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Comment by RcouF1uZ4gsC | Hacker News Reader

> In March, as the coronavirus pandemic was gaining steam, the Internet Archive announced it was dispensing with this waiting-list system. Under a program it called the National Emergency Library, IA began allowing an unlimited number of people to check out the same book at the same time—even if IA only owned one physical copy.

This was a complete overreach by IA and they are paying the price. If you lend out digital versions all of which are backed by a physical copy, it is hard to argue that the publisher is being harmed. However, if you loan out unlimited digital versions of a single copy, that is much harder to justify, and that provided the the opening the publishers needed for a lawsuit.

I love what the IA has done, but i think they unnecessarily stepped into a minefield for not that much benefit. Even Google with all its resources has not directly challenged the publishers.

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I still don't understand why they thought they would get away with it.

Did they think they could draw a confrontation with the publishers and somehow come out victorious? Or that the publishers and their legal teams would voluntarily look the other way?

I still can't tell what their plan was. Or what point they were trying to make. Or how they expected to handle the legal challenge.

It's a shame that they tied this to the Internet Archive. I seriously doubt the people who donated to the IA wanted their funds to be used on this.

I think they were considering being charitable by taking into account people's feelings and situations during a trans-national emergency.

I myself borrowed an old book (which I already owned, but I wanted to compare differences among versions), turned a few pages, but then got distracted and didn't open it again (the virtual loan expired).

I think it's a shame that people are trying to crucify an exemplary organization for doing a charitable act (no good deed goes unpunished, and all that).

And, to be quite honest... Most of the books are at least 20 years old... So it's not like they were distributing best sellers that were actively being sold.

I think it's a situation where publishers "are being forced" to be litigious, because they have an obligation to their shareholders to always take the option that yields more money; the Internet Archive just happened to leave themselves open to being a target, so they _have_ to do it.

This reminds me a bit of Commander Chris Hadfield's cover of Space Oddity, and if I recall correctly, that David Bowie didn't own the rights to his own song and thus was unable to approve or deny an extension for Cmdr Hadfield's video on YouTube (and the controversy of the takedown).

> they have an obligation to their shareholders to always take the option that yields more money

This is not true, and I wish people would stop repeating it like gospel.

They'll probably stop doing it when it stops seeming to be the case.

Since this comes up a lot, I did some digging.

The actual standard, from In Re Walt Disney, is that business decisions aren’t reviewable unless “the exchange was so one-sided that no business person of ordinary, sound judgment could conclude that the corporation has received adequate consideration".

In, Shlensky v. Wrigley, the Chicago Cubs were sued for refusing to install lighting for nighttime games: their president believed baseball was best as “a daytime sport." This is absurdly nebulous (and kind of bizarre), but the Cubs nevertheless won. That decision was based on Davis v. Louisville Gas and Electric Co, which says “the directors are chosen to pass upon such questions and their judgment unless shown to be tainted with fraud is accepted as final. The judgment the directors of the corporation enjoys the benefit of a presumption that it was formed in good faith, and was designed to promote the best interests of the corporation they serve.”

While you can get sued for nearly anything, the legal standard is basically "Did you egregiously rip off the company so that you could make money?", not "Could you have squeezed ten cents more out of the public?"

When I've herd this concept invoked the source has generally been attributed to Dodge v. Ford Motor Co.[1] That ruling seems to cut in either direction depending on the analysis. But in the end the most compelling argument seems to be lack of enforceability...

  the rule of wealth maximization for shareholders is
  virtually impossible to enforce as a practical matter. The
  rule is aspirational, except in odd cases. As long as
  corporate directors and CEOs claim to be maximizing profits
  for shareholders, they will be taken at their word, because
  it is impossible to refute these corporate officials'
  self-serving assertions about their motives.

  — Jonathan Macey

While the rule of wealth maximization for shareholders is not an enforceable law, it is a standard of conduct for officers and directors of a company.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodge_v._Ford_Motor_Co.

Macey's whole article develops that idea a bit more (here: https://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/fss_papers/1384/).

Ford's response to the Dodge Brothers was:

   My ambition is to employ still more men, to spread the  
   benefits of this industrial system to the greatest possible
   number, to help them build up their lives and their homes.

and Macey says this was precisely the right amount to torpedo his case. If he had said less ("we're expanding"), he would have been fine. Had he said more and provided even a shred of a business justification (goodwill, better work from talented workers, expanding the customer base), he would have been fine. As it was though, he put the court in a situation where they more or less had to find that he couldn't openly do as he pleases with other people's money.

