensing scheme publishers have for library ebooks. The fair use argument was always doomed to fail.
The article then completely ignores the copyright argument and tries to equate CDL with libraries loaning out their physical copies. This is completely absurd, since libraries do not distribute duplicates of their physical books and so do not even enter the realm of copyright.
If libraries were systematically distributing duplicates of their existing books they would be sued for copyright infringement.
One of the reasons the IA has lost (at least so far) here is that the judge noted they do not really do that, and have no mechanisms in place for doing that.
I thought the IA was in a bad place before, but they got very shown up in court.
Regular (obnoxious) ebook lending is done under license of the publisher, presumably with the approval of the rightsholders. It may or may not be distribution, but it's approved, so it's ok.
In the industry the title page is often considered to be proof of ownership. E.g. when a book doesn't sell, and book stores want it off the shelves, they may be asked to destroy the books except return the title pages to the publisher, as proof.
Laws a bit more open to interpretation and chaining rarely works, it’s humanist, and it’s at its face unreasonable that one physical copy => right to lend out digital cooy.
If the IA is creating their own digital copies of physical books, it could be argued that that the IA is creating and distributing derivative works. I'm not certain, but my impression is that derivative works have little in the way of legal protection.
The court order discusses this, and says while the first sale doctrine means IA could resell or lend their physical books, that right does not extend to unauthorized reproductions (such as making an ebook by scanning in a print book).
Changing formats without changing content is not a derivative work; it’s just a copyright violation. A derivative work must “add new original copyrightable authorship to that work.” https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ14.pdf
Do you believe that libraries should be barred from archiving material to microfiche? How is that significantly different from format-shifting a book to electronic form, as long as they use DRM to limiy concurrent viewing?
IANAL but I think I recall seeing that the US libraries’ initiative to reprint some older books on non-acid-based paper was supported by an explicit carve-out in US copyright law.
The market considerations for fair use concern the market for the work of authorship as a whole, not a specific format of it.
I'm not convinced fair use is the strongest argument in IA's case. But the idea that lending ebook copies can't be fair use simply because it competes with publishers' ebook licensing schemes seems like a misreading of how fair use is typically applied.
Of course other fair use considerations factor in, but the market impact for a specific format isn't a death blow against reproductions of a work, generally speaking.
The parent post makes the unwise choice of using the word "copy" to mean "duplicate".
They intend to say "libraries do not distribute duplicates of purchased books; they distribute the originals".
Unfortunately the word "copy" could also mean "the books purchased by the library". Of course the library distributes purchased books. They just don't scan the books, print fascimiles of those books on new paper, and then distribute those prints they made themselves.
I think what GP is saying is that when lending (or for that matter giving away) print books, libraries don't copy anything, they just distribute purchased works, which they have a fundamental right to do (in the US). That's different from the IA first making a digital copy and then distributing that copy, which there is no fundamental right to do.
It's more pernicious than that because it's a lie.
Broadly speaking, physical books last much longer than ebooks have been proven to. With preservation measures, you can get 100s of years out of a single book copy, but even without most books will last for decades unless something catastrophic happens or someone destroys them on purpose. I have several books from the 1800s that weren't cared for at all (picked up at an estate sale) and they're perfectly serviceable and would be fine if I rebound them.
So I have books from the 1860s that are still usable. Given how the digital world has developed, the odds of someone's Kindle or ePub file being viable in 2180 is exceptionally low. In the same way that playing old video games can be a hassle, I'd be shocked if we're still using the same files and formats in 160 years. (Outside of us weirdo archivists of course).
This sets back archival and human knowledge back 100 years. If you embargo a physical copy, an electronic copy should be lendable.
I would start a webtorrent+ipfs+i2p site in Iceland just to get around this insane perpetual monopoly on difficult-to-find, old shit that doesn't have a market but publishers keep locked away.
> Don't many community/government libraries do this?
Those books are licensed to the libraries by the publishers. The introduction of the opinion here explains how it works:
> This dispute concerns the way libraries lend ebooks. Public and academic libraries in the United States spend billions of
dollars each year obtaining print books and ebooks for their
patrons to borrow for free. Pls.’ 56.1 ¶ 113. Libraries usually buy their print books from publishers or wholesalers. Id. ¶ 114. Copies of ebooks, however, are typically not bought but licensed to libraries from publishers through distributors called “aggregators.” Id. ¶ 117. The Publishers task aggregators with ensuring that a library lends its ebooks only to the library’s members. Id. ¶¶ 123, 125. The Publishers also require aggregators to employ approved “digital rights management” (“DRM”) software and other security measures to prevent unauthorized copying or distribution of ebook files. Id. ¶ 126.
It's worth emphasizing that part of the reason why publishers are happy to work with providing libraries with ebooks is that libraries are extremely good customers. There's something like 100,000 libraries in the US alone. A single organization like the Internet Archive just simply doesn't have the purchasing power to make publishers willing to give up any ground.
Libraries' ebook lending programs are not legal because they require membership and use DRM. They're legal because they're authorized by the copyright owners, and those are the terms the copyright owners choose to impose (along with licensing fees).
But if I purchase the paper book, there is - thankfully - no shrink-wrap licensing anywhere that tells me that I can or cannot lend it to anyone, yet I sure hope I can. Why IA can't?
Which might be legally sound (so says this court, we will presumably hear from others), but it’s logically balderdash. The copyright applies to the “intellectual property” content of the book, not its paper and binding. (I’m sure there are some esoteric exceptions to this because artists gonna art, but I feel confident that I’m representing the vast general case correctly.)
If I rightly own a copy of a book, I don’t think any court within the bounds of absurdity would say I can’t make a digital copy for myself because that’s how I prefer to consume it. Being allowed to lend one finite form but not another equivalent one is definitely something law or license might specify, but that doesn’t mean it makes any kind of sense.
I believe this court ruling suggests that, while you are free to make a copy for yourself of a work you legally acquired, and you are free to lend or re-sell the original work you acquired, you are not free to lend or re-sell the copy you made, even if the original doesn't exist anymore.
Basically, the only thing you are legally allowed to sell is the exact copy you bought of a physical representation of a work, assuming it was created by an authorized entity. You do not legally own an abstract copy of the idealized work, you own a physical object which happens to represent a copy of that work.
Note that this is in fact very much how most people would think of copyright. If I buy a book and someone steals it from me, or it is there in my house and it burns down, I don't have some right to now obtain another physical representation of that novel free of charge, or to obtain a copy made by a friend with a xerox. My sole right was to that one physical copy I bought, and that no longer exists.
you can make 100 copies for yourself. what you can't do is make a copy that you give to someone else while simultaneously retaining access to the original (or another copy).
the way libraries work is by relinquishing posession, which replication would circumvent.
> what you can't do is make a copy that you give to someone else while simultaneously retaining access to the original (or another copy).
I’m pretty sure I can do that.
> the way libraries work is by relinquishing posession
I almost included that I could shred my copy, keeping only the digital equivalent, and still retain the same rights to the work and lending it.
Any individual in IA’s position could do this without fear of legal scrutiny. An organization doing it is under scrutiny not because there’s actual, meaningful copyright violation happening but because they systemized a thing no reasonable person would object to individuals doing.
> I almost included that I could shred my copy, keeping only the digital equivalent, and still retain the same rights to the work and lending it.
This is the part that is not true. For example, you are free to transcribe a book onto a parchement and read it that way, and store the parchment separately from the book for archival purposes, and keep the parchement even if the original book gets destroyed.
However, this is a limited exception to copyright. You are not in fact allowed, at any point before or after the original copy is destroyed, to lend or re-sell the parchment you created. That parchment will forever be an unauthorized copy, but one that you are allowed to use in certain limited ways.
The only wrinkle is that, at least in the EU, when you acquire an authorized digital copy of a work, you are allowed to lend or sell that copy as long as you don't retain access to it during the lending/after the sale. This is allowed even though technically you are technically creating a new copy of the digital work and destroying your own afterwards, but this is an exception specific to digital realms, it can't be extended to digital copies you make of a phyisical work.
Obviously there are lots of jurisdictions and you have to hit a broad brush with answers, but generally, no. Your reproduction is only considered to be reasonable by law while you retain the original.
Now I'm wondering how this would apply in situations where the person doesn't know if they have the original or not.
Inspired by the fact that my emulation of Link's Awakening to play on a screen I could see is technically legal since we had a cartridge stuffed away in a drawer. But for 10-15 years that cartridge lived in a limbo land of 'we used to have that, it might still be around somewhere...'
Is this just ebook lending? Is that popular among local libraries?
I thought Kindle/Nook/Apple books/etc completely dominated that market. Reading PDFs on computers/tablets for long form stuff never made much sense to me. I'm curious if local libraries get much traction from their digital libraries.
I could see audiobooks getting locked down being a big hit though. Audible has a monopoly on that harder than ebooks ever experienced.
It is worth noting that Libraries in the UK have to pay authors/publishers to loan out books on a royalty basis with the Public Lending Right payment of course. Even physical books.
My library lends epubs through OverDrive, which puts Adobe's DRM on them. It works quite well with my Kobo Libra H2O. Checkouts of ebooks spiked during the pandemic, with 3 million in 2019, for a county with a total population of ~800K
Sorry, those were two different thoughts. I only have numbers for 2019. I haven't been able to find anything for pandemic years other than general reports that ebook borrowing spiked.
My ten year old uses "Libby" a lot to borrow books from the local library - at one point they started rate limiting him. He also typically has a dozen physical books checked out at any given time.
Yeah, on an iPad. He reads a variety of stuff, but he tells me it's been pokemon themed manga recently. We limit screen time, so he mostly reads print books, but he'll get an hour of bonus libby time in the mornings on school holidays. His fun screen time, 30 min weekdays, 1.5 weekends is typically minecraft or pokemon games.
I also occasionally let him have a little bit of Libby or scratch time (which I deem "educational") before going to school or before bed. (Everything is contingent on behavior.)
Aside from minecraft/pokemon stuff, he typically reads a mix of kids graphic novels and books. Including Tristan Strong, Artimis Fowl, Wings of Fire, Dogman. He's also read Harry Potter, some Terry Pratchett, and Tolkien. He first read the Lord of the Rings in the summer between first and second grade, which blew my mind (it was middle or high school or me). So I don't really worry about stuff like the ratio of graphic novels to textual books.
For my five year old, we have been rate limited on overdrive reading Pete the Cat and Franklin books. Partly because the selection is woeful (about 20 English books) compared to IA's thousands in that category.
If a book exists in overdrive, they allow you to request that your library add it to their collection. My first two requests were added to my library within days, several others came a few months later, and now about 4(?) years later I'm still getting an occasional notification about it, though at this point I've read them already...
> This ruling is not about the emergency library at all. It's a ruling that [...] one physical copy backing each digital copy lent out) is illegal.
That's not what I read in the linked article, specifically:
Regarding "IA’s promise not to lend simultaneously": "IA has not kept its promise. Although the Open Library’s print copies of the Works in Suit are non-circulating, IA concedes that it has no way of verifying whether Partner Libraries remove their physical copies from circulation after partnering with IA…. To the contrary, IA knows that some Partner Libraries do not remove the physical books from their shelves"
As I understand it, this case exists because the IA was not keeping its promise anymore and made an error of judgement by breaking the 1:1 ratio without any legal argumentation or even a logical reason for it. It was said at the time already, but the obviousness, whether something as important as the wayback machine's owner should compete with the pirate bay for market share on illegal ebooks, and the use of (my/our) donated money on the ensuing legal nonsense, is a different discussion...
If these underlying facts and circumstances were different, such as if someone tries this concept again but keeps their promise and implements it correctly, the same ruling cannot be passed because it's not the same situation. It would have to be tried again and it might (or might not) swing the other way, at least that is my general understanding of legal systems around the world.
Perhaps it would also be different in another country whence ExampleBooks Ltd could operate legally, that will depend in part on whether the copyright alliance pact (I forgot the name) has provisions letting signatories (afaik that's every nation you might want to live in) make exceptions for things like this.
