Who archives the archivers? - The Internet Archive sued (for potentially $210 billion) by publishers due to questionable COVID decisions

[LAwLz]

3 hours ago, mr moose said:

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2 hours ago, poochyena said:

-snip-

  

I think physical and online media faces two different challenges.

On the Internet, it is very easy to rewrite history. A new story can be edited and all of a sudden it might say something completely different. "Oh but it's so easy to do a backup". Yes but then you run into the issue of, can the backup really be trusted? Someone can claim to have a backup, but that backup might have been edited by someone as well.

I can claim to have a backup of an old post of yours where you say horrible stuff and then claim you have deleted that post because you don't want others to see it. There is no way for some independent party to verify if I am telling the truth or if you're telling the truth.

That, on top of the stuff mr moose talked about with flooding the other side of the story is another real problem.

 

Physical media on the other hand, they can't just go back and edit a month old newspaper that has already been printed. Try hunting down all printed new york times magazines from a particular date if you want. It will be damn near impossible. But access to those are also way more limited.

[mr moose]

4 hours ago, poochyena said:

...again, nowhere in all those words do you describe how its harder to destroy physical content than digital content. You are saying its just as difficult online as physically, right?

I'm not sure why you are talking about physical media,  I am talking about the internet and the ability to change what people see and read.  see this post:

2 hours ago, LAwLz said:

  

I think physical and online media faces two different challenges.

On the Internet, it is very easy to rewrite history. A new story can be edited and all of a sudden it might say something completely different. "Oh but it's so easy to do a backup". Yes but then you run into the issue of, can the backup really be trusted? Someone can claim to have a backup, but that backup might have been edited by someone as well.

I can claim to have a backup of an old post of yours where you say horrible stuff and then claim you have deleted that post because you don't want others to see it. There is no way for some independent party to verify if I am telling the truth or if you're telling the truth.

That, on top of the stuff mr moose talked about with flooding the other side of the story is another real problem.

 

Physical media on the other hand, they can't just go back and edit a month old newspaper that has already been printed. Try hunting down all printed new york times magazines from a particular date if you want. It will be damn near impossible. But access to those are also way more limited.

 

[Loote]

When I saw that IA has done it I didn't even consider it was without permission, I just thought somehow they got it working. What happened is a shame and I hope it ends in a modest way, without closing IA or them having to pay huge settlements.

[poochyena]

10 hours ago, LAwLz said:

Because they take advantage of this situation to try and hunt down the concept of lending books, they are taking advantage of the situation to hunt down money they aren't entitled too (such as money from books that nobody has even borrowed), and they are asking for a ridiculous compensation that is completely out of this world.

none of that is taking advantage of the situation, its just common sense. You always ask for more than you think you can get. Thats not greed, thats very basic negotiation tactics.

 

8 hours ago, mr moose said:

I'm not sure why you are talking about physical media

Because you seemed to imply the internet makes its easier to delete content than without the internet, which I see no evidence for what so ever.

[Lurick]

2 hours ago, poochyena said:

none of that is taking advantage of the situation, its just common sense. You always ask for more than you think you can get. Thats not greed, thats very basic negotiation tactics.

 

Because you seemed to imply the internet makes its easier to delete content than without the internet, which I see no evidence for what so ever.

If only the IA had a single "opt out" system where publishers could say "We don't want this book being distributed this way" or something. OH WAIT THEY DO!

 

For what it's worth, in looking down the list of works sued over, and doing a spot sampling, it looks like at least some (though not all) of the works being sued over are no longer available through the National Emergency Library. Since the NEL has always had a simple opt-out system, it does make you wonder why these publishers and authors didn't just make use of that. But also looking over that list, I see a bunch of books that I know are read in schools -- meaning that these publishing houses likely have just screwed over a bunch of teachers and students, many of whom already have physical copies of books, but find them inaccessible for the kids to read while we all still remain under lockdown.

 

 

But, you know, learning bad, money good. Corporations good, praise to their money. Not saying "anyone who supports this is a moron" but it seems like a bad faith gesture on the publishers to just scream like this who care more about money than anything else and working to make things better.

