
Senator Is Seemingly Obsessed with Threatening the Internet Archive - elsewhen
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/akzeb5/this-senator-is-seemingly-obsessed-with-threatening-the-internet-archive
======
phendrenad2
The Internet Archive's behavior recently is really fascinating to me. It seems
as if they know they have a monopoly on website snapshots, so it's unlikely
that they'll get shut down, so they're emboldened to push the envelope when it
comes to copyright.

The treatment it gets from Vox here shows how beloved IA is. The article could
have been titled "Senator warns IA that they're in violation of copyright
law". If you read the letter, it seems pretty reasonable (
[https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/6948318/Tillis2.p...](https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/6948318/Tillis2.pdf)
).

A notable quote (carefully typed by hand by me, because IA linked the letter
as an image): "I am concerned that the Internet Archive thinks that it - not
Congress - gets to decide the scope of copyright law". I agree with this
characterization.

Another one: "The Internet Archive seems to be daring copyright owners to sue
to enforce their rights, or else forfeit them - something many copyright
holders, particular individuals and smaller enterprises, cannot afford to do"

I'm not making money from any copyright I hold, so I can't claim to speak for
anyone harmed by IA's behavior, but I can definitely see that there may be
merit to this Senator's letters.

~~~
redis_mlc
It appears you're trying to be balanced, but if you invert everything you
wrote, that would be mostly the truth.

Disney actually decides what copyright law is, not Congress or other rights
holders.

Currently, if a small song copyright owner doesn't cross every "t", a
commercial organization just keeps their royalties until the small owner sues,
wins and has each corporation add an entry in their database of owners. They
still won't get back royalties, but they will get future - years later, of
course.

I don't see any complaint by the Senator for that behavior.

The only owner that has substantial rights and the ability to collect at this
point is the songwriter, because they have powerful laws in their favor. The
performers are lucky to get anything, really, from any streaming platform,
including Youtube.

And corporations who aggregate performance revenue collection, and "forget" to
cut a check to the actual owners. (No practical penalty for not paying the
artist.)

What I tell songwriters is to register your songs with Songtrust and
DistroKid, and don't sign anything with anybody else. Actually, give the
corporate lawyers the finger, since their whole goal is to steal from the
artists.

[https://www.songtrust.com/](https://www.songtrust.com/)

[https://techcrunch.com/2013/10/10/philip-kaplan-
officially-l...](https://techcrunch.com/2013/10/10/philip-kaplan-officially-
launches-distrokid-a-cheap-efficient-way-to-distribute-lots-of-music/)

~~~
xhkkffbf
I totally agree that the corporations can be downright criminal when screwing
over the creators, but the solution is NOT to weaken copyright. Heck, the
threat of a copyright lawsuit is the only thing that makes the corporations
pay the artists in the first place. If we weaken copyright any more, the
corporations will come in and say, "Gosh, let's all be hippies. I'm just going
to 'borrow' your song. It's all cool. I don't owe you anything because
copyright is for jerks. I know you wouldn't copyright your cool song."

------
db48x
Who needs the separation of powers anyway?