> It’s a ruling that controlled digital lending is illegal.
That’s not really true. One issue described explicitly in the decision is that the lending is mostly uncontrolled, and worse there’s evidence of it the defendant was aware of. The second issue is that the defendant isn’t using the first sale doctrine, their defense is fair use. Presumably the whole reason they decided to argue fair use is because they knew they weren’t adhering to the lending analogy, because they were aware they were effectively distributing copies, not just lending them.
It means you are not legally allowed to lend them or sell them, even if you lose the original DVD and even though you did have the right to lend or sell the original DVD.
IANAL, but even if we assume the act of backing up a DVD to hard drive is legal, it's not clear to me how one could legally use the resulting copy without somehow circumventing CSS.
And with only narrow exceptions that probably don't apply here, this act of circumvention violates 17 U.S.C. 1201(a)(1)(A)[1] unless the copyright owner has authorized the process (as they do with licensed playback devices and software).
Yikes. I borrow books constantly from the IA that are hard/impossible to find elsewhere because they've gone out of print. A lot of academic-ish non-fiction from the 1960s-1980s, stuff you can only otherwise get through inter-library loan that takes weeks rather than seconds.
Any idea if this means IA has to shut down lending by when? Tomorrow? Next month?
Any chances for appeal here? Or any chance they relocate the books division to another country or something?
It's just so sad if something so valuable is forced to go "poof". A real loss.
Yes, IA has followed a similar tragic arc as Google Books, another martyr to the dream of a truly 21st century library.
What's most tragic about it to me is that that vast majority of works affected are "zombie" copyright works that have no actual commercial value. Someone, somewhere holds the copyright, but no one has sold a copy in years or decades. For the sake of protecting the tiny sliver of commercially valuable works, access to all of this other knowledge will be lost.
Has there been any kind of movement towards a law that would automatically put zombie works into the public domain?
It really doesn't seem unreasonable that if a book, film, recording, or video game hasn't been generally available for sale over the past 5 or 10 years it becomes public domain. Use it or lose it, in other words.
Although it might really only apply to past works. Because while physical books go out of print, e-books will probably be available forever, no?
Not in the public domain, no, but some countries such as the Nordics have mandatory schemes for orphan works where a collection society is able to authorise their use and has legal protection to do so, and will pay out said royalties should someone come forward to claim ownership at a later date.
Most of Europe was going to do this at some point but the photographer's unions pushed back in very strong terms so they were often watered down.
Just shortening copyright would mostly mitigate this issue. If it was 10 years after creation then the most you have to wait is a decade. It may be nice to also have a specific exception for "abandoned" works but at least 10 years would be a solid fallback with no need to do difficult research like finding the authors and if they have died or proving that a work qualifies as abandoned.
Not in the public domain, no, but some countries such as the Nordics have mandatory schemes for orphan works where a collection society is able to authorise their use and has legal protection to do so, and will pay out said royalties should someone come forward to claim ownership at a later date.
Most of Europe was going to do this at some point but the photographer's unions pushed back in very strong terms so they were often watered down.
But then they would make such works paying public domain (the type of public domain that you have to pay royalties to the state) rather than FFA public domain.
But there is always a risk that the rights holder rises up from the grave and sues you. With proper abandoned work exceptions you would be safe as long as the rights holders are not currently distributing.
If artists deserve money every time you read a book then your plumber should get paid every time you take a shit. Copyrights have been abused to the point of absurdity. They should last no longer than patents.
A writer/artist/whatever can make some money off a work for two decades and then their work goes to the society that enabled its creation.
> A writer/artist/whatever can make some money off a work for two decades and then their work goes to the society that enabled its creation.
-- Signed, Not an Artist.
(Most artists are paid an absolute pittance for their work. Most work at least one other job. Almost none make even a basic income. I feel artists should have the benefit of the income from their work for their natural life, unless they waive their rights. That said, companies have sorely abused and influenced copyright law to the point that the advantage is highly asymmetric in their favour and that certainly needs to be addressed).
Why doesn't the plumber deserve a payment every time you shit then? Effective sewage systems prevent devastating diseases like cholera and typhus. Surely that's a higher social utility than a trashy Harlequin novel or any of the works of Kevin Federline?
Also, fuck you for assuming I've never made any art. I'd be fine if anything I've drawn, painted, or written became public domain after twenty years. If I wanted to sell it that's plenty of time. Works entering public domain doesn't preclude me from selling the physical artifact even after its public domain. It doesn't preclude me from making new art to sell. A musician's work becoming public domain doesn't preclude them performing it for pay.
It would be ridiculous if twenty years from now some poor bastard got sued into destitution because they downloaded some dumb thing I wrote twenty years ago.
> Why doesn't the plumber deserve a payment every time you shit then?
Pretty sure the plumber is getting (very) decently paid for their work. Pretty sure the people who planned and installed the sewage system were well remunerated.
Pretty sure the person who wrote the trashy Harlequin novel in your example has to grind pretty hard to earn enough to buy their, let's say, diabetic medication.
> Also, fuck you for assuming I've never made any art.
And thank you for speaking up on behalf of all artists and kindly telling us all that we should expect 20 years worth of almost nothing out of efforts, instead of a lifetime.
> It would be ridiculous if twenty years from now some poor bastard got sued into destitution because they downloaded some dumb thing I wrote twenty years ago.
So licence it CC-0. Or release it to the Public Domain. Knock yourself out.
> Pretty sure the plumber is getting (very) decently paid for their work. Pretty sure the people who planned and installed the sewage system were well remunerated.
These are generally not considered desirable jobs so why are you so sure they are paid their due? After all you are using the result of their labour every day, so why are you unwilling to pay more.
> Pretty sure the person who wrote the trashy Harlequin novel in your example has to grind pretty hard to earn enough to buy their, let's say, diabetic medication.
Medical costs don't affect artists more than others and in some countries we have come up with other ways to pay for them collectively.
> And thank you for speaking up on behalf of all artists and kindly telling us all that we should expect 20 years worth of almost nothing out of efforts, instead of a lifetime.
And you can speak for all artsts then? Of course the idea that only copyright holders should have a say about copyright policy is ridiculous in the first place - it has always been a deal between creators and everyone else. If one "side" (and really, these aren't separate sides but mostly overlapping groups) feels that they are getting less out of the deal then the other side can't just say "but I want to be paid forever".
> So licence it CC-0. Or release it to the Public Domain. Knock yourself out.
Or argue for copyright reform. We don't owe it to you to support your choice to make a living off of art - you could always work as a plumber if you thing they are very decently paid.
> Pretty sure the person who wrote the trashy Harlequin novel in your example has to grind pretty hard to earn enough to buy their, let's say, diabetic medication.
So does the plumber. Why are they not being paid per flush of your toilet? The advance on a trashy romance novel is likely more than a plumber charges.
As to speaking for artists, I'm speaking as a member of society. The expectation you create some piece of "art" and make money for the rest of your natural life is ridiculous. Copyrights lasting as long as patents gives an artist plenty of time to monetize their work. It then becomes public domain to serve the public that gave them that monopoly in the first place.
Billions of dollars changed hands every year due to patent licensing. If two decades wasn't enough time to monetize something that wouldn't happen.
The length of copyright protections in the US are ludicrous. It's especially egregious as the company that's done the most to extend copyrights, Disney, made their fortune absolutely pillaging public domain fairy tales. Thousands of pop songs have been riffing Johann Pachelbel for nearly a century.
There's a lot of drawing from the public domain and not nearly enough replenishment.
> So does the plumber. Why are they not being paid per flush of your toilet? The advance on a trashy romance novel is likely more than a plumber charges.
1. Why should the plumber be paid-per-flush? A toilet is infrastructure, a permenant part of a house. You may as well argue that we should pay a carpenter, a landlord, or a bank to use our front doors.
2. I actually don't have a flushing toilet. The compost toilet I have was not installed by a plumber.
> As to speaking for artists, I'm speaking as a member of society. The expectation you create some piece of "art" and make money for the rest of your natural life is ridiculous.
When a plumber installs a toilet, they get paid. When a musician releases a song they might hope to get enough money for a beer, if they're lucky. Nobody requires art. Try and get a house plan through planning without a toilet. So plumbers and other trades have a certain expectation of being able to make a living. Artists do not, and the very, very, very that are lucky enough to just make a minnimum wage are doing better that 99% of their peers.
I do art too. Yeah, I'm never going to get money for it, and I do it for my own entertainment and my friends. If society values my art, and wants me to release it out to people, you better believe you'll be paying for it. Plumbers don't install toilets as recreation. They do so to get paid.
Artists have the option, at any time, of releasing their works to the public domain. If they felt strongly that they should profit from their works for only 20 years, they have the absolute power to make that happen.
> There's a lot of drawing from the public domain and not nearly enough replenishment.
But does the artist deserve to retain the value of their work seventy years after their death?
Given the very large proportion of orphaned works, a very large proportion of living authors don't think their existing corpus has any residual value to them.
The artist does deserve to retain value for some time, but the question is how long should that be such that all interests are balanced?
As an author myself, I think the proper copyright term is ~15 years from the copyright inception. (Disclosure: I give my stuff away for free online--people buy paper copies if the want them, so I'm not a publisher's idea of a model author.)
A relative handful of publishers/authors will lose out (e.g. Dune, Van Gogh), but the public domain will be well-served. 15 years seems like a good balance point.
> The artist does deserve to retain value for some time
Hard disagree. We have chosen to allow the artist to retain a monopoly for a limited time because we though it would encoruage the cration of more art. The only valid argument for copyright is one that shows it benefits society as a whole.
> I borrow books constantly from the IA that are hard/impossible to find elsewhere because they've gone out of print. A lot of academic-ish non-fiction from the 1960s-1980s, stuff you can only otherwise get through inter-library loan that takes weeks rather than seconds.
This is the one use case where the blockchain/web3 is useful.
Give me a decentralized library on the blockchain, where no government can take it down by merely discovering the host's identity and location. Invulnerable to rubber-hose attacks and censorship (which IPFS is still vulnerable to.)
Blockchains don't really do this well though. A blockchain is useful when you need a publicly accessible, canonical shared record of a consensus, obfuscated or otherwise. They're not for storing arbitrary data. If you want to store arbitrary data, and you want peer to peer decentralized kind of features and you want identities obfuscated, currently you're looking at BitTorrent over Tor. I don't know if i2p or Tor or anyone else is working on any sort of swarm like file sharing internally over those networks, but it needs to be done and these shadow libraries need to begin using it.
Blockchains can absolutely be used for storing arbitrary data (see Filecoin.)
Torrents cannot be updated. Whether done over Tor or not, they aren't suitable for this use case, especially as you have to chase down the websites that advertise them, as they constantly get banned.
What you need is a distributed append-only data structure. Blockchains are an example, but not the only way to do this.
Filecoin doesn't store data on the blockchain. Filecoin is a blockchain payment network for a monetized IPFS storage network. The two were developed in concert, IPFS was built for filecoin.
IPFS is more popular on it's own than with filecoin I'll point out, off topic.
But you can use blockchains for arbitrary data, there's nothing preventing you from doing it. It's just a bad idea, everyone has to have every copy of everything anyone might want.
Torrents over Tor fall short, Torrents fall short in general I agree. An IPFS type network native to i2p or Tor, internal with no exit, is probably the way to go, unfortunately to my knowledge it does not exist.
IPFS has some theoretical merits, such as not relying on discrete trackers (which is a point of failure), and at present we have a bunch of mirrors that speeds it up. However, BitTorrent has a better track record regarding resilience against interference (from copyright mafia) or other bad actors. IPFS has so far not openly supported this usage.
I personally don't think it's necessary, but the Blockchain creates an effectively irreversible collectivization of the work: Removal would also undo whatever other work was committed.
It's kind of like cryptographically amortized hostage taking... Erase my book, and the pickle ball championships NFT gets it...