Shlensky has a fairly similar fact pattern. The Cubs decision was supposedly driven by non-economic factors, namely beliefs about 'proper' baseball and possible effects on the neighborhood. However, they left open the door that these factors might themselves affect Cub's business prospects, a door that Ford slammed shut on himself. As a result, the Court found:

  “Plaintiff in the instant case argues that the directors are
  acting for reasons unrelated to the financial interest and 
  welfare of the Cubs. However, we are not satisfied that the 
  motives assigned to Philip K. Wrigley, and through him to the
  other directors, are contrary to the best interests of the
  corporation and the stockholders. For example, it appears to
  us that the effect on the surrounding neighborhood might well
  be considered by a director who was considering the patrons 
  who would or would not attend the games if the park were in a
  poor neighborhood. Furthermore, the long run interest of the
  corporation in its property value at Wrigley Field might
  demand all efforts to keep the neighborhood from
  deteriorating. By these thoughts we do not mean to say that
  we have decided that the decision of the directors was a 
  correct one. That is beyond our jurisdiction and ability. We 
  are merely saying that the decision is one properly before
  directors and the motives alleged in the amended complaint 
  showed no fraud, illegality or conflict of interest in their
  making of that decision.”

(from https://casetext.com/case/shlensky-v-wrigley)

Just so you know, this is what a mobile user sees when someone uses code blocks to format quotes on HN: https://i.imgur.com/EDI0Ist.png

It makes people scroll side to side to read the quote.

Please don't use code blocks for quotes.

There's a link at the bottom to the text, if that's easier.

And frankly, the fact that there's no other way to indicate a block quote is absurd.

I agree, there should be one.

The trick is that there is no single standard you can apply for what constitutes wealth maximization. In the very simplest interpretation, you have contradictory behaviors that will maximize short term versus long term wealth. This mantra is usually invoked to justify any kind of short-term greed at the cost of everything else. Corporations are not obligated to prioritize short-sighted behavior that can damage the entire ecosystem just to make a quick buck.

This comment is a non sequitur to whether corporations have a duty to shareholders. Cited cases have nearly nothing to say for or against on that point.

Unless I'm missing something, that's at the heart of all of these cases.

In Ford v. Dodge, Ford was sitting on $60M, from which it had been paying dividends. These were stopped to reinvest the money in new factories. The Dodge brothers, who owned about 10% of Ford, sued because, per Ford's own comment, his decisions were driven by charitable interests rather than business judgement.

In Shlensky v. Wrigley, Shlensky was a stockholder who believed that the Cubs were leaving money on the table by not holding night games. He sued--and lost--because the Court found that to be a plausible business decision.

In Davis v. Louisville Gas Electric Co., Davis (or actually, his estate) held one type of share in the company, and opposed a reorganization plan that would have converted them to another, to his potential detriment.

In re Walt Disney was a derivative suit by shareholders over the hiring and firing of Michael Orvitz, and whether his (lucrative) compensation was in the company's interests.

The common theme is that the board of directors (and the CEO they appoint, etc) have wide latitude to run the company, even in ways that don't immediately benefit some (Davis) or even all (Shlensky) shareholders. They can certainly go too far (Ford) or fail to exercise much judgement at all (Caremark, where the director sold the company for a value plucked out of thin air), but as Mercantile Trading says "generally [...] courts will not upset the decisions of either directors or stockholders as to questions of policy and business management. An abundance of authority in other jurisdictions might be cited to the same effect"

Thank you for clearing that up; I know they must weigh in all the options... but currently --- given the current chaotic political climate --- I'm quite sure they expected to fly under everyone's radar.

It is not charitable when you give away another persons property and by the end to you are equivocating. Seriously the fact that book is well read or old does not matter, they do not have the rights to do what they are doing and they purposefully trying to use COVID19 by exploiting people's feelings to get away with it.

Publishers have standing and as such they have to file the suit. They are only being forced into this because IA is breaking known law and did so knowing they were.

We the people of the united states grant a monopoly to an individual for a certain amount of time. I personally believe it should have stayed with the original time period. How much time do you need a monopoly?

>The Copyright Act of 1790 was the first federal copyright act to be instituted in the United States, though most of the states had passed various legislation securing copyrights in the years immediately following the Revolutionary War. The stated object of the act was the "encouragement of learning," and it achieved this by securing authors the "sole right and liberty of printing, reprinting, publishing and vending" the copies of their "maps, charts, and books" for a term of 14 years, with the right to renew for one additional 14-year term should the copyright holder still be alive.

