The legal ruling against the Internet Archive has come down in favour of the rights of authors.

  • stevehobbes@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Listen, I love libraries as much as the next person. We have very clear laws that protect libraries.

    Is copyright a little fucked and a little too slanted towards those rights holders? Yes.

    Did anyone really think it was OK to start adding books and movies in? And provide those for free to everyone simultaneously? Libraries don’t do that.

    • NateNate60@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      Libraries can do that. Okay, technically, it’s illegal, but under the doctrine of sovereign immunity, since US libraries are run by political subdivisions of US states, they can’t be sued with the state’s permission which means that a state government can literally not allow the library to be sued for copyright infringement and then they’d get away with it.

      The trade-off is that this probably permanently burns all bridges between the library and publishers, who would likely not want to deal with the library any more.

      Edit: The controlling US Supreme Court precedent is Allen v. Cooper. The State of North Carolina published a bunch of shipwreck photos. The copyright owner of those photos sued claiming copyright infringement. The Supreme Court ruled in favour of the state saying Congress can’t abrogate a state’s Amendment XI sovereign immunity using copyright law as a pretext, thus the photography firm needs the State’s permission to sue it in federal court.

      • FatCrab@lemmy.one
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        1 year ago

        Even assuming that is a viable application of sovereign immunity, which I am not at all convinced, at a minimum you’ve described a very strong due process violation. No, libraries cannot just arbitrarily infringe copyrights.

      • stevehobbes@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Copyright is federal bub. They get sued in federal court. Or the FBI shows up and takes all their servers.

        The congress could choose to alter copyright laws of course to make this legal. But they can’t just do it. And states definitely can’t.

        • NateNate60@lemmy.ml
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          1 year ago

          Yes, it is federal. Congress can’t abrogate a state’s sovereign immunity to make them liable under copyright law. In fact, they tried and it was deemed unconstitutional (Allen v. Cooper). States can’t be sued in federal court without their permission (Amendment XI).

      • FlowVoid
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        1 year ago

        If some library decided to infringe copyright then it could most certainly be sued for compensation under the Takings Clause.

        Government has a Constitutional obligation to pay for any private property it takes, whether it’s land for a new building or intellectual property.

        • stevehobbes@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          It is fairly clear the parent isn’t a lawyer. It’s also fairly clear they have very little interaction with law in general. I’m guessing more of the sovereign citizen camp.

          • NateNate60@lemmy.ml
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            1 year ago

            I’m not a sovereign citizen. This is just a point where the law isn’t fair/doesn’t work in the way that you’d expect. See the updated parent comment for sources + legal reasoning.

      • AnonTwo@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        The trade-off is that this probably permanently burns all bridges between the library and publishers, who would likely not want to deal with the library any more.

        To be fair how is that a tradeoff? Weren’t other people contributing to the internet archive?

    • WarmSoda@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      All the libraries I’ve ever been to in multiple states have books, magazines, movies and music.

      You should probably go in one if you love them so much. Then you’d know what you’re talking about.

      • stevehobbes@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I do frequently. If you’re going to be so smug, you should also be correct. They purchase a copy of each media that they loan at any single time.

        If they have 5 copies of digital media, 5 people can use them simultaneously. Not more.

        It’s why Libby has a waiting list.

        The internet archive would have been legal if they had a) purchased the copy and b) had not lent it to more than a single person simultaneously (or purchased more copies). They weren’t doing that. They were acquiring (legally or not, I’m not sure) copies and putting on their website for as many people as wanted to read them.

        That is not what libraries do.

        It’s why libraries don’t photocopy infinite books so there’s never a waiting list. You can’t do it with print media, and you can’t do it with digital media.