Torrents cannot be updated. Furthermore, torrents are subject to the sites that advertise them getting banned. You will constantly be on the hunt for new trackers.
Blockchain is an obviously superior application here as new books and articles are constantly being released.
That's not neccesarily a bad thing. Once you release something you shouldn't be able to gaslight people by silently updating it - instead, release a new verson with a new torrent.
This was going to be my next question with basic assumption that the entire gathered information will either vanish, get moved to torrents or splintered across various believers of the cause.
"We will be appealing the judgment and encourage everyone to come together as a community to support libraries against this attack by corporate publishers.... We will continue our work as a library. This case does not challenge many of the services we provide with digitized books including interlibrary loan, citation linking, access for the print-disabled, text and data mining, purchasing ebooks, and ongoing donation and preservation of books."
Checking a listing for a specific book ... there's still the option to log in and borrow it as I write this.
IA and Signal are two nonprofits I donate to and recommend everyone donate to regardless of their political or religious convictions (or lack thereof).
The Internet Archive very well may be the only way to know a lot of important things from the past -- things that libraries used to keep track of but can't in the internet age.
I would add FSF and/or EFF. FSF is more uncompromising with respect to their original principles of defending digital freedom, whereas EFF sort of shifts with time (gradually giving up grounds).
If the IA loses all appeals and the lending library is totally destroyed, is there a firewall between that and the entity that is archiving the internet, or does the whole thing live and die together?
Unfortunately IA lost all credibility in my eyes, when they decided that one journalist in particular gets to decide that none of their (awful) tweets should be archived[1].
I understand not allowing certain things to be archived, but the tweets of a public person, especially one who works as a news-maker, should certainly be in the allowed list.
E: And just to be clear, this was before said writer set their tweets to private.
> the publishers take issue with only 120 or so books
Not quite. The plaintiffs have to name some specific works on which to base the case. The 120 is enough because the statutory damages for just those 120 works could be a staggering amount that would bankrupt IA.
The complaint [0] also asks for an injunction enjoining IA from any further infringement of "any of the respective copyrights owned or exclusively controlled, in whole or in part, by Plaintiffs, whether now in existence or hereinafter created." [0] at 51.
There's a good chance IA will be exempted from statutory damages. See 17 USC § 504(c)(2),
> The court shall remit statutory damages in any case where an infringer believed and had reasonable grounds for believing that his or her use of the copyrighted work was a fair use under section 107, if the infringer was: (i) an employee or agent of a nonprofit educational institution, library, or archives acting within the scope of his or her employment who, or such institution, library, or archives itself, which infringed by reproducing the work in copies or phonorecords
The opinion (p46) defers this matter,
> At this point, IA’s statutory remittance argument is premature. IA may renew the argument in connection with the formation of an appropriate judgment.
seems to me that once something is out of print for a lengthy period of time, publishers shouldn't be able to make the fair use argument that electronic copies interfere with the commercial market for the book.
Better chance of staying alive and complete if they can remain in the US but additionally we build seperate archives in the EU, Russian and as many geographically and politically distant regions as we can.
Something developers don't seem to understand about the media business is just how much they care about copyright law.
One huge thing that was drilled into my skull working for SlingTV: a work comprises the actual data and the medium to which it is affixed. When 11 million people used our DVRs to record the super bowl, we had to store 11 million copies on disc. Of the same exact footage. That we ourselves originally broadcast to them. Our lawyers told us not even to try messing with this. Don't try to share copies they said, we'll get sued off of our faces.
So I'm not surprised that a judge ruled this way when looking at the facts. From a media person's perspective, digitally copying the work that was in print is making a second copy. Whether or not you think this is dumb, it's the reality under which we work. I've learned to be very careful about things like this.
The reason you were allowed to store 11 million copies is because the U.S. Supreme Court ruled[1] in 1984 that you were permitted to make copies of TV shows to watch later on your VCR. And this was reputedly because some of the supreme court judges had VCRs — which had been spreading lightning fast at the time — and understood the concept and wanted to find or create a legal argument to permit such copying.
Just imagine if VCR adoption had been slower, and that the judges had not yet tried out that newfangled invention for home recording, and they had ruled that personal copies weren't allowed. Then today, you'd have been making 11 million illegal copies. It's amusing to think about whether making a single copy available to 11 million users would have been much less legal risk in that scenario.
To be more specific, the Betamax case is the reason a specific person can store a copy of a TV recording that they made, for timeshifting purposes, because SCOTUS held that that person's use of the recorded TV content, in that circumstance, was fair dealing with respect to the recorded TV content. And that's it.
If you provide a recording service, you had better be as close as you possibly can to that fact matrix. Any hint that it's you, and not your users, who are doing the copying, would attract the wolves.
Also, this focus on who is doing the copying has been looked at enough in different jurisdictions around the world that it's probably not worth the risk testing it. Germany (Save.TV, Shift.TV), Japan (Rokuraku II), Australia (Optus TV Now). Don't quote me on these, this is off the cuff.
I think most people here saw this coming. Unfortunately this isn't a question of whether the law is good, it's a question of whether IA broke the current laws we have.
IA can and should lobby for copyright law to change. But breaking it before it has changed is risky and foolish, and does more harm than good.
> But breaking it before it has changed is risky and foolish, and does more harm than good.
As I recall, this is precisely how British Columbia got Sunday shopping. Stores and shopping malls broke the law repeatedly. There were fines, but Sunday shopping was popular. Eventually, public pressure led governments to legalize Sunday opening.
I didn't agree with it then and I don't fully agree with it now, but it can work.
I am from BC and the Sunday no shopping was a bit before my time but my dad talks about how stupid it was. If you had a problem and needed something in an emergency well too bad. Didn’t realize you were low on bread and forgot to get it Saturday oh well kids are not getting a sandwich in their lunches for Monday morning school. Like you say eventually people realized the fines were actually just the cost of doing business. Those who opened up sundays made a killing because that is what the people wanted. I know a guy who did the same for opening a marijuana shop. Did it just before it was legal and was getting a $150 fine each day from the city. He said just a cost of business as he was making several thousand or more each day.
Oh. There were a small number of corner stores that were allowed to be open. I don't know how they decided that. But you could always get the basics on a Sunday.
Gas stations were also allowed to be open although they rarely had convenience stores attached to them back then.
I take it your dad want a low wage retail employee working Sundays? Not sacrificing everything to the grass good consumerism isn’t “stupid”.
> “Didn’t realize you were low on bread and forgot to get it Saturday oh well kids are not getting a sandwich in their lunches for Monday morning school.”
It is possible to make bread. And to eat other things. And to buy school lunches. And to borrow or trade food with neighbours.
Not everyone cares about working Sunday. Why is it Sunday? Why not Saturday? Right - one set of religious beliefs that aren't universal. Why should the state be mandating this? Isn't it better to use state power to prevent employers from being able to coerce employees into working excessively or being unable to negotiate the days off that are important to them?
> "Why should the state be mandating this? Isn't it better to use state power to prevent employers from being able to coerce employees into working"
Remember when Arkansas rolled back some child labour laws? Hopefully you do, it was last week[1]. The reason why not "just do something good for workers instead" is because companies want cheaper employees with fewer options to leave, not better protections for workers.
> "Why is it Sunday? Why not Saturday?"
Great, well done, you've bikeshedded it from "mandatory day off" to "no mandatory day off" because you can't see a difference between them. Religion bad, Atheism good, therefore roll back labour protections?
The post I was replying to specifically indicated "Sunday".
I didn't say religion bad. I said that Sunday was chosen because of it's alignment with many Christian religions, and this is true: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_law
There are many other religions that do _not_ have Sunday as a day of rest; other abrahamic religions choose Friday (Islam) or Saturday (Judaism, 7th day Adventist). Non-abrahamic religions and atheists feature further diversity.
Consider:
> California twice passed Sunday closing laws, in 1858 and in 1861. The first was found unconstitutional just five months after it was enacted. It was used to convict and imprison a Jewish clothing merchant who closed his business on Saturday, and opened it on Sunday.
One could simply mandate that businesses offer employees one or more consistent day of rest instead of having the state pick religious winners and losers.
I'm not really a fan of stores being closed on Sundays here but there is an argument for not just having a consistent day of rest but also a common day of rest between family members/friends. Really though, we should all have at least three days of rest per week - then not having enough overlap would be unlikely.
No. Those laws were made to curtail drunkenness and the numerous social woes that come with it. Same reason we passed total prohibition. Those religious minorities were negligible in the times and places where they passed blue laws and the only groups that were negatively associated with alcohol were Christian.
Huh? I described a side effect of these laws—not theoretical, but an actual side effect that happened. You counter by saying… that that wasn’t the intent of the law? Sure, I agree with you: blue laws in the United States were not (usually) put in place with the intent of oppressing seventh‐day Sabbatarians, a relatively insignificant group. But oppression of Sabbatarians is in fact what they led to.
What makes Sunday so special? Why not just pass worker protection laws that prevent people from overworking, rather than dictating a magical day that nobody can work.
It's a stupid idea and a dumb law that it only makes sense if your worker protection laws are too weak.
entertainment venues, museums, restaurants, etc are usually getting an exception here. public transport and emergency services too. can't shut the country down.
i am actually curious how they do that in israel where the jewish law not to work on sabbath is taken much more seriously.
And why should they? Why should not those workers get same rights? Are they somehow lesser? Just give them also mandatory time off on same day. And then they like others can take some other time free to go to those places.
well, i don't know about the specific rules for work on sunday in these places, but generally, when you accept a job there you know in advance that there will be work on sundays, so if you don't want that, don't take that kind of job.
So, should this be extended to all workers? And all places that people might spend leisure time? Let's say restaurants and bars, cinemas, public swimming pools, markets, amusement parks.
As those people should have same exact rights to spend leisure time with their families and friends.
I feel like this is the best argument for it but… it leaves a lot of holes? What about Saturdays, or other non-school days?
And… just protection for retail workers? Is there a reason it wouldn’t apply to all workers below a certain pay range (or maybe it did, and the “no shopping” rule is just a shorthand?)
and actually, in germany for example, the rule is not that shops must be closed. you can open your shop if you can run it yourself, without any employees help.
depending on the country, saturdays can be school days, but generally nowadays, the rule extended to saturday as well, actually, with the exception of retail. it used to be that saturdays were half work days. and of national holidays are equal to sundays.
> "Why not just pass worker protection laws that prevent people from overworking"
Provide your own answer here: why did the system which exists to exploit humans for profit do away with a free day instead of "just" passing worker protection laws? (Why did you frame it as "prevent people from overworking" instead of "prevent people from being overworked"?)
> "It's a stupid idea and a dumb law that it only makes sense if your worker protection laws are too weak."
Humans exist for more than just buying things. You may not like "A Sabbath for God" but "A day for something in life other than shopping" is an important idea. When September 11th 2001 terrorist attacks happened - great big terrorist attacks on American soil for pretty much the first time - President George Bush told Americans to "go shopping" in response. When many American teenagers grew up, they hung out at a shopping mall.
Are you not lamenting the increasing feeling that you can't go out in public without being charged to be somewhere these days? Or the gradual turning of all walks of life into advertising and subscription services? Is any pushback on it "stupid and dumb" to you?
> Why did you frame it as "prevent people from overworking" instead of "prevent people from being overworked"?
I'm sorry I used the wrong words.
> Humans exist for more than just buying things
Yea, duh
> "A day for something in life other than shopping" is an important idea
That's fine. Why does it have to be the _same_ day for everyone? That's the stupid idea. Pass a law that says everyone must be given a full day off every week, I'm with you. Pass a law saying that day _must_ be Sunday, and I'm walking away.
Hell, pass a law that says everyone must be given three full days off every week, I'm with you. Pass a law that says you have to pay someone 3x for every hour they work beyond 30 hours, I'm with you. Pass a law that says everyone must work 9am-3pm and I'm walking away.