> It is not charitable when you give away another persons property

Knowledge and culture is not anyone’s property. It is the collective work of all of humanity and ought to be treated as such.

That may be a great philosophical argument, but in the eyes of the law (which is what we're discussing here), IA was giving away someone else's property, so it really can't be considered a charitable act.

Even setting aside the law, there is a question of ethics. If I give you a license key to my software, and you give it away to 10 of your friends, would you consider your act charitable?

> That may be a great philosophical argument, but in the eyes of the law (which is what we're discussing here), IA was giving away someone else's property, so it really can't be considered a charitable act.

Internet Archive is a nonprofit with a philosophical mission. I don't agree with them all the time, but I view that their responsibility is to act primarily in accordance with their values. Unfortunately, they ended up taking on powers that they may not be able to handle, but I believe that they are in the right and the publishers are in the wrong, which is a more important conversation to me than whether their decision was strategically prudent (probably it was not).

> Even setting aside the law, there is a question of ethics. If I give you a license key to my software, and you give it away to 10 of your friends, would you consider your act charitable?

All software that I have worked on outside of my job is free and open source, so I would. I believe that it should be mandated by law that all non-trivial software be free and open source. To qualify this, I wouldn't do this on an individual level without your consent if, say, you were a small creator and you depended upon licenses for your livelihood. But small creators are not the plantiffs in this case, nor the people who primarily benefit from strict intellectual property laws -- massive publishing companies are.

You two are arguing at odds with each other. You're talking about how things are and they're talking about how they think things should be.

> Knowledge and culture is not anyone’s property. It is the collective work of all of humanity and ought to be treated as such.

This is a specious ideology without a mechanism to reward creators. At the moment that mechanism is money, either through sales, or for a rare few patronage. Without reward, creation is limited to the otherwise idle, and the collected work of all humanity lessened.

Personally I advocate the right to buy at a reasonable cost (as reasoned by society). Once a reproducible work is released to the public, you can't refuse my payment for it.

Reward doesn’t have to take the form of intellectual property. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prizes_as_an_alternative_to_...

Intellectual property benefits publishers, not creators.

The most valuable possession people have is time and attention. Producing works of knowledge and culture involves people giving up their time and attention to produce something. If they have done so, they deserve to have ownership of it.

As Abraham Lincoln said “ That is their argument, and this argument of the Judge is the same old serpent that says you work and I eat, you toil and I will enjoy the fruits of it. “

Whenever, you appropriate for yourself the fruits of other people’s toil, you are sowing seeds of tyranny.

> The most valuable possession people have is time and attention. Producing works of knowledge and culture involves people giving up their time and attention to produce something. If they have done so, they deserve to have ownership of it.

They deserve to be paid (eg, by a University), but they do not deserve ownership in terms of exclusive rights to its use. Can you imagine how far back science would be held if any applications of Newton or Einstein’s work required royalties to their estate? Are suggesting that the fact that they aren’t is tyranny?

> [Publishers] are only being forced into this

Nope. They may have standing, but they're responsible for their own actions.

> Seriously the fact that book is well read or old does not matter

It does, because it means the damages (lost potential sales) are low/nonexistent.

I'm curious just what percent of their revenues are from 20, 30 year old books.

Myself, I buy a lot of old books - but from the thrift store. The only reason the thrift store sells them is because people dump their valueless books on them.

> Nope. They may have standing, but they're responsible for their own actions.

Actually, they kind of are forced into action here. Even if they were okay with the IA doing this (which I'm sure they're not) they still have to defend their copyrights, otherwise they could be declared abandoned and the works would then be in the public domain and could not be defended when someone they don't want to use their works then uses them

You're thinking of trademark. That requires active defense. Copyright does not.

People buy old books all the time. The best-selling book of all time is thousands of years old, after all.

I assume you’re talking about the bible, which is obviously not copyrighted, so where does the idea comes from that nobody will continue to buy old content if it’s in the public domain?

Translations of the Bible are almost always copyrighted, unless it's the King James version, which IIRC isn't really that popular anymore. For that matter, all translations are copyrighted.

The copyrighted translations are not thousands of years old, which kind of defeats the original point. I mean I understand it was a kind of exaggeration for effect, but excepting a very few 'evergreen' titles, the value of a publisher's back catalog tails off very rapidly with age.

