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internetarchive

We’re going to court TOMORROW to defend the digital rights of all libraries! Library Futures will be hosting a live blog during oral argument and a live discussion afterwards. Here's how to participate: blog.archive.org/2023/03/17/he

23 comments
gavinisdie :troll:

@internetarchive I really don't understand why companies seem to want to make their things lost media

Iron Curtain (Chiptunes)

@gavinisdie @internetarchive They're thinking short-term profits for their shareholders. It's *always* the bottom line. Consequences be damned.

ANN07064061

@gavinisdie @internetarchive

It's artificial scarcity as their business model of not buying but rather renting.

Anders Baerbock

@internetarchive Stop infringing the copyright rights of everyone else.

When publishers and authors place a notice in a book stating «No part of this book may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher/author», they mean it.

Physical lending is allowed, making your piracy website is not.

#piracy

fuzzy

@AndersBaerbock @internetarchive I guess by that logic I can't lend a book to my friends, since I'm transmitting a book without the publisher's permission.

Anders Baerbock

@socks @internetarchive
You can lend your physical books to your friends, family, colleagues, etc.

Re-read the copyright notice, the verb «transmit» is used in the sense 2a of Merriam-Webster's dictionary: to cause (something, such as light or force) to pass or be conveyed through space or a medium.
merriam-webster.com/dictionary

fuzzy

@AndersBaerbock @internetarchive Do I not move a book through space when I hand it to a friend?

Anders Baerbock

@socks @internetarchive
You do move the physical book, but you do not transmit the content independently of it.

It is not telepathy))

Anyway, you may benefit from distinguishing the concept of «physical book» which refers to the physical item, and the generic concept of «book» which refers to a literary work which can exist in a variety of mediums (e.g. physically printed, electronic, audio, etc.).

fuzzy

@AndersBaerbock @internetarchive anyways, say I go donate some books to my library, they add those books to their collection and start circulating them. They didn't get permission to give those books out or store them from the publisher, hell, they didn't even pay for them. It's still not piracy.
Now, if I donate books to the Internet Archive and they start circulating those books in the exact same way my local library does, just through a digital rather than a physical medium, it's piracy?

Anders Baerbock

@socks @internetarchive
Yes it is piracy, since the act of storing («detaching» the words from the printed book) in a retrieval system and electronically transmitting the literary work —the book— is expressly forbidden by the copyright notice.

In contrast, storing and lending the printed item is not forbidden and therefore the library does not need to ask for permission.

fuzzy

@AndersBaerbock @internetarchive If that's considered piracy under the law, then the law should be changed. There is no functional difference whether one loans a book digitally or physically.

Anders Baerbock

@socks @internetarchive
Changing the law corresponds to the legislative branch in democratic countries.

For publishers, there's actually an important difference: When libraries lend physical books, those items get worn out and eventually need replacement. Besides the hassle for the user who may prefer to buy his/her own copy instead of making recurrent trips to borrow one.
But lending electronically will be only good business for the manufacturers and sellers of electronic equipment.

fuzzy

@AndersBaerbock @internetarchive Digital books, and by extension anything digital, becomes obsolete and unreadable if not either replaced or maintained. A good example of this is the Domesday Book. The physical version from almost 1000 years ago is still readable, but an electronic version from the 80s is almost impossible to look through now because no modern computers can read it and no one bothered to maintain it: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_Dome

Anders Baerbock replied to fuzzy

@socks @internetarchive
mmm... that's questionable since the electronic age just started and everything is still somehow volatile. The maintenance of the book-reading software to chase the moving operative systems is also a business different from publishing, so far mostly intermediaries like Amazon engage in capturing customers with the promise of maintaining their own software forever.

But that's a talk for another thread. Have a great Sunday.

Martin Escardo

@internetarchive

Shared it with my wife - she is a librarian. And aware of the problem.

Thanks!

GuySoft
@internetarchive
Can we actually do anything? Is the internet archive in danger?
@liaizon
Cassian [main]

@internetarchive Do you mean ALL libraries, or do you mean all libraries in the USA?

183231bcb

@cassolotl @internetarchive All libraries that buy books from U.S. publishers.

Cassian [main]

@183231bcb @internetarchive Ah. :D If people in the USA could once again please bear in mind that there are over 200 other countries in the world...

Kate

@internetarchive

May the force and powers of all superheroes be with you!

TransitBiker

@internetarchive can someone explain what this is about in a few words?

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