> Are you not lamenting the increasing feeling that you can't go out in public without being charged to be somewhere these days?
Irrelevant to the conversation, but generally, no.
> Or the gradual turning of all walks of life into advertising and subscription services?
Irrelevant to the conversation, but yea, it's a hellscape.
High wage employees have leverage, and can afford to quit. They are less pushed into the position "we're allowed to open on Sunday so you're working Sundays now".
> Didn’t realize you were low on bread and forgot to get it Saturday oh well kids are not getting a sandwich in their lunches for Monday morning school.
Probably not the best example, because it's not like a sandwich is the only lunch option (the lazy one for sure), but I take your point. Migraine and no painkillers, period and no pads, sex and no condom, alcoholic and no alcohol (with risk of lethal DTs)? Too bad...
The logic you use to dismiss the sandwich example extrapolates to your own examples. "Shut off the lights and go to bed or go to the ER" "Stuff a cloth in your underwear" "Don't have sex" "Don't you have any sterno or mouthwash?!"
Why even do this to someone if you understood their meaning and more or less agree?
So your argument is that no shopping is an inconvenience, not an imposition? I ask because you did the same thing you're arguing against, and yet failed to provide any counter examples.
Same in England. In Scotland there were no strong laws against Sunday shopping, apparently because nobody thought any shop would even think about opening. So when they did, and everyone went shopping, folks in England complained that they wanted what Scotland had.
Are you sure? It sounds vaguely convincing but unlikely in practice:
Scotland - Largely Presbyterian ie rather more Catholic than us southern softies wot do Church of Eng. Your Catholic is rather more concerned about Sabbath behaviour than your Protestant except when they don't. Mind you we have some laughable nonsense available regardless of denomination - for example otters were once classed as fish hereabouts for Fish Friday. lol! It is quite hard to get more than 50 miles away from the sea in Britain. We also have quite a lot of rivers/streams/brooks/burns/cultured waterways - canals. Those ribbons of water contain quite a lot of fish. Yes, the UK might be quite as mad as you imagine it - we seem to require mammals to be classified as fish to ensure we make a God happy (one day in seven).
I recall shopping on Sunday becoming a thing here around the late 80s/early 90s but hours were not too conservative here in the UK compared to the rest of europe. We never had formal lunchtime closing for example, which is bloody annoying. I lived in W Germany for a few years back in 70s-90s and it was tricky buying stuff around 1200-1400 depending on where you were and the time. Nowadays I note that Italy, Spain, Portugal int al still have some pretty patchy midday work practices. That's fine but caveat emptor!
In Central Scotland, during the 70s and 80s, lunch time closing was the norm. Half day Wednesday was also very popular in some trades (butchers, grocers etc.) as it allowed working on a Saturday morning.
Back then, nothing was open on a Sunday.
In some parts of Scotland (the Western Isles for example) doing any work, hanging your washing out, cutting your grass etc. on a Sunday, to be violating the Sabbath. No laws. Just peer pressure from your neighbours. As you'd expect this is stronger in smaller villages than larger towns.
>"I didn't agree with it then and I don't fully agree with it now, but it can work."
I actually do agree with it. Same reason as jury nullification. If enough people (jury members in this case) believe that the law / particular application is unjust then fuck it. In nullification the government must give in. I do not see why it should be any different in general. The key here should be what constitutes "enough"
Alternatively we can call it restraining our masters when they run amok. They're the same mob that we are. If the law goes against common sense / justice then the fuck with it. Why should we suffer a consequence of some lunatic with damaged brain.
Listing a place a law was broken to advocate for repeating it is not good advice. The proper metric is to see how many times laws are broken and how often that works out for the lawbreaker.
I didn't advocate for breaking the law. I said I disagreed with the whole thing. I was pointing out that the approach had worked in the past, because the previous poster had argued that "breaking [the law] before it has changed is risky and foolish, and does more harm than good."
The previous poster made a more defensible statement given the totality of outcomes when breaking the law.
If I told someone smoking is bad forr their health, would you follow with "I know a person that smoked till 98" as reasonable advice? This is the same argument.
And in this case, the actions of IA may well end them for all of us. That's not such a good outcome for breaking the law, is it?
Not many lawbreakers are doing it to change the law either.
And we're seeing the IA possibly going to end because they wanted to break the law, and not completely for some moral cause, but because breaking it helps them. There was plenty of reasonable calling out Brewster's ignorant and self-serving choices on this issue for some time. He didn't need to do this, and he put the entire operation at unnecessary risk, as his critics claimed would happen.
Not OP, but I think having one day where nearly everyone (except restaurants, attractions, hospitality and essential services) has off is good for family cohesion. It gives everyone a guaranteed weekly timeslot to spend time together.
You didn't split out essential services, and it seems dead-obvious to me that shutting those down would cause more harm than good even when you value all families exactly the same. There's no way they're saying the families of essential service providers are less important.
And it seems pretty clear they're grouping those other things in with essential services, which you could disagree with, but is a very different thing from saying those families are less important.
I am genuinely curious how a person reconciles two seemingly opposing views:
"It gives everyone a guaranteed weekly timeslot to spend time together."
where everyone is everyone except:
"except restaurants, attractions, hospitality and essential services".
I could easily give in on essential services, because a lot will ride on how broadly they are defined, but if the goal is 'family cohesion' building for everyone then as few groups should be excluded as possible ( which also means that businesses that people, who usually have even less leisure time than most of us -- restaurants, attractions, hospitality -- can recharge ).
I will be honest. For me it the line drawing always tends to be the most interesting piece, because it tends to indicate what the individual really values. In this case, and this is not a shot, because it is very human thing to do, they value 'their family cohesion' and 'their ability to participate in various leisure activities' over those who have to serve them, while they bond with their loved ones.
For the record, the line listed by parent is not unreasonable, but can you give me an argument as to why it is not amazingly selfish way of looking at society ( Sunday for me, but not for thee ).
> For the record, the line listed by parent is not unreasonable, but can you give me an argument as to why it is not amazingly selfish way of looking at society ( Sunday for me, but not for thee ).
Sure, that's easy enough. Even if some people can't participate, it's a big benefit to have most people share a day, and everyone that's taking those sunday work slots should be getting paid significantly extra and also probably on rotation. And the other poster might be in one of those businesses.
If someone in a restaurant/attraction/hospitality business has less leisure time, you could improve that by valuing Sunday higher. Let them trade two Sundays in a month for 3-4 non-Sundays.
Essential services I think should be in different pool. They are needed to run modern world. But they should be limited to bare needed staff. Just so that emergency cases can be handled and emergency actions taken.
And I btw, do not count public transport as essential service. People have plenty of time to walk, and emergency can include ambulances for medical problems.
What irked me was that a lot of major corporations got together to subvert the law out of self-interest. If the people wanted to change the law, fine. Call a referendum.
For some it might. What if one is a practising member of a religion that has their Sabbath on Friday or Saturday? They are put at a competitive disadvantage if they are forced to be closed for 2 days instead of 1.
Yes: if it’s the sabbath, that’s an argument with which I’m familiar. My counter-argument is that I don’t want to be forced to practice someone else’s religion. If your religion already imposes those rules on its followers, why does it need a secular government to assist?
If it’s not the sabbath, then I’m intrigued and want to learn more.
Somewhat pedantic, but I would note that Sunday isn't the Sabbath, Saturday is. Most Christians don't observe the Sabbath (citing Jesus's defense of the woman who was supposed to be stoned because she had collected wood on the Sabbath). Instead, they rest on the Lord's day, commemorating Jesus's resurrection the day after the Sabbath, while still recognizing that their god rested after creating the world on a Saturday.
It's literally forcing a tenet of a religion on everyone. It's like making it illegal to sell beef on Fridays during Lent or making alcohol illegal in an Islamic country.
Not with such a completely one sided court case. If anything, this will probably kill the Open Libraries (lending digital books backed 1:1 by real copies of them) model of lending entirely (the court decision mentions no right to digitally lend copyrighted material). Publishers seemed to not really care about it before the IA covid library stunt, but now it might very well die.
If the publishers could push the button and kill digitally lending at their whim then there isn't a reason to pretend it was actually alive and well, in any real sense. I believe Machiavelli observed, "War is never avoided, only delayed for the benefit of one participant or another." Librarians have always had a zealous faction that has even frustrated United States Federal Agents, often at the least convenient time for the librarians who did so. Given the money and influence wielded by the publishers, how would the digital librarians fair better in the future? They're better off winning or losing here and letting the natural consequences of the publisher's decisions come to bite them in the ass than building further efforts on a rug the publishers can yank from beneath them at any time.
Precedent for federal cases is typically first set at the appellate level. If you're working your activism through the courts, you usually have to lose before you can win.
While this was the southern district of new York, the 9th circuit court of appeals ruled on a similar issue with Vidangel on 2016. They would buy DVDs and let people pay to watch a censored version, even going so far as to purchase a physical version for every one that was streamed for censorship, and they claimed fair use. They were ruled against and filed for chapter 11.
Just to clarify, what are the consequences of their actions? It appears to be a clear case of copyright infringement. Therefore, I assume that the legal penalties listed on this website (https://www.lib.purdue.edu/uco/infringement) can be applied in this case:
- The infringer paying the monetary damages and profits.
- The law offering a range from $200 to $150,000 for each infringed work.
- The infringer paying for all lawyers' fees and court costs.
Is it more likely for the case to be resolved outside the court? I am worried about their future.
Libraries are exempted from statutory damages if they had a good faith belief that their usage was Fair Use. The published opinion defers the question of exemption.
Statutory damages are the most significant risk to IA's finances, both in this case but also wrt other potential plaintiffs who might be waiting in the wings. Exemption almost certainly figured into IA's risk assessment when designing and deploying their loan program. The argument for exemption is, naturally, stronger than for Fair Use.
The consequences may be the loss of the entire Internet Archive, if it can't afford to both pay the fines of deciding to ++++ around and find out with book publishers and running its servers at the same time.
You can say "fuck". Not doing so just makes your comment less clear, and forces the reader to go "what's with the pluses, is it a keyboard issue? Oh wait, the commenter is just censoring the word 'fuck' here, which I as a reader know since since 'fuck around and find out' is a common English expression".
I can, but I choose not to. :) It's a bit more obvious with asterisks instead of plusses, but asterisks tend to be consumed by markdown-like parsing behaviors, and then I have to figure out escaping syntax, etc.
I don’t know about Airbnb. But you realize that before Uber existed, people ran businesses which were entirely, “you call us up, we’ll send you a car and take you where you want to go,” (And that driver was an independent contractor)
I really don’t see the angle that Uber was doing something fundamentally new, except to the extent that they dramatically lowered the price and a lot more people used the service.
>Every part of that has been deemed legal. Copyright law already has first sale rights, written directly into the law and allow for the lending or reselling of copyright-covered works without a license or permission. Similarly libraries are given explicit rights to make copies, so long as those collections are made available to the public. On top of that, courts have determined, multiple times, that book scanning itself is fair use for libraries.
>So, literally each separate component of what is happening with Controlled Digital Lending has already been deemed to be legal and exactly what we expect libraries to do.
>To counter this, publishers (and their supporters, which unfortunately include some authors) argue that (1) this interferes with the market for licensed ebooks, and (2) that there is a real difference in lending out the digital scans: that they don’t deteriorate the way that physical books do.
> should be pretty obvious where the greater good lies
Is this facetious? What constitutes the greater good is the entire point of government. Many things you think are obvious are lines another would die to prevent--this is the basis of civics.
There is actually no such disagreement. The corporations and copyright mafia are very open about the fact that their profits are more important to them than the common good.
This made me chuckle pretty hard. When lobbying enters the picture there's only a small, selective group of people that are going to constitute the greater good.
I think you're referring to financial aspects of today's lobbying alone, but I think it's impossible to suggest you could have any sort of consideration of the greater good without taking into account different people's view on what that is, which means them trying to persuade you of it, which is the exact definition of lobbying.