Yeah, it's generally a great organization, but that doesn't mean you can't do bad things.

When they announced it, I wrote a friend at the IA and told him it was a big mistake. I tried to get them to change their mind. They had plenty of warning and thought their good works would insulate them.

> doesn't mean you can't do bad things

They did bad things in regard to endangering their institution. There is nothing objectively, morally "bad" about the National Emergency Library though.

It is bad if you're an author. (Or if you're a reader who wants the authors to stay in business.)

Where can I find a list of authors who went out if business by this move in particular?

Either you believe in property rights or you don't. That's fine if you don't. But that's not the system we have.

Authors don't "go out of business" if their words are copied without their permission. So the answer to your question will always be "no one". But they have rights to their words nonetheless.

Theft isn’t charity.

Copyright Infringement is not theft, US Courts specifically bar calling it theft in court filings because it is not treated as theft in law

> I still can't tell what their plan was. Or what point they were trying to make. Or how they expected to handle the legal challenge.

I like the idea one of the Dreamwidth people threw up: it was probably intentionally aiming to bait a court case:

https://twitter.com/rahaeli/status/1244257620548038656

(Thanks to 'Apocryphon for posting it originally on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22734145 )

This doesn't necessarily seem out of line with something Brewster et al. would do, and it is the simplest explanation, so I tend to be on the side of it.

It's a very reasonable explanation.

I wonder what they had thought their chance of winning was at GHG height of the panic, and what is it now.

I also wonder why would they risk their other, very valuable and unique work, knowing full well that the chance of turning bankrupt is definitely nonzero.

> I seriously doubt the people who donated to the IA wanted their funds to be used on this.

I'm not annoyed that my donation is being used for this. I trust them to do what they think is best. Although I do have my doubts.

I'm in the same boat. I am considering donating more to help them, because I truly want the IA to succeed. I also have doubts and feel that this is the wrong fight at the wrong time.

I'm conflicted. The wayback machine is a huge good for the world, and I've donated in the past to support it. It would be a huge loss if it were to disappear. On the other hand I can't support stupidity, and picking a fight with the universe of book publishers is about the stupidest thing I've ever heard of.

It may be the wrong fight, but with physical libraries closed, it was definitely the right time. Perhaps they thought the situation would last longer?

They could have partnered with those closed libraries and virtually lent out those copies. But they didn't.

> I am considering donating more to help them, because I truly want the IA to succeed.

I'm beginning to suspect this is why they tied their actions to the IA in the first place. It's a good excuse to get people to donate who otherwise wouldn't support this action.

> I still don't understand why they thought they would get away with it

This smells of a lack of risk management more than bad risk management.

Or maybe they're getting exactly what they wanted.

Maybe they let their political goals eclipse their IA goals, and they thought that tying this lawsuit to the life or death of the IA would force IA fans to donate?

I was thinking the 'attention grabbing' side as well. Maybe their resources and funding were so borked they decided to throw a hail mary and hope for the best.

Public archives are fundamentally political.

> I still can't tell what their plan was

If they win (seems unlikely?) they expand fair use. If they are destroyed, then they become a poster child for the excesses of $150K statutory damages.

Absolutely agree. But also, I think that IA was entirely morally right to do this. The publishers seized the opportunity to do something they've wanted to do for a while, and in my opinion, it's despicable.

> IA was entirely morally right to do this

That's fair. But the consequences should have been obvious. Part of launching a test case is segregating the liability.

If IA wanted to launch a legal challenge, they should have segregated the risk from the main organization. Setting precedent with out-of-copyright and licensed works would have been one way. Allowing a third party to run the National Emergency Library would have been another.

Instead, it seems they thought of an idea and ran with it. For an organization aiming for longevity, that's poor process.

Setting precedent with out-of-copyright and

They already did allow out-of-copyright works to be downloaded as many times as anyone wants, without DRM. They're out of copyright. That's unambiguously legal and always has been. There, they've done what you wanted them to, they "segregated the risk from the main organization" (you'd have to have a pretty warped worldview to imagine it makes a difference, but nothing in your comment would have actually done that).

Allowing a third party to run the National Emergency Library would have been another.

I've read this line over and over again. Is this what you meant by it? "The organization that has all of the books and is registered as a library shouldn't have run the library that's legally grounded in them being legally-recognized as a library and having all of the books that they have."

