
Internet Archive’s National Emergency Library Harms Authors - tingletech
https://www.authorsguild.org/industry-advocacy/internet-archives-uncontrolled-digital-lending/
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ipython
Oh my god this attitude absolutely infuriates me. I just assisted my kids’
piano teacher in organizing an online virtual piano festival. The technical
piece was easy- set up a google form where students could submit their
information and a video of their performance.

The hard part? In an in person festival, the student hands their sheet music
to the judge sitting in the room before performing, so the judge can track and
note any deviation between the music and the performance.

We wanted a similar experience online, so our local festival organizers
reached out to the wonderful music publishers licensing lawyers. Their
response was wholly unhelpful. They wanted to make SO certain that in this
pandemic their precious sheet music for elementary school age kids was NOT
stolen. They wanted measures such as pasting a “used with permission”
watermark on any picture of the music, purchasing a separate copy for the
judges, and ensuring secure erase of any files after the festival!

It was absolutely insane. This sort of inflexible attitude in a time of crisis
makes me irrationally angry. If we had any way to avoid purchasing music from
these .... people ... I would do it in a heartbeat.

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derefr
I guess the implication is that the exact approach you were originally taking
in the in-person version of the festival, wouldn’t have been allowed by the IP
authors if you’d have asked them.

Which is a great reason to just boycott their works, get every piano school to
stop using them, and thus starve them of all royalties.

~~~
ipython
I agree but these clubs of piano teachers are very conservative (in the
meaning that they don't want to rock the boat) and it's hard to get the sort
of collective action required to effectively economically boycott these
publishers....

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incompatible
Copyright just introduces artificial and undesirable scarcity, and I doubt
that it really supports many authors. This piece says that mean writing
incomes are only $20,300 a year, and I wouldn't be surprised if a large
proportion goes to a few of the most popular authors and many get little or
nothing.

Scrap copyright and find other ways to support creators. I'd suggest funding
from government for a decent number of writing scholarships with input from
various sources (including the general public if feasible) on which writers to
support.

This could be started without scrapping copyright initially, simply require
that all output from the scholarships be released under Creative Commons Zero.

~~~
incompatible
This isn't particularly radical, arts and science already receive quite a bit
of government funding in many countries. I suggest doing more of it and
expanding it to new areas, and adding the CC0 requirement. I doubt that it
would cost much compared to the amounts governments are throwing around these
days to support people, and at least some creative output would come from it.

~~~
dash2
The idea that artists should be first forbidden from selling the work they
create, and then supported by the state, is totalitarian. Analogy: would you
make all code compulsorily open-source? (I know some people will answer yes:
in my view, they're nuts.)

~~~
gvjddbnvdrbv
I think OP was suggesting that authors should have a choice. Either take a
government grant in which case output is open source or don't.

~~~
incompatible
Yeah, well I'd prefer to see copyright abolished. It's totalitarian to try to
control what data people can share and store on their devices. But as a first
step, we can start finding alternative methods of funding the creation of
information. I'm not a supporter of Soviet-style bureaucratic command-and-
control socialism, everything should be voluntary.

I suppose you could complain that funding creators by taxation (or government
debt, more likely these days) is involuntary. True, but I just see it as a way
of paying for civilization. In total, the cost may be similar to what people
are currently paying in copyright licenses, but with the benefit that all
works would now be available to all.

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mjd
These are the same assholes that sued Google in federal court, claiming that
even if Google provided only snippet results in searches, the very act of
Google holding an archive of copyrighted books, and allowing it to be
searched, was itself infringement.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authors_Guild,_Inc._v._Google,...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authors_Guild,_Inc._v._Google,_Inc).

Fuck them.

~~~
coldpie
There's a Contact Us link at the bottom of their website. Let them know how
you feel about their hoarding of human culture.