How would that be accomplished? What are the options here?
1) an elected legislature that's supposed to consider the greater good?
2) a generally non-elected judiciary that is supposed to consider the greater good to override the legislature?
3) a hopefully-benevolent dictator to consider the greater good?
Obviously any of these methods can fail; the first of them is the easiest to "edit," as it were. Things like term limits would likely improve it, though.
Term limits are predicated on the notion that our so-called legislators legislate. They do not. They merely sign off on the bills their principals give them. While for the tv issues the two parts of our bifactional ruling party are happy to pretend to be at odds, when it comes to the real priorities of those who are actually in charge they inevitably fall in line.
We're kinda taught that we choose representatives which reflect our values through the process of election and that those elected officials should they not reflect our values, are at the mercy of the electorate in the next election.
Instead, few elections are competitive and the representation happens through the lobbying process.
In short, the accountability story we're taught isn't true and money talks more than votes. It's this bait and switch that has the unintended consequence of fueling populism and the disbelief that representatives represent us, and that institutions work.
Here's a dumb idea. Create and advocate for a congressional proportional representation interstate compact in the same vein as the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact[1]. Then advocate for pooled campaign financing as a function of proportional representation[2].
The nice thing about interstate compacts is that they can eventually capture a majority given election variability over time. They divide and conquer the problem into actionable tasks that effectively aggregate.
Citing the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact indicates you have no understanding of the political organization of the United States of America.
I implore you to do your homework, but I will tell you the compact would only serve to reduce the voice of the people (that is to say, reduce democracy) rather than increase them.
The NPVIC could be a great advancement for democracy but since the side advantaged by the current system has zero incentive to agree to it, the idea is counterproductive without a mandate requiring the entire country to participate.
>the side advantaged by the current system has zero incentive to agree to it
You are absolutely right that the States, particularly the smaller and weaker States, would have zero incentive to agree to surrender their sovereignties in deference to the other States.
The United States of America is a Union of States, and the first step to further democracy in this country is respecting the sacred fact that each State and the people within them each have the right to decide their own path. Violating their sovereignties is destructive for democracy.
>You are absolutely right that the States, particularly the smaller and weaker States, would have zero incentive to agree to surrender their sovereignties in deference to the other States.
Except that they already have. Each of Vermont(3), Delaware(3), Hawaii(4), Rhode Island(4), New Mexico(5), Connecticut(7), and Oregon(8) has already ratified legislation agreeing to the compact. That's seven counter examples.
I'll point out that there are in fact enough states pending ratification that will obsolete the EC should they be confirmed. In a twist of irony, a sacred duty to represent states could be foiled by state legislatures themselves.
Please look into responding with empathy and grace instead. You took a chance to educate and threw it away. What would you hope to gain from such an interaction?
Alright then: The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (hereafter "the Compact") would reduce democracy by reducing and eventually destroying the sovereignty of each individual State.
The United States of America is exactly what it says on the tin: A Union of States. Each State is equal to all the others, united somewhat loosely as a Federal Republic.
With regards to the consequences of the Compact, it would destroy the democratic right of the people of each State to decide, for themselves, who will represent their State in the Executive Branch of the Federal government. The President of the United States represents the States in the Union and is elected by the States, the States in turn determine who they elect as President by respectively asking for their people to vote who their State should vote for.
You might ask who in the Executive Branch of government represents the peoples of each State directly, that role falls upon the Governor of each respective State.
The Compact would reduce the voice of the people and the sovereignties of States by removing their right to decide, for themselves, who to elect for President of the United States. People from one State would be able to overrule the people of another State, and vice versa. You're in California and voted for Bob? Tough shit, someone in North Dakota voted for Alex and your vote quite literally does not matter.
Citing and supporting the Compact indicates you have no understanding of who, and more accurately what, the President of the United States represents. It indicates you have no understanding what powers and rights each State and their respective peoples hold. If you are in a larger State, it indicates you have no care for what your fellow Americans and Statesmen think; if you are in a smaller State, it indicates you are fine with forfeiting your right to vote in deference to the nationwide majority.
If you sincerely think the Compact would improve democracy in the United States of America, at best you are misguided and were misled, and at worst you are disingenuous with ulterior motives.
Again, can you please take the ad hominem out of it? It's getting in the way of having a productive discussion.
> The United States of America is exactly what it says on the tin: A Union of States. Each State is equal to all the others, united somewhat loosely as a Federal Republic.
This is simply counter-exampled with the proportional representation of the US House. If states were equal then population would play no part in representation.
> With regards to the consequences of the Compact, it would destroy the democratic right of the people of each State to decide, for themselves, who will represent their State in the Executive Branch of the Federal government. The President of the United States represents the States in the Union and is elected by the States, the States in turn determine who they elect as President by respectively asking for their people to vote who their State should vote for.
Again untrue. This doesn't reflect reality. People don't behave like that or believe that. Most people are in fact in favor of abolishing the electoral college[1].
> You might ask who in the Executive Branch of government represents the peoples of each State directly, that role falls upon the Governor of each respective State.
I'm not asking that. We're discussing Federal elections and representation.
> The Compact would reduce the voice of the people and the sovereignties[sic] of States by removing their right to decide, for themselves, who to elect for President of the United States. People from one State would be able to overrule the people of another State, and vice versa. You're in California and voted for Bob? Tough shit, someone in North Dakota voted for Alex and your vote quite literally does not matter.
This literally describes how Electoral College operates. It's a well known point of discussion when critiquing the electoral college. Surely, you must be familiar with that line of reasoning.
> Citing and supporting the Compact indicates you have no understanding of who, and more accurately what, the President of the United States represents. It indicates you have no understanding what powers and rights each State and their respective peoples hold. If you are in a larger State, it indicates you have no care for what your fellow Americans and Statesmen think; if you are in a smaller State, it indicates you are fine with forfeiting your right to vote in deference to the nationwide majority.
This confuses a personal subjective experience with the objective truth of reality. You've extrapolated a genuine question and comment into a malevolent and sinister plot. I truly urge you to find the best in people.
> If you sincerely think the Compact would improve democracy in the United States of America, at best you are misguided and were misled, and at worst you are disingenuous with ulterior motives.
Questioning people's character and motives distracts from productive discussion.
Never in my wildest dreams would I imagine meeting someone who had this take. Can you point me in the direction of Constitutional scholars who share the same opinions you do?
I urge you to familiarize yourself with The Federalist Papers : No. 68[2]. It covers the motivations for the construction of the electoral college all which are not reflected in your assessment of it. If you wish to continue belaboring this point, please just quote from No68 where it agrees with you.
>This is simply counter-exampled with the proportional representation of the US House. If states were equal then population would play no part in representation.
This is a compromise because not all States have the same population (obviously). The Senate, where all States have equal representation, decides matters which are considered de facto of higher importance such as government appointments and diplomatic matters, among many others. All bills must also pass both the House and the Senate, meaning a bill must pass the test of equal representation voting; larger States cannot simply force their way through, especially if smaller States come together.
>Again untrue. This doesn't reflect reality. People don't behave like that or believe that. Most people are in fact in favor of abolishing the electoral college[1].
Abolishing the Electoral College (which in my humble opinion is rooted in ignorance and party politics more than anything) has nothing to do with the fact that the President of the United States represents the States and is elected by the States. The Governors are who represent the peoples of the respective States in the Executive branch of government.
Congress will act as a failsafe in the event the Electoral College deadlocks, and in such an event the House will vote for President-elect along State lines with the Representatives of each State voting in unison with fellow State Congressmen as a bloc, just like the Electoral College, with each State bloc getting 1 vote. The Senate will likewise vote per-Senator on who will become Vice President-elect.
It is very clear that the intent is the Presidency (and Vice Presidency) will be decided by the States, with or without the Electoral College by an equal representation vote. The Presidency is voted in at the pleasure of the States, derived from the pleasure of the people of each State respectively.
>I'm not asking that. We're discussing Federal elections and representation.
The President of the United States does not represent the people, at least not directly. In that context, you are in fact asking that because you, by citing and supporting the Compact, are arguing the President of the United States should represent the people directly rather than the United States.
>This literally describes how Electoral College operates. It's a well known point of discussion when critiquing the electoral college. Surely, you must be familiar with that line of reasoning.
The Electoral College (or Congress in the event of failsafe) votes, either officially or de facto, according to the will of the people of the respective States that the Electors (or Congressmen) hail from. The Electoral College (or Congress) quite literally represents the direct will of the people in each State.
The Compact instead proposes to not represent the direct will of the people in each State, instead deferring to whatever is the majority vote of the nation as a whole.
The very nature of the Compact means that if the nationwide majority votes for Bob, then any States that voted for Alex or Charlie or Dave effectively have their votes uncounted; this is because the Electors of States whose people voted for Alex or Charlie or Dave will instead vote for Bob in absolute defiance of that State's peoples' votes for the others.
The Compact effectively legalizes unfaithful Electors answering to the will of States they do not represent.
This is an attack on the sovereignties and democracies of the States and their peoples thereof and should never be accepted, let alone tolerated.
>This confuses a personal subjective experience with the objective truth of reality. You've extrapolated a genuine question and comment into a malevolent and sinister plot. I truly urge you to find the best in people.
>Questioning people's character and motives distracts from productive discussion.
Explain yourself how the Compact would improve democracy, then. What the Compact proposes is the exact opposite: What part of deliberately defying the will of the people is supportive of democracy?
It's giving everyone in the country the same amount of voting power. That's not defying the will of anyone.
Stop focusing in on exactly how individual electors would supposedly defy things, because the point of the compact is to make electors irrelevant, and the overall outcome follows people's will perfectly fine.
Consider this: If states traded pairs of electors with each other your logic would call that defying the will of the people, even though it would change nothing about the outcome. Because now they're not voting directly based on what their state said. Your logic is wrong.
You are neglecting to understand that the States are separate from each other, with a right to decide their affairs themselves. The nationwide popular vote is meaningless because the United States of America does not operate on nationwide popular votes, it operates on Statewide Popular Votes which are represented at the Federal level of politics by the States' respective Governors, Congressmen, and Electors.
Consider another example of Federal matters being decided by votes by the States: Constitutional amendments. Amendments require ratification from 2/3rds of all the States to become part of the Constitution, not 2/3rds of the nationwide popular vote.
The Compact argues for the people of one State dictating the decision of the people of another State, in this case the question of who shall become President of the United States of America. Destroying State rights like that is not how you improve democracy.
It is a politically convenient misrepresentation stemming from a lack of understanding regarding how the United States is structured politically.
First and foremost, the Electoral College (and Congress, whose numbers are the basis for the College's numbers) are determined by a popular vote within the respective States. The ballots in a presidential election are asking the voters "Which candidate should your State vote for?".
This means California determines by popular vote who to vote for President, likewise Wyoming. The State tallies their votes, and the State then decides according to the results who to vote for President. If the voters in California voted for Bob, California will vote for Bob in the Electoral College; if the voters in Wyoming voted for Dave, Wyoming will vote for Dave in the Electoral College.
We should also note that Nebraska and Maine both allot their Electors proportionally according to vote results, unlike all other States where the winner of the State gets all Electors.
I reiterate for emphasis: The basis for the Electoral College (and Congress) is a popular vote within the respective States.
As regards the "disproportionate voter power" itself, the Electoral College's roster of 538 Electors is derived from the following numbers in Congress:
* 435 House Representatives.
* 100 Senators.
* Equivalents of 2 "Senators" and 1 "House Representative" for the District of Columbia.
All States are guaranteed a minimum of 1 House Representative, with more allotted according to population as determined by the Census. All States are guaranteed 2 Senators. The District of Columbia has no representation in Congress (D.C. is not a State!) but is represented in the Electoral College with representation equivalent to the smallest State in the Union.
The "disproportion" comes from all States being guaranteed at least 1 House Representative and 2 Senators (this is where "all States have at least 3 Electors" comes from), and this is necessary in order to make sure that all States are represented no matter how small they are.