If so, I completely disagree with you.

This makes way more sense than you're giving credit for. IA isn't run by a five year old.

The assertion is that a new organization should have been formed that owns the books and performs the lending, but has no access to the rest of the IA's assets. Then, in the event of a lawsuit, the only thing the publishers could seize would be the actual books.

As it is, the entire IA infrastructure could be torn apart overnight.

The assertion is that a new organization should have been formed that owns the books and performs the lending

Wouldn't be legally recognized as a library, which was something the IA spent years clawing to be recognized as.

but has no access to the rest of the IA's assets

This would be incredibly stupid and would require a complete restructuring of how the IA works (despite the belief of seemingly many people in this thread, the IA is significantly more than the Wayback Machine).

Then, in the event of a lawsuit, the only thing the publishers could seize would be the actual books.

Which would still be bad and morally wrong, and is more likely to happen when it's its own, non-library entity.

As it is, the entire IA infrastructure could be torn apart overnight.

No, it couldn't. Not a bit more than it could be five months ago.

> Wouldn't be legally recognized as a library, which was something the IA spent years clawing to be recognized as.

That's an important nuance that I and others missed.

> No, it couldn't.

Why not? The publishers win a judgement for a value that exceeds that of the IA's total assets, and all of the IA's infrastructure gets seized and auctioned off in the bankruptcy proceedings.

Why not? The publishers win a judgement for a value that exceeds that of the IA's total assets, and all of the IA's infrastructure gets seized and auctioned off in the bankruptcy proceedings.

The data is backed up in many ways (including to some extent in a fully-distributed fashion, though I'm not in the know enough to give you an idea of how vast it is: https://dweb.archive.org/ ), and a non-profit can't be forced into bankruptcy in the way you're implying (which is another reason it's so important the IA is non-profit), so the physical assets are safe:

https://www.abi.org/member-resources/blog/a-non-profit-entit...

I'm confused. Are you saying that the IA should run the Wayback Machine and library under one entity, or two different entities? In your reply to JumpCrisscross, you seem to argue for one, and that two would have no benefit; but your link contradicts that.

Your link is about substantive consolidation, a process where the bankruptcy court combines multiple related legal entities into one. This can benefit the creditors of Entity A, since it may frustrate the debtor's attempt to shield assets by placing them in a related Entity B. Your link correctly notes that a nonprofit can't be forced into bankruptcy, and thus can't be forced into substantive consolidation. So if the IA used the two-entity strategy, then your link implies it would be quite effective--worst case, the publishers take all the assets of the library entity, and they have no way to touch the Wayback entity.

If both the Wayback Machine and the library are under the same entity, then that single entity still can't be forced into bankruptcy, because it's a nonprofit. But the creditor (i.e., the publishers with their hypothetical judgment) can still just collect against the single nonprofit entity, bankruptcy or no bankruptcy. If the judgment is for more than the entity's assets then the creditor gets everything.

The point of bankruptcy is to consolidate multiple creditors' claims into a single case, to be resolved more fairly, while destroying less value, etc. It seems like you might be thinking that no bankruptcy means no ability for the creditors to collect? But that's exactly backwards--bankruptcy is primarily a set of protections for the debtor (like the "automatic stay", which stops creditors from trying to collect outside the bankruptcy), with a few smaller benefits for the creditor (like that substantive consolidation) thrown in.

ETA: And I see that the IA describes itself as "recognized as a library by the government", but I'm not aware of any specific legal benefit from that. Regardless, if that's somehow important then they could leave the books in the library entity and split out the Wayback, instead of splitting out the library.

Wouldn't that be treated by the courts as an attempt to shield IA's assets?

Sure, I don't disagree.

The publishers waited until someone made a massive over-reach beyond any plausible deniability or defense, and that makes them despicable?

I mean... a little blame goes to the folks that made the massive over-reach beyond any plausible deniability or defense, right? Maybe most of the blame? All of the blame?

IA lofted the jolly roger and thought fear of bad press would protect them, and it's the publisher's fault for not saying, "never mind, you guys destroy the entire economic foundation of the publishing industry, no worries"?

I'm rarely in the anti-pirate camp, but defending IA in this context is pretty extreme.