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arpa
Well, thank you authors guild, for pointing me to the great library. 'Tis a
shame you are people who would see the great library of alexandria burn in the
sake of profit.

~~~
catalogia
To show my gratitude to the author's guild, I'd like to point out that Library
Genesis exists and is pretty great. Unlike the Internet Archive, they don't
bother paying lip service to cretinous publishing industry lawyers; 'lending'
is fully unrestricted year round. Up-to-date URLs to mirrors can be found on
their wikipedia page:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_Genesis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_Genesis)

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ddevault
How much of your annual $100-$500 membership dues are you waiving in the light
of the difficulties you explain your membership as facing in these dire times?

Screw copyright and screw this rent-seeking noise. Self-publishing is rapidly
becoming the norm, and who knew - authors are seeing way higher returns on it.
Copying e-books incurs no material cost and therefore charging for it is not
justifiable.

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dash2
\-- Self-publishing is rapidly becoming the norm, and who knew - authors are
seeing way higher returns on it.

Have you got evidence for either of these claims? Are you an author?

~~~
ddevault
Yes, I am. The math is obvious, though: if you distribute $X to Y people, then
distributing $X to Y-1 people will result in everyone (or at least _someone_ )
making more money. With the wide availability of publishing-as-a-service,
Amazon listings and personal website sales, and so on, it makes little sense
for most new or small-to-mid-time authors to go through a middleman. Then the
bigger authors (1) have more to gain from going through a publisher, (2) can
negotiate a better deal, and (3) have enough income as to make the issues
raised in this article trite.

~~~
ghaff
It's somewhat more complicated than that. There are other factors.

1.) Publishers do provide editing, etc. services that authors would otherwise
have to pay for out of their own pockets. That may or may not be a worthwhile
tradeoff. But, between forgoing and advance and paying for services, authors
are probably at least a few $K out of pocket if they go their own way. To the
degree that things like book tours/promotion/etc. are relevant--they often
aren't--that can add to the difference.

2.) For, especially non-fiction, authors for whom books are more about
boosting their profile than bringing in money directly, traditional publishers
(rightly or wrongly) have considerably more cachet than independent
publishing.

3.) This becomes less and less important, but independently published books
probably won't be in book stores.

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mark_l_watson
My wife is my editor, so I am lucky. She does sometimes provide editing
services to other authors for a modest fee; email me if you need an editor.
re: 3): this is a big drawback of self publishing. When I wrote for
conventional publishers it was always a thrill to see my books in Barnes and
Nobles, etc. But, but.... the ability to make frequent improvements to eBooks
and effortlessly push changes to readers trumps all the advantages of
conventional publishers.

~~~
ghaff
I don't really disagree with any of that. I've done both ways and I'm not sure
I'd go with a traditional publisher again unless doing so fell in my lap for
some reason.

Another thing I find for tech-related books--which is what I do--is that if I
do things myself, I control the length whereas publishers generally have a
minimum number of pages in mind which may be more than the topic really
warrants. And a final point is that, as an individual, I have more flexibility
in just giving copies away (especially ebooks) if I did the book mostly for
promotional purposes.

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fjfaase
As with almost all creative arts, a very small portion of the artist are
taking the majority of the profits, while 99% of the artist can barely make a
living, often only do it as a side job. I guess that most people do not
realize that only a small portion of the sales of a publication goes to the
author.

When looking at copyrights, it is easy to look at the few artists that are
making millions and forgetting about the majority that can barely cover their
costs. Copyright laws also have been getting a bad reputation because they
have extended to benefit people and institutions far beyond the original
artist/authors and are viewed as unfair. But lets not forget that they also
allow many authors to make a living. Also publishers will perish when
copyrights are broken down and as a result they no longer will be able to
support authors while they are still working on their books.

~~~
moron4hire
Publishers gave up supporting authors while working on their books years ago.
They pretty much only throw their money behind established authors.

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decasteve
"Unlike a real library..."

The online equivalent can stay open in these times. Physical libraries cannot.
The ability to make books accessible while people are isolated is a good
reason for the Internet Archive to open up in cases of emergency.

~~~
erikerikson
See also Hoopla [1]. It works as you describe. Our local library offers it and
yours might too.