The ability of smaller States banding together to override a larger State is the system working as intended, it is a safeguard against a tyranny of the masses. The United State is a Union of States, not a Union of Peoples.
Oh, I get it. You think that my disagreement stems from a lack of understanding and that if I disagree it is because I don't understand what you're saying.
Most of the cries for abolishing the Electoral College come around election time from the losing side, of which both sides of the political aisle have been guilty of. Republicans cried for it when Clinton won, Democrats cried for it when Bush won, Republicans cried for it when Obama won, Democrats cried for it when Trump won, Republicans cried for it when Biden won, etc.
This indicates most of it is all politically motivated, enabled by a lack of understanding for the political system among most Americans. It's a gross violation of Chesterton's Fence, crying for the Electoral College (the "fence") to be abolished ("torn down") because who needs such a seemingly convoluted and meaningless system, amirite?
As for you specifically, you obviously still aren't understanding how American democracy is structured, no. We are a representative democracy and a federal republic. The people vote along State lines to determine delegations whom we respectively send to the Federal political table. The United States operates on Statewide Popular Votes, not nationwide popular votes, because we are a Union of individual, otherwise independent States.
> because we are a Union of individual, otherwise independent States
That's the original reason, but it doesn't have any real benefit. Everyone knows why this fence was built. You're not specially enlightened among a bunch of fools.
But it causes people's votes for president to have different strengths, which is bad. And nudging the presidential vote up or down by 5% doesn't do jack shit against the tyranny of the masses.
It's a complication with no upsides and mild downsides.
that's like saying the washing machine should fold my socks after it's done washing them. That would be nice, but when you're running a large organization like IA you should be less concerned with how things should be and more concerned with how things are.
how does a library get away with it.... they have to purchase the book first? is that how it works? how is internet archive different from a library, A lot of libraries are online right now and do the same thing.... It seems like a real harm if internet archive is forced offline because of a decision like this
>how does a library get away with it.... they have to purchase the book first? is that how it works?
Yes. And they can lend those books to people due to the first-sale doctrine, which allows the legal owners of a work to lease, lend or sell it without the copyright owner's permission.
this definition also seems to fit what libraries were doing, lending out their copy, sometimes digitally, sometimes in person, always only 1 copy at a time
the judge said the conversion to digital was not transformative, so I don't see why it should constitute another work versus the original one
Legally speaking, what the Internet Archive was doing is exactly what copyright law prohibits: making and distributing an unauthorized copy of the book.
The first sale doctrine (which libraries depend on) says you're allowed to to sell, rent out or give away your own physical property, even if that property happens to be an embodiment of a copyrighted work. It doesn't say anything about it being legal to make another copy of a work, and then distribute it while you keep the original one for yourself.
Google never lent out entire copyrighted books without the publisher’s permission. Books.google.com consisted of 1) old public domain books that can be fully downloaded, 2) limited preview books that the publisher opted into putting online partially, and 3) snippet view books that only showed a sentence of context in response to search queries. The Authors’ Guild sued over 3), Google argued that they transformed the book into a search index, not a reading experience, and Google won.
It's a little amusing to compare the reactions here to Internet Archive breaking the law ("The law is the law…") to Uber/AirBnB breaking the law ("Newcomers challenging the system! Ambitious, bold disruption!").
I constantly see people still complaining about what Uber and AirBnB do/did. And, likewise, there are plenty of comments here saying the same positive things about IA.
It's never a question of existence/nonexistence. One can always cite some minor example.
It's a question of proportion, and I'd go further say that it's quite disingenuous to pretend that this contradiction, in this website, isn't heavily tilted in favour of predatory corporations and against public good services (i.e. libertarian).
This of course makes sense. Innumerably more people here used Uber than IA, and what's more, many were literal employees of Uber, AirBnB, etc. and its competitors. It would be silly to expect anything else. But it's still amusing.
To me those are similar. Uber is addressing the universally reviled criminal organisation slash medieval guild that taxis are in every single city they operate. AirBnB really never was illegal to begin with. Internet Archive is breaking copyright law which needs a huge reform.
You’re assuming they don’t agree with the hypothetical you suggest. These sort of people back then would have unequivocally supported her arrest and persecution. They defend the status quo and not much else. After all the status quo likely led to their own prosperity. I can only assume these sort people would have attempted to condemn something like the French resistance since it was “against the law” as long as they they benefited from occupation.
I'm bummed IA chose to pick this fight by declaring this magical COVID emergency and lending more digital copies than they owned. The outcome seemed inevitable and IMO IA has been dishonest about what the lawsuit with its own statements.
It makes me wonder if there are any adults at the helm at IA and I worry about its future.
IA is an amazing resource... I don't understand why they chose this hill to fight on.
The first doc on this case was filed June 1, 2020.
NEL closed down almost immediately on June 16, 2020.
IA was definitely and stupidly playing with fire here. As others have said, publishers weren't happy with IA's one hardcopy, one digital loan rule, but lived with it because of the potential bad press. However, I'm willing to bet the NEL pushed them over the edge to go to war. Incredibly reckless and now we've taken a step backwards against IP abuse, IMO.
I don't think that controlled digital lending in its entirety being ruled illegal was at all inevitable. Sure, take them to task for the 'emergency library', but the scope of this ruling seems unjust.
It's about probabilities. If they had even a 10% chance of bankrupting themselves they probably shouldn't have done it. Even if they eventually win, every dollar spent on lawyers wasn't spent on archiving.
What's magical is the thinking involved in copyright, particularly as it involves the digital space.
I 100% guarantee that if a dead tree library xeroxed their books during a national emergency, nobody would be making comments like this. Somehow, because computers are involved, magical thinking gets a pass.
Try giving some thought to the consequences of your line of thought if applied before 1865 in the US and I hope you'll understand exactly how specious it is.
Wow, reading the article this seems like a clear cut case. Did IA really think they could win this?
Edit: reading other sources, it seems like the crux of the idea is they would only lend out books where they had the same number of physical copies. I can see the reasoning for that, but it seems hard for fair use to get you there.
The original idea was to only lend out digital copies that are backed by a physical copy, so if challenged the Internet Archive could reasonably argue that they're protected under the same laws that physical libraries are, but when the pandemic kicked off IA launched an "emergency library" which waived the lending limits so any number of copies could be lent out regardless of how many physical copies they have.
My assumption is that publishers probably weren't happy about the original model but it was legally murky enough that they didn't pursue it for risk of losing and setting the wrong (from their perspective) precedent, but the emergency library made for an extremely easy case against IA.
> IA also argues that it made fair use of the Publishers’ copyrights during the National Emergency Library. The analysis above applies even more forcefully to the NEL, during which IA amplified its unauthorized lending of ebook versions of the Works in Suit by lifting the one-to-one owned-to-loaned ratio. IA’s defense of fair use with respect to the NEL therefore also fails.
Nonetheless, its still the sort of thing that can colour opinion. If you want to change things with a precedent, it is usually best to try and be a perfect angel in every other way possible.
If anything, their "first sale doctrine" route seems like a stronger argument than fair use here. When you purchase a copy of a work, you have the right to lend, sell, or share that copy without any additional payment or permission required to the creator. This is how libraries have operated for centuries.
I think what IA was doing, making sure they only lend out as many copies as they physically own, was clearly within the spirit of that doctrine. But in the digital era, lending anything over the web necessarily means making a copy of it somewhere along the way, which laws haven't adequately adapted to yet.
Exactly. I'm not a lawyer but I'm baffled they went the fair use route -- fair use has nothing to do with it.
The argument that this is no different from lending temporarily to a friend seems to be much more reasonable. Especially since no money is changing hands.
The first-sale doctrine was also covered in the ruling. According to the letter of the law (17 USC § 109) it specifically only covers the distribution of existing authorized physical copies; it doesn't grant you permission to make a copy and lend that to a friend.
The judge disagreed with that too. Companies have tried and failed to set up a streaming service backed by physical copies and they were struck down so this really didn’t have any chance either.
It makes me so sad -- it reminds me of Aereo, when the Supreme Court ruled against it in 2014 that it wasn't allowed to stream public broadcast TV over the internet, despite having a separate radio receiver for each viewer.
I can understand why Congress hasn't changed law to allow digital 1-for-1 reuse of previous physical/analog sources -- because there will be too much lobbying against it from corporations.
But it really seems like the Supreme Court had a chance to set new precedent in an area that hadn't been foreseen in law so really was undefined. And they chose corporations over consumers back in 2014, just like a federal judge did again now.
I can only imagine how much better if the Supreme Court had sided with consumers here. Congress could have overturned it through law, of course, but only in the face of massive voter dissatisfaction, and so I'm not sure they would have.
I don’t understand the reasoning there though. Like, I can get on board with sayibg fair-use is silly, but lending a book that I own —either digitally or physically— should be protected.
The concept of "owning" a book digitally is already on shaky ground, since most large publishers only sell licenses for accessing ebooks. You're not actually purchasing a copy in perpetuity like a physical book. Naturally these licenses are entirely on the publishers' terms.
In practice this means publishers can revoke access licenses for all sorts of arbitrary reasons, alter the content of ebooks already purchased, or plenty of other shady practices, with little recourse available to the reader.
Plus it means they can force libraries to keep paying repeated, marked-up licensing fees for the privilege of lending out ebooks. Much better deal for the publishers than the physical library lending model!
I don't blame IA for trying to find a way to liberate library lending from that racket.
You can sell or lend the physical copy you own. You can’t make a copy and then loan that. Copyright is the right to control making copies.
You could sell or lend virtual copy if the platforms supported that. You are allowed to make a copy for backup purposes, and no one will ever know if you use that or even lend it. But if you make business of it, then they will notice and sue you.
The thing is IA wasn't lending the copy they purchased, they were lending a reproduction of the copy. The question here is if it was legal for them to make that copy which is where the fair use argument comes in. I wonder if they could buy ebooks and lend those instead of starting with a physical copy.
> I think what IA was doing, making sure they only lend out as many copies as they physically own,
Part of this points out that they weren’t even doing that; there was no process to ensure that the “partnered” library wasn’t simultaneously lending out their copy.
During the pandemic, libraries closed and weren't lending out physical books at all. Did the emergency policy lend more digital books than the number of physical books locked in libraries? We'll probably never know, but I think that was the logic.
The scanned books are not so much fun to read, it is definitely less ergonomic than a Kindle. I would expect those using the program likely needed it.
>Did the emergency policy lend more digital books than the number of physical books locked in libraries?
We'll probably never know, but I think that was the logic.
The most checked out book, The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, had ~850 check outs. I think it's safe to assume they didn't come close to the amount of physical books locked in libraries.
Not that it's very important, the pandemic policy is barely mentioned in this ruling.
This is a justification that makes sense in theory, but the Internet Archive doesn't own those books and can't track them. If they had asked libraries to explicitly send parts of their collection to the IA for this, that might've held some weight.
I don't understand why users would voluntarily move away from piracy. I prefer "you can't do anything about it" to "please let us." Why the norm, base line expectation of the end user is not identity obfuscation and free access to information without hindrance I just don't get.
I like IA for what it is, but I would prefer a more hardline stance like this too. However, there is a place for an organization like this to attract good will. It would be much better to just have a backroom deal between IA and libgen to upload everything it have there in a plausibly deniable way, though.
I'm not convinced. Before smartphones and the like, people used Gnutella and ICQ. We live in a world of telephone numbers, social security numbers, credit card numbers, top level domains, maybe your average Joe can't program a computer but he can definitely install Tor browser and a BitTorrent client.
I think the problem is that the produce the end user gets are delivered as a business case through a funnel, and people don't realize that the relationship is fundamentally adversarial. What just boggles my mind is how people just accept it without any sort of rebellion or self interest.
In the 2000s, using P2P was very common because the alternative was ripping CDs or spending $$$ on the iTunes Store for DRMed music. People were also not connected all the time so it made sense to download and store your music on an iPod or similar.