[JZStudios]

On 6/9/2020 at 9:47 AM, handymanshandle said:

Me when copyright holders cry about losing exactly 37 cents from the Internet Archive:

 

According to the internet, which is never wrong, and more specifically Mill City Press, the average book is ~$16. The info presented here says there was 1.4 million books given out, turns out to $22,330,000. Give or take. That's a tad more than 37 cents.

 

22 hours ago, LAwLz said:

This is exactly what I would expect from greedy publishers. They didn't even ask IA to stop from what I can tell. 

Their first response to someone trying to do a good deed is "let's sue them for billions of dollars!". 

 

It's pretty clear thst publishers in general are the scum of the earth. Hell, like the article says some of them didn't even like that IA were lending books they had legally bought. 

 

What IA did is illegal, but the reaction from publishers is clearly a horrible one as well. Fuck em. I hope IA gets out of this unharmed. They provide extremely valued services (way back machine among other things) and in general want to do good things for us (the general public). 

Well, how about I steal a few million from you? Would you just say, "Hey, could you like... maybe not?" or would you want your money reimbursed at the least? The fact that IA has other good attributes is pretty irrelevant, though it would suck to see it closed.

 

22 hours ago, Trik'Stari said:

This sucks, as archival sites are being used to bypass paywalls at news sights as well as maintain an actual record of the shit politicians say, because the media is all to happy to delete some things and maintain others.

Alex Jones checks out.

[Bombastinator]

3 minutes ago, JZStudios said:

According to the internet, which is never wrong, and more specifically Mill City Press, the average book is ~$16. The info presented here says there was 1.4 million books given out, turns out to $22,330,000. Give or take. That's a tad more than 37 cents.

 

Well, how about I steal a few million from you? Would you just say, "Hey, could you like... maybe not?" or would you want your money reimbursed at the least? The fact that IA has other good attributes is pretty irrelevant, though it would suck to see it closed.

 

Alex Jones checks out.

Alex Jones is the corona virus curing toothpaste guy that complains about “defunding” when people call him on false claims right?

[JZStudios]

13 hours ago, LAwLz said:

Asking for 30 dollars per book is "wanting to get paid for the work you have done".

Asking for 150,000 dollars per book, a lot of which haven't even been borrowed, when someone was trying to do a good deed in the middle of a global catastrophe, is greedy.

They aren't lending them though, if the article is to be believed. They straight gave away copyrighted material, which is grounds for a $150,000 fine per piece. The article explicitly mentioned that they weren't being sued for lending books, they're being sued for giving them away for free. It also has literally exactly zero to do with morals or ethics.

[dalekphalm]

1 minute ago, Bombastinator said:

Alex Jones is the corona virus curing toothpaste guy that complains about “defunding” when people call him on false claims right?

Yes, among other stupid conspiracy theories and actual fake pseudoscience, etc. He's one of the least credible humans alive.

[JZStudios]

1 minute ago, Bombastinator said:

Alex Jones is the corona virus curing toothpaste guy that complains about “defunding” when people call him on false claims right?

Umm... sure?

He's really the "Chemicals in the water are turning the freaking frogs gay" guy. Also "Hillary Clinton is a sub-human demon."

[dalekphalm]

1 minute ago, JZStudios said:

They aren't lending them though, if the article is to be believed. They straight gave away copyrighted material, which is grounds for a $150,000 fine per piece. The article explicitly mentioned that they weren't being sued for lending books, they're being sued for giving them away for free. It also has literally exactly zero to do with morals or ethics.

To be clear, the fine is "up to" $150K - that's the maximum the fine can be. It can (and if they win, almost certainly will) be far less.

[Bombastinator]

1 minute ago, JZStudios said:

They aren't lending them though, if the article is to be believed. They straight gave away copyrighted material, which is grounds for a $150,000 fine per piece. The article explicitly mentioned that they weren't being sued for lending books, they're being sued for giving them away for free. It also has literally exactly zero to do with morals or ethics.