It's so uncharacteristic of the way the IA normally behaves. Whatever special rights a lot of people think they have as a library, a lot of their archiving operations are on somewhat shaky ground. BUT they're a non-profit, don't monetize with advertising, bend over backwards (further than many think they should) to take down anything anyone with a legitimate claim wants taken down even retroactively, and generally don't do anything that makes them a particularly attractive legal target. Yeah, you can argue about them collecting so much content on essentially an opt-out basis. But, at the end of the day, they do provide an opt-out so it's probably not very attractive to sue them when you can get the same result by asking for a takedown.

Trying to use a crisis to return sanity to copyright law isn't an overreach. The blame lies squarely on those who have spent decades creating draconian copyright law, and those today who defend it. "I'm an author" or "Think of the publishers!" is no excuse for supporting unjust laws.

The argument is whether actions like this are the best way to "return sanity to copyright law," though, right? It seems to me there's a lot of space between "eternally extending copyright to keep the first Mickey Mouse cartoons from entering the public domain" and "anyone should be able to do whatever they want with other people's work at any point regardless of the creator's objections."

There is a lot of space, which is why you anchor with the opening salvo and then find middle ground. Keep in mind, the Internet Archive only opened the “National Emergency Library” during a global pandemic. Under business as usual, they put limits on access to scanned works.

Copyright isn’t an inalienable right. It was established for the public good, and up for renegotiation at any time. Now is one of those times.

An "opening salvo" has to be more than just throwing ammunition at your enemies. The "but global pandemic" argument will not be very convincing when they roll out authors that also wanted to eat during the pandemic.

No matter what you consider to be the morally correct outcome here, this seems to have been a very risky way to go about things.

> when they roll out authors that also wanted to eat during the pandemic.

This is a tired argument. Please prove authors experienced lost sales due to the emergency library IA offered.

I don't have to. The publishers do. And I'll bet they can make a better legal argument than "oh we just wanted to because pandemic".

Seems to be overreaching to me. They have put themselves into a position where they are likely to be sued into the ground, and force others into a position where the only choice is to lose their income or sue them into the ground. They weren't forced into creating this standoff, so at least share the blame.

I'm not sure what the point of owning a digital copy of a book is if I can, at any time, "loan" one from the IA in <15 seconds. In a way it's even more convenient than owning a copy, your basically using IA as cloud storage.

>"I'm an author" or "Think of the publishers!" is no excuse for supporting unjust laws.

Authors want to get paid, this stops them from getting paid...

>> "I'm an author" or "Think of the publishers!" is no excuse for supporting unjust laws.

What is sad is most of the people that use that excuse do not believe copyright laws are draconian enough, they want STRONGER copyright laws for publishers, they want it to not only be civil but criminal, they want to put people in jail in a cage if you happen to share your favorite song with a friend.

In short, copyright maximalists are insane

The real overreach is copyright law's hundred year plus monopolies on imaginary property and their lip service to fair use and the public domain.

And the solution to broken copyright law is to ignore it, at the expense of working-class authors, rather than ... working on the law?

You realize this undermines the ability of our society to produce the actual written works that we're arguing so damn valuable that we can't abide locking them behind a paywall?

People write for free constantly. We're doing it right now, Tumblr was absolutely full of freely available fiction, and there were plenty of stories and technical knowledge written and passed between people before copyright was even a concept in anyone's minds. The primary thing the copyright industry gets us in regards to writing is that some people can get paid doing things others will do for free, and a large body of advertising is created around the non-free works.

If you stop paying people to write, the only people who write are those who can afford the time. Writing a novel can take years of your life. Books are not fungible, and some books you would want to read will never get written if the author cannot afford to write it.

Sure, but we get into a weird place if we try to argue that every thing that possibly might be written must be written - no copyright law is strong enough, we have a moral obligation to buy books we have no interest in, etc etc.

So why is the current copyright system the exact correct system for getting people paid to write, where any stronger or weaker would be bad? I can think of at least a few other possible systems that would get people paid to write as well - maybe an entirely different set of people, so some things would get written that aren’t today and some things that would get written today aren’t under that system. How can we evidence that our current system works best?

> And the solution to broken copyright law is to ignore it

Civil disobedience is a form of peaceful protest.

> You realize this undermines the ability of our society to produce the actual written works

Creators aren't going to stop. They'll find a way. The solution is to somehow get paid for the act of creating rather than the finished work. Patronage and crowdfunding could be the answer.

I hate intellectual property, but I don't despise the publishers, they're just playing by the (broken) rules of the game.

I blame the politicians that do nothing to change the rules of the game in the first place, and the people that elect them.