In the late 2000s Spotify arrived, it was much easier than piracy, and not as expensive as the iTunes Store, although still DRMed.
At the same time, Apple introduced the iPhone and people gradually stopped using computers so much and started using smartphones more. And on smartphones you couldn’t install whatever software you wanted.
Many younger people today in the west have no experience of piracy at all. They live on their phones in a fully corporatized environment.
Libgen is not particularly difficult to navigate, although its bare bones which makes it look intimidating. The real problem is some hosts are clearly trying to get me to download viruses.
Stealing physical books deprives the owner their right to the book.
Copying a digital book only "deprives" the "owner" a right to control its distribution. It's not nearly the same thing. Whereas ownership of physical items is permanent to ensure society would function, the right to control distribution is a concession we make to authors to allow them to make a profit. In our era, this is so ridiculously abused that it is fine to take back some of it. For example, the author should be entitled to the right of controlling copying if he action intends to distribute copies. If book is out of print because the author decides it is not profitable, then the right should go back to us.
It’s not the same, but the OP is talking about free access to information. So under that logic stealing the physical book is fine. Or I can amend my original comment and say stealing the physical book, creating a copy using a commodity printer and leaving the copy, while keeping the original, is fine.
Why "leaving the copy whole keeping the original"? If the issue here is theft of information, than keeping the copy and leaving the original is just as bad, no? Why make that meaningless distinction in your point? Theyre equivalent, according to you.
> Published works do not lose copyright protection after five years
Obviously, the courts have no control over that, but copyright protection definitely lasts way too long. Five years, might be kind too short, at least for some kinds of works, but I think the longer the copyright lasts, the more harm it causes to society and the less benefit it has in protecting the interests of the creator and incentivizing more creation.
> there is a “thriving ebook licensing market for libraries” in which the Publishers earn a fee whenever a library obtains one of their licensed ebooks from an aggregator like OverDrive…. This market generates at least tens of millions of dollars a year for the Publishers…. And IA supplants the Publishers’ place in this market
I'm confused by this argument. If the market is thriving, then IA clearly isn't supplanting it.
> IA argues that its digital lending makes it easier for patrons who live far from physical libraries to access books and that it supports research, scholarship, and cultural participation by making books widely accessible on the Internet. But these alleged benefits cannot outweigh the market harm to the Publishers….
In other words, the court values a company, which already has plenty of money, making more money, more than "patrons who live far from physical libraries" having access to books.
Aaron Swartz founding the Open Library with IA was a shining moment in web history. Sad to see giant corporations stomping on his vision of a web that offers free access to information for all.
Here comes the memory hole, folks. This copyright claim is just the ruse to break down the wall, with the real purpose being to lay claim to news and internet archiving so that inconvenient news and information can be more easily memory holed without archives existing.
Let me put it this way, everyone should start working on decentralized archiving tools and retention of information locally about topics they are particularly interested in. I don’t say that out of the blue.
Uh, you do realize this is just about physical books, right? When I want to read the latest news I don't go to my local bookstore and grab a book on news, I get that from the internet, which the Internet Archive is perfectly able to archive, as it has nothing to do with this. Sigh.
Every law in USA was made with overwhelming input from lobbyists and other monied interest. What law will be passed depends on will of oligarchs not public.
Every law that accidentally helps people not oligarchs can be stopped by activists judges either in state or federal courts(including Supreme Court).
Because judges in the end serve corporations/oligarchs first and ideology second. The Federalist Society?
This stems from the fact that politicians that choose them(and if they are elected by public they can be bought directly) were also bought.
If we work together, I think it would be realistic for us to attain a rollback of most recent one or two copyright term extensions by following a two-pronged strategy:
(1) Show politicians on the left how copyright term extensions have largely amounted to a transfer of wealth from the public to large corporations, and
(2) Show politicians on the right how rolling back to an earlier version of copyright would reduce the interference of the government in the lives of its citizens and return to a vision for IP that better adheres to that presented by the Constitution and defended by its framers, while leading to a more vibrant and competitive market for new works.
Meanwhile, both groups should be assured that a release of many classic works into the public domain would be popular among the vast majority of their constituents.
Politicians in the US are corrupt. You need a rich person who cares about your cause to bribe them more than the rich businesses with copyrights are currently bribing them. Then the law will be changed.
I disagree. While a rich person's backing would certainly be helpful, I think convincing a couple of politicians with platforms and some clout on each side that spearheading a joint IP reform effort would benefit their political careers would be adequate to get the ball rolling.
Both of your arguments have merit, and would be convincing if politicians on both sides were driven by logic. Sadly, I'm doubtful that many politicians on the left still have the integrity or power to act against copyright empires.
It's even more obvious that politicians on the right no longer care about limited government. They are currently trying to ban books.
The culprits of this travesty must be named and shamed:
Suing publishers: Hachette, HarperCollins, Penguin Random House, and Wiley.
Judge: John G. Koeltl.
Don't care about the judge, but there should be a massive campaign to boycott these four publishers to oblivion. What's the most harmful thing that we can do to them?
Excerpt: “[W]e will keep fighting for the traditional right of libraries to own, lend, and preserve books. We will be appealing the judgment and encourage everyone to come together as a community to support libraries against this attack by corporate publishers.
We will continue our work as a library. This case does not challenge many of the services we provide with digitized books including interlibrary loan, citation linking, access for the print-disabled, text and data mining, purchasing ebooks, and ongoing donation and preservation of books.”
If this results in the collapse of the Internet Archive as a whole, it will be the digital equivalent of the Notre-Dame fire; a treasure being destroyed before our very eyes.
The comments on here are extremely myopic, as the meme “copyright bad” is firmly lodged in the minds of thousands or millions of people who don’t rely on it to make a living.
It can’t imagine a more practical or metaphysical violation of copyright than to literally copy the pages of a book and then distribute copies of this book to however many people you feel like.
I guess you could violate the rights more by taking the author’s name off of it.
This mad ideology is destructive and blind. No one has a right to the product of another’s labor. A dysfunctional system doesn’t change the ethics here.
IIRC this all came about because the IA decided to increase their lending beyond the limits of the licenses they had during covid, when more people were trying to use their services due to being stuck inside.
Also of note is that the is only the district court. We'll have to see if the EFF appeals to the circuit next.
> IIRC this all came about because the IA decided to increase their lending beyond the limits of the licenses they had during covid
That's the excuse the publishers are pushing, but ultimately they disagree with, and have successfully argued in court it seems, against the entire principle.
Ultimately, controlled digital lending should be as lawful as format shifting an album: this is format shifting from a physical book to an ebook.
> Also of note is that the is only the district court
But in this case, it wasn't controlled, right? Even with DRM to "expire" the lent ebook after a certain amount of time, they still ended up distributing the books without restriction on availability.
I don't really care about the publishers, but I still wouldn't expect to seriously get away with arguing that I wasn't distributing copyrighted material if I started offering movies online for free in unlimited numbers... because it was just controlled lending since the movie files were set up to probably become unreadable in 3 weeks.
I'm sure they have competent lawyers that would've predicted an outcome like this, which makes the decision to do it even more baffling. Especially for an organization that ought to be conservative by design, considering they want to be a very long-term archive.
>That's the excuse the publishers are pushing, but ultimately they disagree with, and have successfully argued in court it seems, against the entire principle.
Which is why it's really dumb that the IA pushed it blatantly violating copyright laws.
This lawsuit covers the limited lending they did before COVID, but that either flew under the publishers' radar or perhaps they knew but didn't care enough to respond until IA started doing the more blatant "unrestricted lending"
Personally, I've had good luck with HathiTrust Digital Library [0] for old books in the public domain. A majority of the books that I've cared to check are mirrored on both IA and HathiTrust. It has an arbitrary restriction that you can't download full PDFs, but at least the contents are all available.
This ruling against the Internet Archive really rubs me the wrong way. IA has been a godsend for countless students, researchers, and knowledge enthusiasts across the globe. Sure, they might've pushed the boundaries of fair use, but isn't that how progress and innovation happen?
It's disheartening to see that the court sided with big publishers, who are already raking in considerable profits, instead of considering the broader implications of IA's mission to democratize access to knowledge. In a world where information is increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few, IA is one of the few bastions of hope for more equitable access to books and resources.
I worry about the chilling effect this decision could have on other projects aiming to push the envelope in terms of digital content distribution. Are we just going to hand over our collective knowledge to the highest bidder?
I get the need to protect copyright holders, but this ruling feels like a step back for the open access movement and the democratization of knowledge. We need more innovative solutions to bridge the digital divide, not less.
I saw this coming. A few days ago, I read that IA's lawyers argued fair use in part based on "transforming" the content by making copies at scale. I was surprised & astonished that they'd try such sophistry, since a verbatim copy isn't transformative at all. I felt IA's lawyers were grasping at straws if they were making that fair use argument.
Everyone would do better to lobby Congress to change the law to allow for limited digital lending kind of like what IA did (notwithstanding the "emergency" lending).
> How many people who work for a living does it take to match Disney's capacity to bribe Congresscritters?
Why so cynical? Who's more captured: Congress or the IP Bar?
If everyone commenting and reading about this on HN called their members of Congress within a few hours on Monday afternoon, there would be serious buzz on Capitol Hill. Several hundred to a few thousand people all calling in about a similar issue to members of both parties is noticed.
Remember the "SOPA" thing Big Content tried to ram through a decade ago? It failed because dozens upon dozens of members were spooked.
You know why lobbyists are listened to? They're not "bribing" members of Congress; they are simply presenting an unrebutted story.
EDIT: forgot to address the "transformative" thing.
Format shifting is not transformative, any more than bootlegging a movie in the theater or taking a photo of a copyrighted piece hanging in a gallery are. The meaning of the work is almost certainly identical whether it's on a physical page or on a screen.
What's with the fbclid tacked on the courtlistener URL. C'mon.
Let's just hope IA can afford to pay any judgment entered against it. If the court finds IA had no reasonable grounds to believe this was fair use, then IA has to rebut a presumption of wilful infringement. If they fail, the statutory damages could be substantial. Assume Kahle has calculated the max cost of alleged infringement of 33,000 titles and is not putting the entire archive at risk over a book scanning project.
Public libraries pay a different, greater license fee for ebooks they can lend vs physical books . The licenses also come with restrictions about number of lends, time limits, etc.
This ruling says controlled digital lending is copyright infringement. Some other libraries use controlled digital lending, but most use a different system.
I hate to be devil's advocate, but archive.org has a problem with curation of their free library. Some stuff there breaks some terms of service of the original owners, like the leaked PS2 SDK https://archive.org/details/ps2_sdks, old and irrelevant as it may be today. Or cracked games that are still availiable online https://archive.org/details/gtasa210apk
I wish them to stay providing service, but maybe a quick checkup about "why is this stored here" or "isn't any other site more capable or well equipped to store and defend the right to access this content" would help giving it more of a defense against copyright holders
I'm a little bit worried about how this might affect Murfie.
I've been an advocate for years for a model where people own physical media, and have access to the media they own in any way they see fit.
The way this ruling is structured, it paves the way to make even ripping your own CDs to your MP3 player illegal. As common as it is, this right has never actually been tested in court.
That's just sensationalism. If they wanted to go after ripping CDs, they would have gone after that when CDs actually had more than negligible sales. CDs are a dead format in 2023. Most music isn't even released on CD anymore.
It's the way the judge references the ReDigi case that is troubling to me. It's been a while since I read it, but I thought ReDigi found that digital copies don't have the same first sale rights that physical copies do.
This judge seems to think that the first sale doctrine isn't even applicable.
The Google book scanning case had previously indicated that giving full copies of scanned books to the owners clearly fell under fair use in part because of the first sale doctrine. This ruling seems to ignore that.
