If society invested in a system of tubes reaching from libraries to all homes, each tube containing a sequence of small mirrors and lenses capable of bouncing an image all the way down the tube, and eventually into a home that connected its viewer to that tube; and the libraries kept the physical books they owned in small, well-lighted spaces, with page-turning robots, so that the images of the book page could be bounced through the mirror-tubes, and the readers in their homes could signal to the page-turning robots what page to flip to, would it then be ok for people in their homes to read the books physically located in the library, without paying separate remote-viewing licensing fees above and beyond the purchase price of the book?<p>I'm a creator too and I benefit from the protection of intellectual property I create. But I also recognize that my freedom ends where others' begins and that the benefit of society overall must also be weighed, since I didn't just grow up and survive all on my own in the wilds but rather relied on all the other good people that happen to be around me...
The article concentrates on the briefs by RIAA, MPA, and U.S. politicians - the moneybags and perennial bad guys whom everyone loves to hate. It barely mentions the brief by authors groups and other creative organizations, from the Author's Guild to the North American Nature Photography Association. From the summary:<p><i>IA has created a vast unauthorized online database of literary works that anyone in the world can access for free, which differs from the most flagrantly illegal pirate websites only by reason of its residing in a U.S. not-for-profit. ...<p>IA’s infringements have caused and will continue to cause significant harm to Amici’s members. Many members’ works are part of the “long tail” of older published works that earn much of their revenue from licensed electronic uses rather than sales of new copies. Because authors and many other creators today generally earn so little from their writing,3 they rely on income from the long tail, and even a seemingly minor reduction in such income will materially impact the authors, visual artists, photographers, and other creators who depend on the income for survival.<p>Further, creators and their publishers will find it more challenging, if not impossible, to bring older titles back into print, whether in physical or electronic form, if they must compete with free Open Library-generated ebooks from IA. Finally, such free Open Library-generated ebooks will
also create a direct market substitute for authorized lending by libraries outside the U.S., which lending – unlike Open Library – generates royalties for creators under the public lending right recognized by most other developed countries.</i><p>Source: <a href="https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.ca2.60988/gov.uscourts.ca2.60988.223.0.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.ca2.609...</a><p>Like many people on HN, I regularly use the wayback machine or other parts of the Internet Archive to track the history of websites or read out-of-copyright and public domain works. Sharing this information is important and should be continued.<p>I also believe in the concept of "Fair Use" for sharing and discussing excerpts of more current works.<p>But when it comes to outright republishing of in-copyright printed works, the rights of creators and publishers need to be recognized. Brewster Kahle decided that an overly broad interpretation of the Internet Archive's mission trumped these rights and the laws of the United States. Even when it was asked to repeatedly stop, he continued.<p>Far from this being a "crusade" against IA, it's the logical outcome of one man's seemingly fanatical conviction against the law and the people who work very hard to bring new books into being.<p>The collateral damage to the many noble aspects of the Internet Archive is bad. I truly hope it survives.
Honestly, I feel like the Internet Archive is playing with fire in a lot of stuff. I won't link it here, but last night I saw a repo that was hosting hundreds of emulator-compatible Switch games, even more recent stuff like Super Mario Wonder, that was easy to download. Also, just a ton of full TV shows are directly available to download, often direct blu-ray rips.<p>This really has started to make the Internet Archive one of the best places to pirate media. It's starting to have a comparable selection to ThePirateBay, but without any ads for "Hot Milfs In Your Area".<p>I love IA, but I think they really need to start cracking down on this stuff, because if they don't I think it's going to prompt even more lawsuits.