It is perfectly possible to blame both the politicians that propagate unjust rules and the people that take advantage of them. Both are contributing to injustice, each in their own way.

Copyright is the way it is because of publishers of various media lobbying for stronger, longer protection. The politicians are the people they lobby.

I think one argument that they could make is that regular libraries are closed during the pandemic and there are thousands of physical copies that people can’t borrow because of the closures. Hence, their making available more digital copies than they physically own can be somewhat justified. The fact that they made that number unbounded is what’s most problematic. Had they just increased their limits by some guesstimated number of unavailable books, it would’ve made for a much easier day in court.

> Had they just increased their limits by some guesstimated number of unavailable books, it would’ve made for a much easier day in court.

My guess is that this is exactly what they did and specifically, that they're cooperating with a number of currently-closed libraries so that they can still claim to have one book kept in storage for each book that's lent out, when accounting for those libraries' physical holdings. They just used the word "unlimited" as a convenient shortcut in describing their new policy, much like ISP's and their "unlimited but not really" data caps.

This is just a fantasy. We are now just pretending that IA did something other than what they actually did?

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/30/books/internet-archive-em...

> Public libraries get licenses from publishers for the e-books they lend, and publishers receive payments, according to the terms that are set. Internet Archive doesn’t get licenses from publishers but instead relies on donated or purchased books or copies it acquires through collaborations with physical libraries. The books are then scanned and made available for one borrower at a time, for 14 days. With that restriction removed, the archive is now operating more or less like a free digital book site.

Sorry but that article is definitely inaccurate. As I wrote in a sibling comment, the NEL is still lending out books with a DRM-enforced "check out". That restriction is very much in effect! And my point is that we simply don't know how far their claim to "unlimited" lending should be taken.

They made no claims to this effect, have announced zero partnership, and instead made claims entirely contrary to this. It seems remarkably specious and apologist to imagine this as an argument now.

I don't even get why IA did this, or why they threatened the project itself with this side project. Many people gave money to the project for the internet archiving, not some sort of robinhood book distribution system. Whoever did this should have created a completely separate side project instead of effectively bankrupting the meaningful, justifiable project in the process.

> They made no claims to this effect, have announced zero partnership, and instead made claims entirely contrary to this.

It makes sense that they would do this if they were actively trying to lure the pro-copyright camp (Authors' Guild and publishers) into a difficult-to-defend and highly unpopular position. I agree that it seems a bit unrealistic, but surely the IA had to know that a lawsuit would be filed given their public claims wrt. the NEL.

It makes sense that they would do this if they were actively trying to lure the pro-copyright camp (Authors' Guild and publishers) into a difficult-to-defend and highly unpopular position.

That position being that the IA shouldn't do what the law says you aren't allowed to do? That doesn't seem very difficult to defend at all, and it's going to be unpopular with the kind of person who thinks copyright shouldn't exist but probably less so with the people who created those works if they aren't getting paid as they should be.

I'm a little wary of saying much here because copyright disputes often seem to end up having relevant details that were omitted from some reporting on them. But if the IA really is making and distributing an unlimited number of copies of a protected work, isn't that exactly the act that copyright was designed to prohibit?

> That position being that the IA shouldn't do what the law says you aren't allowed to do?

But does it say that? Their status as an officially-recognized library means they're operating by different rules than most private citizens. Libraries are (sometimes) allowed to make copies of copyrighted works without asking anyone's permission. It's entirely possible that the limitations they imposed on digital lending prior to this event were merely a expression of courtesy—or excess caution—and not an actual legal obligation.

> Libraries are (sometimes) allowed to make copies of copyrighted works without asking anyone's permission.

Libraries can make copies for preservation purposes, but that's not the same thing as making those copies generally available. The latter is not something that they're permitted to do outside of special circumstances. So I think your argument is going too far - there are clear reasons why the Open Library's lending works the way it does.

There are a number if different (if somewhat overlapping) copyright exceptions for libraries. Some do allow copies to be made generally available to the public, though none are intended to mass distribution of any one work.

Section 108(a) allows the library to make a single copy of a work and distribute it to the public.

Section 108(b) allows up to three copies, for preservation or security or for deposit in another library (but not distributed directly to the public).

Section 108(c) allows up to three copies to replace deteriorating or obsolete media, but does not allow distribution outside the premises.

Section 108(d) applies only to excerpts.