I would agree with this if the issue were movies or games, but most people know that you can Google "[book title] pdf" and get a free copy. The small file sizes mean that piracy sites don't need to rely on torrents and can just offer a direct download. I frequently see piracy sites in search results just from searching the title of a book. The barrier to pirating a book is extremely low.
I don’t understand why people are shocked at this outcome.
Nothing was stopping IA from both reading the physical copy purchased (or potentially lending it out, physically), as well as lending out the copy that was created as a result of digitization.
Losing this was inevitable.
In fact, the analogies to libraries were flawed from the start. Libraries purchase a book and lend out the very book that was purchased. Clearly that’s not what’s happening with the internet archive.
I’m other words: a library lends out book b. The internet archive buys book c, puts it through Digitize(), which returns book cprime and lends out cprime. However fair use would only permit lending out c, not cprime.
I’m of the view that the authors/publishers should have to have willingly given up their rights to allow this. When I put something down on paper and sell it, my intention isn’t to allow it to be traded every 35 seconds on the internet, it’s to have made a single copy. Now if the authors/publishers want to allow the physical copy to be lent digitally like IA is doing, I’m all for them having some lic they can sell which allows it. I expect this lic would be 100x more expensive than the simple physical copy.
Exactly, authors should be glad to be paid $7.99 - once - every time they write a book, and be happy about it. Anything further is just proof of their obsolesence.
I would like to watch a Star Trek episode featuring you as the misguided extremist trying to destroy replicators because they put cooks out of jobs. Give it a few years and I'll be able to prompt GPT-9 for exactly that.
At any rate, the future is here. You're free to stick your head in the sand if you wish, but most of us think it's a lot of work to do all that digging, and frankly a little silly.
And if we lived in a fictional post-scarcity economy where money didn’t exist, you might have a point. Meanwhile, in the real world, people generally like to earn a living.
We live in a non-fictional post-digital-scarcity society. It is unfortunate that we're still trying to fit the square peg of capitalism into this round hole, but we'll adapt as a society eventually, even if it involves people like you kicking and screaming as they're dragged into the present.
Again, you're free to stick your head in the sand and pretend otherwise, but that just seems like a lot of work to me.
There's too much to discuss in these comments, but here's a couple of bullet point responses:
- That's kind of the natural state of things for most artistic endeavors. Many artists have a day job that pays the bills.
- Fortunately, we've got some practical alternative funding models now that anybody who wants to quit their day job can use. Patreon and Kickstarter both provide a superior funding model for a post-digital-scarcity world. Either money up front before the art is created, or an ongoing subscription for art creation.
- Humans are short-sighted, and we don't, as a species, generally like change. We're not really prepared to make changes like implementing UBI because of weird emotional investments in the status quo. However, we will eventually adapt, even if it requires some people kicking and screaming until they're dragged into the present and realize how nice it is.
- Also, post-digital-scarcity doesn't mean you can't exchange money for bits. I spend a lot of money at Bandcamp in return for DRM-free bits that I could totally have torrented, but don't because Bandcamp is easy to use and I can support the artist
Copyright law already forces copyright holders to give up their rights after a certain amount of time. And if you're OK with that, all that's left is to argue the duration. :)
"IA argues that its digital lending makes it easier for patrons who live far from physical libraries to access books and that it supports research, scholarship, and cultural participation by making books widely accessible on the Internet. But these alleged benefits cannot outweigh the market harm to the Publishers…."
I never had enough money to get the books I wanted, sometimes getting to a library wasn't that easy. IA (and other platforms) helped me a lot. So, seeing this section is really depressing.
Digital copies of books are available to anyone willing to look for them, free of charge and easily downloadable. I suspect all this ruling has done, if I've understood it correctly, is make it more difficult for people wanting to download or view copies legitimately.
I love the IA. I use it weekly if not daily. My bet is that they'll push back on this and other rulings and will ultimately lobby for saner laws.
Luckily libraries existed before copyright / IP was too top heavy otherwise they wouldn't exist. This content and products are part of culture. An online library should be allowed to exist. You can go to public libraries and in many they have ebook checkout systems. Why not Internet Archive, one of the most valuable online resources next to Wikipedia and data sources.
Didn't google do almost exactly this with google books - making agreements with libraries and digitising their collections without paying the publishers or the authors? Maybe I misunderstood.
> The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit previewed as
much in HathiTrust and Google Books, cases that “test[ed] the
boundaries of fair use.” Google Books, 804 F.3d at 206. The
defendant in HathiTrust scanned whole copies of millions of
books, including those protected by valid copyrights, to create a
database on which the general public could search for particular
terms across the scanned works. 755 F.3d at 91. The creation of
this “full-text searchable database [was] a quintessentially
transformative use,” the court held, because “the result of a
word search is different in purpose, character, expression,
meaning, and message from the page (and the book) from which it
is drawn.” Id. at 97. Importantly, the database did not “allow
users to view any portion of the books they [were] searching” and
therefore, unlike IA’s Website, “d[id] not add into circulation
any new, human-readable copies of any books” or “merely repackage
or republish the originals.” Id.
> Google Books similarly found transformative use in Google’s
scanning of copyrighted books to create a database that included
a “snippet view” search function that allowed readers to view a
few lines of text containing searched-for terms. 804 F.3d at 208.
The snippet view showed the searcher “just enough context
surrounding the searched term” to help the searcher evaluate
whether the book fell within the scope of the searcher’s interest
“without revealing so much as to threaten the author’s copyright
interests.” Id. at 208, 216. But the Court of Appeals cautioned
that “[i]f Plaintiffs’ claim were based on Google’s converting
their books into a digitized form and making that digitized
version accessible to the public,” precisely what the Publishers
allege in this case, the “claim [for copyright infringement]
would be strong.” Id. at 225. If HathiTrust and Google Books
demarcated the boundaries of fair use, this case shows what
conduct remains squarely beyond fair use.
...and then the court threw out the settlement as unfair, and then the court ruled in Google's favor.
But the court noted that
Google was right on the edge of fair use. Google notably prevented the previews from being usable as a replacement for an original purchase by only displaying 1/8 of a page snippets, blacklisting 1 snippet per page, blacklisting every tenth page completely, and blacklisting works where a single snippet could be all you wanted such as dictionaries and recipe books.
I still feel like if I'd done something similar as an individual I would not have got away with it.
Say I downloaded z-library and wrote a search system that only showed me snippets (for searching). How likely do you think courts would find in my favour?
Ahh, you're right. They copied the full books, but they don't let the public view more than snippets unless they have rights to do so. That must be the 'transformative use'.
It's a four factor test (but the second factor rarely counts).
the purpose and character of your use
the nature of the copyrighted work
the amount and substantiality of the portion taken, and
the effect of the use upon the potential market.
The court found that Google copied the entirety of the work into their search index, but that this (taking into account the strict result snippet restrictions) didn't effect the market because no one would decide they didn't need the book now they had the snippet.
I don't understand the outrage here. It sounds like a clear case of copyright infringement with IA profiting from the works of others. Can someone explain the issue?
For me, the outrage is really about the fact that the greater good is clearly (IMHO) served by IA operating like they do (one simultaneous lend per held copy). So copyright law is wrong.
And I know it's not the judge's place to say that.
If they drop copyright to 15 years and IA stops lending books younger than that, I'd be 100% OK with that outcome, as well. But copyright terms are in the "lifetimes" range, so lending books out that are still under copyright serves the greater good.
But since the odds of the US switching to the metric system are about 1000x greater than the odds of us decreasing copyright terms, I'm not holding my breath.
America will rule in favour of private property and against the common good every single time, unless forced to do otherwise by external circumstances.
Famously it only went against segregation because "Racial discrimination furnishes grist for the Communist propaganda mills." (Attorney General James P. McGranery)
> America will rule in favour of private property and against the common good every single time
Thankfully that's the best outcome. Unless you mean you support eminent domain.
I'd pay hell to the country that even plans on using it against me, and I'll follow and protect others who this happens to as well. Anyone who decides they can steal my resources will have to fight for it.
I don't own a single digital book, nor am I deluded to think that the internet was going to solve the issue of ownership in the first place.
You are free to demand that publishers provide you unlimited access to their servers so you can download your books perpetually. Publishers need not give in to alternative access methods to their material.
If you want to own books, have it actually in your possession, which is not the internet.
In the very near future America as a country will have to fight a lot harder to loot the resources of other nations, so I imagine as resource scarcity encroaches upon everyone's lifestyle you'll probably begin to see yourself less as an independent frontiersman and more as a member of society. But not one moment sooner.
It's weird how a bank can loan out 8-20 times what is deposited, but if I can lend out a single copy of a book I have? The banking system runs the backbone of the economy, but god forbid if everyone has access to all books? What if we use books as a payment method, can we then use the same leverage banks do?
That's not how that works. Non-central banks don't print money the way that servers send out bytes.
There is also no copyright on bank notes that prohibits you from selling copies of them online. It's also not the bank's fault that you feel copyright law is unjust, it's got nothing to do with each other.
Books cannot be used to pay government taxes or settle debts which are the factors that drive the value of a currency. As a recent example Putin tried to force the EU to pay Russia for energy in rubles.
I thought the IA only archives websites and digital contents, which are in danger of being lost? eBooks are seldom the only form of publishing, thus I believe there is always at least an archive copy of them. Making them accessible for all is clearly very controversial.
IA has tons of stuff. Scroll down past the Wayback search on https://archive.org/ to the more advanced search and you can see more categories. You can play a lot of the audio, video, and even some software right in the browser. Their physical archive is also huge. Here are some pictures from 2012 https://scldigital.wordpress.com/internet-archive-gallery/
Oh, I didn't know they even have a physical store! Thanks for pointing out. Yeah, I know they also archived digital audio and other stuffs, but never thought book archiving lies in their realm as well.
It does suck, but it was self-inflicted. I love the IA, I've even done volunteer work for the Physical Archive, but the "emergency library" was mad. I can't imagine how they justified it.
Locked inside with "nothing" to do, one guy probably got high and had this "revelation" that would "help" everyone else locked inside /s.
It's sad because it has muddied the image of IA and it made them look like rebels when in reality they were doing just fine flying (somewhat) under the radar.
I've also read some comments here from people saying they would possibly stop donating to the IA because of this. Because of donations, the scrutiny is 1000x more for non-profits vs regular companies.
Because IA is causing a risk that the donations aren’t paying for that, but could end up right in the publishers pockets, and shutting down those 100 other projects.
this is very disturbing, but definitely not unexpected. surprised it took this long, actually. fortunately i think it will still be a long-ish time before the thought-police can take down all the parts of the internet that clash with the "sensibilities" of the scrooge-like, pro-paywall, pro-restriction curmudgeons in their ivory towers.
i realize the last link is "alternatives to 'archive.is' " and not "alternatives to 'archive.org'/the wayback machine", but it's still pertinent/in the same ideological arena (obviously).
As MLK Jr said* "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice."
In the face of senseless copyright law, avoiding to fund the organizations responsible is a moral imperative, and piracy is typically the way to do that.
> avoiding to fund the organizations responsible is a moral imperative
I never thought about it that way. I avoided getty and other stock media publishers out of principle. In their deranged quest to subjugate google, they made image search worse for me. I think it's about time I started applying this logic to other publishers as well. Copyright is completely out of control. There has to be accountability, even if it's insignificant and only on a personal level.
For any authors reading this: I intend to continue paying for books and will gladly do so but only if it's to you directly. Either self-publish or put a donation link on your site. If I'm interested in your book, I will search for your personal website prior to taking any action.
The current law is broken, we know that, but most of us don't grasp broken laws as a threat until it is challenged (and we as a society usually lose), and then we expect the judge to "save" us from the broken law instead of holding the legislators accountable
This circuit should be shortened, we need to react better to laws as they are being drafted, not wait out their inevitable harm to society like with DMCA and PATRIOT act
If anything has proven this lately is the Roe v. Wade overturn, we really need to stop relying on courts to "save" us and instead fight for better laws, be more involved in the legislation process and actively propose and push for fixes