I’ll agree with the moral and ethics removed part. Maybe not the way you meant it.

[JZStudios]

Just now, Bombastinator said:

I’ll agree with the moral and ethics removed part. Maybe not the way you meant it.

It's the law. Morals and ethics don't really have a part.

[Bombastinator]

Just now, JZStudios said:

It's the law. Morals and ethics don't really have a part.

Except that the law is supposed to be an expression of morals and ethics.  Smacks of biblical Roman hand washing.  As I stated earlier here news articles have a nasty habit of leaving important bits out.  Does it look pretty bad for the future existence of the internet archive at this moment from the information given?  Yup.  It’s possible they did more homework on this one than is being talked about and there may be something unmentioned that is also at play.  

[Lurick]

7 minutes ago, JZStudios said:

They aren't lending them though, if the article is to be believed. They straight gave away copyrighted material, which is grounds for a $150,000 fine per piece. The article explicitly mentioned that they weren't being sued for lending books, they're being sued for giving them away for free. It also has literally exactly zero to do with morals or ethics.

Where in the article does it say they gave away works for free? They still used the lending program, the only thing they changed was that there wasn't a waitlist. Any number of people could request to be lent the same book unlike before. Additionally all publishers had to do was make a simple request for works not to be shared but instead they sue first and give no fucks later.

[JZStudios]

3 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

Except that the law is supposed to be an expression of morals and ethics.  Smacks of biblical Roman hand washing.  As I stated earlier here news articles have a nasty habit of leaving important bits out.  Does it look pretty bad for the future existence of the internet archive at this moment from the information given?  Yup.  It’s possible they did more homework on this one than is being talked about and there may be something unmentioned that is also at play.  

Supposed to and does are different things. There's lots of cases where the loser was clearly the one in the right.

 

4 minutes ago, Lurick said:

Where in the article does it say they gave away works for free? They still used the lending program, the only thing they changed was that there wasn't a waitlist. Any number of people could request to be lent the same book unlike before. Additionally all publishers had to do was make a simple request for works not to be shared but instead they sue first and give no fucks later.

Hmm. Even if that's the case they still duplicated and handed out copies they didn't own.

[mr moose]

4 hours ago, poochyena said:

 

 

Because you seemed to imply the internet makes its easier to delete content than without the internet, which I see no evidence for what so ever.

No, I said it was easy to re write history on the internet, I never said anything about deleting or destroying anything physical.  

 

And even if I did it would be in regard to editing or removing content from the original sites which would make it much harder to find especially in the even the wayback machine didn't archive it.   Removing/editing content from your own website is very easy.

[TomvanWijnen]

1 hour ago, JZStudios said:

According to the internet, which is never wrong, and more specifically Mill City Press, the average book is ~$16. The info presented here says there was 1.4 million books given out, turns out to $22,330,000. Give or take. That's a tad more than 37 cents.

Do you think that those 1.4 million books would have been properly bought if they weren't free? I certainly don't think so.

[mr moose]

9 minutes ago, TomvanWijnen said:

Do you think that those 1.4 million books would have been properly bought if they weren't free? I certainly don't think so.

Not too sure what you mean by this.  The issue is not that they didn't buy books, but that they lent out more than they were licensed to.  Lost potential revenue does not come into the equation.

 

Edit, to clarify a confusing post, When I say lost potential doesn't come into the equation, I mean that they can use it to calculate the size of he breach of  contract, not that lost potential revenue can be ignored because it was only potential. 

[Trik'Stari]

2 hours ago, JZStudios said:

According to the internet, which is never wrong, and more specifically Mill City Press, the average book is ~$16. The info presented here says there was 1.4 million books given out, turns out to $22,330,000. Give or take. That's a tad more than 37 cents.

 

Well, how about I steal a few million from you? Would you just say, "Hey, could you like... maybe not?" or would you want your money reimbursed at the least? The fact that IA has other good attributes is pretty irrelevant, though it would suck to see it closed.