Section 108(e) allows apparently unlimited copies to be made for "private study, scholarship, or research"—this is the default assumption, so the library would need to know that this was not the case to be in violation—provided that the work "cannot be obtained at a fair price". However, the copy must become the property of the user (i.e. not a loan).

Section 108(h) allows more widespread copying and distribution of abandonware within the last 20 years of their copyright period.

Ironically, section 108(e) would probably offer the best protection, but only if they were actually handing out permanent copies and not limited-time loans.

In the US, as far as I can tell, there's no such thing as an officially-recognized library--at least at the federal level unless you're talking about the Library of Congress.

The IA is a 501(c)(3) organization but they're not a "library" in that filing (which may not even be a specific option).

Classification (NTEE) Human Service Organizations - Multipurpose (Human Services — Multipurpose and Other)

Nonprofit Tax Code Designation: 501(c)(3) Defined as: Organizations for any of the following purposes: religious, educational, charitable, scientific, literary, testing for public safety, fostering national or international amateur sports competition (as long as it doesn’t provide athletic facilities or equipment), or the prevention of cruelty to children or animals.

But, sure, they look like a library so they're free to call themselves one. But that doesn't actually confer a lot of special privileges.

17 U.S. Code § 108[1] grants copyright exceptions specifically to "libraries or archives". This is completely separate from their status as a 501(c)(3) non-profit origanization for tax purposes.

[1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/108

Yes, it does say that. Libraries generally don't allow people to make copies of complete works, and for good reason. Copyright laws often have special provisions for specific purposes like archival, but that isn't what's being described here.

It's baloney. Powell books was open and hiring staff to handle online orders. And if you must, there was also Amazon.

A book store is not a library. We taxpayers have already paid for libraries.

Well, taxpayers have paid for certain libraries, which have mostly been closed. If you want to get what you've paid for, you should probably talk to your municipal, state, and perhaps federal representatives.

The fact that you paid one entity for a service (which they are not providing,) does not entitle you to collect it from another entity.

I never said anything about being entitled to anything, please don't put words in my mouth. I'm just pointing out something that should be obvious - a bookstore isn't a library. And telling people who have already paid their taxes to go use a bookstore is offensive.

Turns out "people are bored and entertainment isn't as freely available" is maybe not a great justification for stealing people's stuff.

I also know of a large number of libraries (e.g., NYPL) that suspended their requirement that people verify their address, so realistically, anyone anywhere could register an ebook-only library card and avail themselves.

> Turns out "people are bored and entertainment isn't as freely available" is maybe not a great justification for stealing people's stuff.

Luckily absolutely nothing was stolen.

You can assert copying isn't stealing, but the part where "I have something I didn't have a minute ago, and would normally have to pay money to acquire it, but didn't" is pretty clear-cut.

Just because someone wasn't deprived of the thing you now have doesn't mean they weren't deprived of something of value, and pretending otherwise is a juvenile see-no-evil defense.

That's literally why it's not stealing. It's not legal, but it's also by definition not theft.

Agreed. "Piracy isn't theft" is such a cliche in these arguments.

The people downloading the books, music, movies, etc are getting something that they want, that normally costs money, for free.

Come up with a new word if it isn't theft. But it looks and acts like theft.

> and pretending otherwise is a juvenile see-no-evil defense.

And luckily I did not say that anywhere.

Once they started doing video games just directly embedded in the site I figured their MO was just to keep pushing the boundaries and see how far they could go until they got slapped.

Still, you have to be mr Scrooge to punish IA for trying to help during an international emergency.

I have to agree. This hurt authors everywhere and authors can't allow this kind of precedent to take hold or authors can't afford to eat. Nor can readers, really because without well-fed authors, there's nothing to read.

There were definitely authors before copyright existed.

I for one can't wait to return to a time where the only people who could afford to be writers were members of the upper class who didn't need to rely on publishing for their income; we might be spared the next Dan Brown.

It's no wonder copyright reform has completely stalled out over the last 20 years when all discussions devolve into the same repeated canards.

If you're one of the majority of writers and relying on publishing for your income, you are probably not relying on publishing for your income but rather food stamps.

Publishers aren't really on authors' sides.

Many authors are their own publishers. Writing (and most arts) pays so little because society values their work so little. We seem to value a decent novel at about $5. An author already sees about $0.50-$1 of that. Respected, well reviewed, award winning (but not best selling) authors I know would still be hard up earning a living wage even if their income increased tenfold by them getting 100% of the proceeds.

(Isn't this what mp3.com did?)

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