I thought it was Xerox....
"It's a Miracle!"
Posted on 09/07/2024 8:27:10 AM PDT by aspasia
The Internet Archive has lost a legal battle which could see the whole web get a lot less freaky. The Second Circuit US Court of Appeals upheld a previous ruling in favor of Hachette Book Group. Hachette sued the Internet Archive over a project which scanned library books and lent infinite copies. Hachette and other publishers argued this was “tantamount to piracy,” as Wired phrases it.
(Excerpt) Read more at vulture.com ...
Internet Archive materials are supposed to be out of Copyright, I thought.
America needs Copyright reform. Benjamin Franklin lived in a different century. Government-granted monopoly needs limits.
Pretty sure it’s for books in copyright. You can’t read Ayn Rand there anymore.
I’ve gotten good genealogy books over there. One was crucial to my research. I hate to hear they lost.
That’s a great example of the reform needed. Rand died in 1982.
This country is no longer united by John Philip Sousa marches. An industry that crushes national identity does not need protection.
Copyright runs FAR too long.
Mark Helprin is a successful novelist. He is also on a mission to keep the content he and others create out of the public domain.He loathes the sense of entitlement society has come to accept, especially as it relates to the Internet, where most things appear to be free – or most people believe they should be – books, articles and images, included.
Helprin is author of Winter’s Tale, A Soldier of the Great War, Freddy and Fredericka, The Pacific, Ellis Island, and numerous other works. His novels, journalism and political commentary have been translated into over twenty languages. Most of his fiction has featured war, the sea and machines. His most contentious battle is with intellectual property.
Fair Thinkers or Free-Riders?
The strength of Digital Barbarism, his manifesto, consists of Helprin’s jibes at anti-copyright philistines, progressives groping for higher ethics and techno literati looking for a free ride. There are also those too oblivious to know there is a problem or care. His arguments are in equal measure precise, provocative, ornery and humorous.
Helprin did not anticipate a hostile response to his 2007 New York Times op-ed piece, “A Great Idea Lives Forever. Shouldn’t Its Copyright?” Within a week, the article, which argued for extending the copyright term in keeping with Canada, the UK and other nations, had generated 750,000 angry comments.
Digital Barbarism: A Writer’s Manifesto, published in 2010, is Helprin’s book about the growing threat to copyright and the high cost to both creators and society.
Fueled by Anger
While his anger-infused arguments are timely, Digital Barbarism is not without its challenges. Often dismissive, Helprin wanders in and out of the topic at hand, raging against a wide range of real and perceived adversaries.
He is right about free content. The lack of understanding about the purpose of copyrights and other IP rights is astounding. The damage it is does to creators and content, and society, is significant.
I’m guessing that I’m not finishing that book I started over the summer. (I put it aside because of library books that became available, and because the reader interface was annoying).
No, I didn’t realize that they didn’t have a right to lend it. I thought it was like any other library only with more restrictions. (I checked out the book for an hour at a time and had to keep renewing it.)
“Copyright runs FAR too long.”
Disney’s mickey rat is a case in point
Thank you, but I am not certain what all of that was meant to express.
It does sound like a great argument for reform. The modern world is far different from the world of Franklin’s time. Copyright is owned, transferred and maintained beyond an author’s death. The digital world has made the cost of generating copy non-existent.
I do not believe that America should damage itself protecting predatory industry, anymore than it should destroy the creativity of originators. It is long past the time to reform Copyright law and establish a proper balance.
At least that is my take.
He is right about free content. The lack of understanding about the purpose of copyrights and other IP rights is astounding. The damage it is does to creators and content, and society, is significant.
In principle I agree with you. However I think the war has already been lost.
Before the printing press there was no copyright since books the only way to get a “copy” of a book was to actually copy it by hand. The Gutenberg Printing press changed all that in the mid 1400s. Government copy right enforcement came about in the mid 1700s.
Copyrights were enforceable more by the fact on just how difficult for an individual to make a single copy let alone multiple copies. Only a business with a printing press could (and did).
Today almost anyone with a computer can make a copy of almost any printed material (such as books, music, photos and art work). The Genie is out of the bottle and I don’t know how the world can return to before the computer.
Add the internet and it becomes almost too easy to share a copy with the world.
For reference on just how much is posted on the internet I direct you here...
https://blogs.opentext.com/how-much-data-is-created-on-the-internet-each-day/
The volume is more then anyone (or government) could hope to police.
So how is a copyright going to be enforced?
As I have said, I agree a copyright should be respected but it seems the mass of humanity has taken a vote and decided on their own that copyrights no longer exist.
Already happened. When the 50 year copyright duration approached expiration for 'Dianetics, the Modern Science of Mental Health' the Church of Scientology persuaded the Carter administration into extending it to 95 years.
That THE real Mickey Mouse organization was behind it didn't hurt either!
I thought it was Xerox....
"It's a Miracle!"
Simple.
AI will watch every bit and byte on the internet. Post too many words in the same sequence as in a copyrighted work and...
They seem to have lost the "limited times" part of that power.
I have no doubt of that, though perhaps only authors need protection of their works and publishers should depend on arrangements with them. That would seem to be part of useful reform - untransferability of Copyright.
I also believe that Hollywood is far more than incentivized enough. That causes its own problems.
Somewhere, there is balance. Industries have been formed off of the imbalance.
By the way, I come from engineering and have authored several patents. Patent Law and Intellectual Property have similar problems, I believe.
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