I get that it seems generous to give away these works. But they simply weren't theirs to give away to begin with. If you want to lend out 1,000 copies of book, first you have to buy 1,000 copies of said book.
I'm disappointed with Internet Archive. They're opening themselves up to a huge lawsuit, and I'd hate to see their mission derailed because of it.
Not only that - if this goes to court, there's a really good chance that the concept of Controlled Digital Lending (i.e., libraries lending out scans backed one-to-one by physical books, which many libraries including Internet Archive have been doing for a long time before this) ends up in court too, and a judge says, what the Internet Archive did is illegal because the whole idea of Controlled Digital Lending was never legal in the first place.
I think it's foolish to trust that the courts (especially the courts today) are going to be sympathetic to fair use and to narrowing copyright.
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1244257620548038656.html?...
The premise that they would be trying to purposefully shove it into the court system to achieve a ruling one way or the other is interesting. That’s how you play hard in the paint!
They gave authors the ability to opt out. From the FAQ:
"If I am an author and I do not want my book to be temporarily available during this crisis, how can I remove my book from the National Emergency Library? Authors who do not want their books in the National Emergency Library should send an email to [email protected] with “National Emergency Library Removal Request” as the subject line. Please include each URL of the book or books you would like to have removed. Please allow up to 72 hours for processing as we are a small team."
That's not how copyright works in the US. Maybe it should be, but it's not. The owner of a copyright gets to say how it's used, they don't merely have a right to refuse to uses if they're aware of them.
There are certain exceptions, such as compulsory licensing (e.g., in the US you can get a license to cover a song at a fixed-by-law rate) and fair use, but those aren't opt-out mechanisms either - those are permissions that the copyright holder can't refuse.
Maybe it should, but the law doesn't work that way right now.
> If we're going to talk about the alleged illegality of a controlled process for sharing data, I'd like to start with ad-tracking, since that clearly affects a larger group of people and because its legality seems to rest on a similar premise (at least, to this layman).
Copyright doesn't protect data, it protects the creative expression of ideas. Data itself isn't copyrightable: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feist_Publications,_Inc.,_v._R.... Therefore, nobody is infringing any copyright I have by tracking my behavior via ads.
Maybe it should (or maybe copyright shouldn't protect anything), but the law doesn't work that way right now.
I'm not sure how Youtube et al.'s situation is different in these regards. In both cases, the takedown process is covered under the DMCA, no?
>Copyright doesn't protect data, it protects the creative expression of ideas. Data itself isn't copyrightable: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feist_Publications,_Inc.,_v._R.... Therefore, nobody is infringing any copyright I have by tracking my behavior via ads.
As an artist, I'd hold that much of my expression is tied up in my data. Likewise, my data is part of the creative expression that I use to market my works. For example, the websites that I choose to visit are part of my subcultural identity and intentionally signal to others that identity, an expression of my personal creativity; the works that I post are dissected and sold as data to market to me. This is an integral aspect of the interaction model of so-called Web 2.0 platforms.
...I'm sure this hasn't been argued before, but should we decide to open the can of worms of whether or not libraries should "be"...
Ultimately, these issues seem to be unexamined, to some extent. I wonder if there's some hesitation to invite a floodgate-opening should a decision go sideways.
The DMCA (specifically OCILLA / section 512) is about the liability of YouTube as an intermediary who hosts other people's videos. If I decide to post a YouTube video where I do a dramatic reading of the Windows source code, I am still breaking the law - the DMCA merely protects YouTube from liability from making copies of my video and therefore making copies of the Windows source code. In return, the DMCA gives Microsoft an easier-than-usual process to ask YouTube to take my content down. They can still sue me, if they want; they'd have to go to court instead of just sending a letter, so they'd probably decide that it's enough to just get YouTube to remove the video and not bother suing. But they could.
Notably, you can't use the DMCA safe harbor provisions to give yourself safe harbor. I cannot, on my personal blog which I host, post a DMCA contact address and avoid liability for posting copyrighted content. (Probably I'd trick some copyright-scanning bots and get away with it in practice provided I took down anything they complained about promptly, but it's legally meaningless.)
Also, I'm curious to know your reaction to the second part of my reply.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/504 has some details on damages (but also note https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/412 , that you need to register copyright to get the option of statutory damages). I think (but I am a bit unsure about this) that if I posted some copyrighted content on a blog without permission, I'd be liable for the $750 in damages if the copyright holder had registered it and found it worthwhile to go to court to get it.
Are you certain you know how the law works right now?
Would there be any limits to your proposed exception? Or could they buy a single copy of a book and lend out as many simultaneous copies as readers asked for?
Snark aside, how is this any different than going to your local library and feeding quarters to the photocopier? Scale?
The change the Internet Archive made is that they previously had a model of lending e-books that were backed by physical copies, and now they have a model of letting as many people read the e-book at once, without reference to physical copies. That means they've shifted from the library model to the library-that-photocopies model.
Also, the photocopier at every library I've seen has a sign warning against non-fair-use copying of copyrighted material. So, one big difference is in intent, not just scale. Your average library discourages you from feeding quarters to the photocopier. This one has posted a sign arguing that unlimited copying is fair use for the next few months, and is handing you a roll of quarters.
Often groups of students get together and take turns making multiple sets of copies for the whole group.
A few times I actually had professors that were nice enough to make copies for the students ahead of time.
One professor even went to the trouble of having a local print shop print and bind the copies in paperback. We had to pay something like $10 to cover the costs.
Is any or all of that copyright infringement? Is there an exception for universities? Is this just a case of the law being so disconnected from reality that people don't even know they are breaking it?
What happened?
Remember: authors have to eat and sleep too. If they don't make money from their work, they'll do something else.
Yes, you're right. Let's do this.
This is more or less what governments are supposed to do in the time of trouble like these: make sure that people who lost the means of supporting themselves at no fault of their own don't starve and are not left in the streets en masse. If that implies giving them free food and free shelter, then it should be done. If your government leaves people to die of hunger in the streets instead - you have a really shitty government, please get a new one.
Heck, even the most right-wing governments, like the US one, are distributing free money (which converts into free food) right now.
Seriously, if you think that letting people read an out-of-print book or two for free while quarantined is somehow bad or immoral, I think you should recalibrate your world views.
Not only do I support the measure you have taken and feel that it falls within the bounds of pro-social fair use, but I applaud the measures you have taken that are so important in this extreme time.
Furthermore, if any court finds that your action was not appropriate, I will urge my lawmakers to craft a specific exception to copyright law to support the internet archive lending at all times, not just during a national emergency.