 

Alex Jones checks out.

1. A single free item gained cannot be equated to a single sale lost. That person might have had no intention of ever purchasing the book, therefore a sale was not lost.

 

2. It is well established and easily proven that the media can and will delete things to serve their narrative. Don't just take my word for it. Do some research on your own. The biggest example that comes to mind is the debacle with The Verge's "PC build guide".

[mr moose]

22 minutes ago, Trik'Stari said:

1. A single free item gained cannot be equated to a single sale lost.

While this is true and why it is called potential revenue and not actual revenue, It still represents the value of the product that person distributed without permission.   It does not matter if people would or would not buy under different circumstances as the item was intentionally distributed at a specific value.

 

22 minutes ago, Trik'Stari said:

2. It is well established and easily proven that the media can and will delete things to serve their narrative. Don't just take my word for it. Do some research on your own. The biggest example that comes to mind is the debacle with The Verge's "PC build guide".

Absolutely, I can think of many examples, unfortunately most of them are political or centre around climate change which always upsets people who can't move outside of their ideologies. 

[Bombastinator]

9 minutes ago, mr moose said:

While this is true and why it is called potential revenue and not actual revenue, It still represents the value of the product that person distributed without permission.   It does not matter if people would or would not buy under different circumstances as the item was intentionally distributed at a specific value.

 

Absolutely, I can think of many examples, unfortunately most of them are political or centre around climate change which always upsets people who can't move outside of their ideologies. 

That intended value thing is one of those points of law that is going to change by area I suspect.  Another reason I think this may turn into a mess and there may be a situation where this whole thing may turn on stuff we don’t know about.  Given the data we got it looks kinda bad for the internet archive but one would assume they’ve got lawyers too and they know about library and copywriter law.  Both of which are somewhat convoluted.

[Guest willies leg]

I think that's the problem, the websites don't want their stuff archived anymore.

If it's archived they lose control of making it disappear. Or change.

 

[wanderingfool2]

17 hours ago, LAwLz said:

If the publishers only wanted to get paid for their work, they would request IA to stop lending books they don't have physical copies for, and then maybe request a fair and reasonable compensation for the number of books that has been borrowed without legal permission. Let's say 30 dollars for each individual book that were unlawfully borrowed. Instead they are going after 150,000 dollars for each book that could have been borrowed. I don't think the publishers are morally or ethically entitled to 150,000 dollars per book, nor do I think they are entitled to get paid for books that haven't even been borrowed.

I would like to point out though, everyone is quick at jumping down the publishers throats but none of the articles say 150,000 is what the publishers are asking for (The articles are merely saying that that is the maximum damage)

 

Sometimes you ask for the maximum (knowing you won't get it), as during discovery you might lets say find incriminating evidence that they willfully knew what they were doing and did so willfully at which point punitive damages could apply (specifically if they were warned not to but chose to do it anyways).  It's like the ask for forgiveness than permission (and damages to prevent people from doing so).

 

3 hours ago, Lurick said:

Additionally all publishers had to do was make a simple request for works not to be shared but instead they sue first and give no fucks later.

That is a similar argument when the ISP's started doing tracking and ad insertions on internet traffic...they had a "opt out" system.  In my opinion, saying there was an opt-out system has very little weight (it speaks to saying they knew what they were doing was going to cause issues, but did it anyways)

[mr moose]

1 hour ago, Bombastinator said:

That intended value thing is one of those points of law that is going to change by area I suspect.  Another reason I think this may turn into a mess and there may be a situation where this whole thing may turn on stuff we don’t know about.  Given the data we got it looks kinda bad for the internet archive but one would assume they’ve got lawyers too and they know about library and copywriter law.  Both of which are somewhat convoluted.

The value was an the existing agreement between the copyright owner and the library.  The problem that ia face here is arguing for lower amount given they knew the value of each book and knew they were legally only entitled to lend out one digital copy per book purchased.   I would find most peculiar if a US court reduced the amount based on an interpretation of value that is not consistent with a signed license.