[1] [https://www.hoopladigital.com/](https://www.hoopladigital.com/)

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Apocryphon
For context, up until the IA made the lending unlimited, they were adhering to
the practice of Controlled Digital Lending:

[https://controlleddigitallending.org](https://controlleddigitallending.org)

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scoot_718
No it doesn't. It's long passed time Copyright was struck down. Now might be
the time to do it.

Publishers are fat enough already from their rent seeking of poor authors.
They should've died long ago, so the world can benefit.

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henearkr
I discover many books I love on the wild web, and then decide to get the paper
version when I'm hooked by the style / want to read it while doing digital
detox / want to be able to leaf through efficiently if it is a technical book,
etc.

If anything, wild ebooks have increased a lot my paper books purchases, and
even if not everybody is like that, even for the percent that is alike it
would mean that more free ebooks means more purchases.

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zhdc1
Distasteful, and not something I agree with at all, but I appreciate that
someone is making an alternative argument (even if that's what they're paid to
do).

~~~
clarry
Except that there's no argument, just the same old copying = theft meme and a
false dichotomy between buying and copying, plus a bunch of whining.

~~~
moron4hire
They also conveniently avoid accurately describing the scope of what IA is
offering, plus misrepresent how IA acquired the books.
[http://blog.archive.org/2020/03/24/announcing-a-national-
eme...](http://blog.archive.org/2020/03/24/announcing-a-national-emergency-
library-to-provide-digitized-books-to-students-and-the-public/)

"This library brings together all the books from Phillips Academy Andover and
Marygrove College, and much of Trent University’s collections, along with over
a million other books donated from other libraries to readers worldwide that
are locked out of their libraries.

...

We understand that we’re not going to be able to meet everyone’s needs; our
collection, at 1.4 million modern books, is a fraction of the size of a large
metropolitan library system or a great academic library. The books that we’ve
digitized have been acquired with a focus on materials published during the
20th century, the vast majority of which do not have a commercially available
ebook. This means that while readers and students are able to access latest
best sellers and popular titles through services like OverDrive and Hoopla,
they don’t have access to the books that only exist in paper, sitting
inaccessible on their library shelves. That’s where our collection fits in—we
offer digital access to books, many of which are otherwise unavailable to the
public while our schools and libraries are closed. In addition to the National
Emergency Library, the Internet Archive also offers free public access to 2.5
million fully downloadable public domain books, which do not require waitlists
to view."

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cproctor
Funny typo in their statement: "AI is pretending to fix a nonexistent
problem."

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waqf
Excellent justification for a business model right here: "And students are
already accustomed to [being screwed over]."

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pontifier
I have to say I agree with the authors guild on this.

There must be rules concerning intellectual property. Laws are the rules our
society lives by, and when a prominent public organization decides to
willfully break copyright law in this manner it harms everyone.

Copyright law is messy and there are many unintuitive parts. Educating people
about the details is difficult and this change they have made is essentially
teaching people that it's ok to steal IP.

It's not ok.

~~~
coldpie
The current effectively-infinite length of copyright is brand new, it was only
put into place in the 1970s. The original length set in 1790 was 14 years,
optionally extendable to 28 years. Under those terms, the first Harry Potter
book would have entered the public domain in 2011, or in 2025 at the latest.
Copyright should be a balance between the rights of the creator and the rights
of the public. Right now it is wildly out of whack, with basically all rights
given to the creator in perpetuity. We are robbing ourselves and our future
generations of our own culture. In my opinion it is perfectly ethical to
ignore it. If we can't fight back legislatively, we will find other means.

P.S. you cannot 'steal' intellectual property. That is a fiction you have
bought into.

More on the history of copyright here:
[https://web.law.duke.edu/cspd/publicdomainday/2020/shrinking...](https://web.law.duke.edu/cspd/publicdomainday/2020/shrinking/)

~~~
hirako2000
I'm entirely with you. Even though being an author myself.

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WarOnPrivacy
I'm so proud of everyone here.

