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If we want authors to survive, we’ve got to stop assuming that authors’ intellectual labour is a public commodity.
Ah yes, because it's the fault of (internet) libraries and not greedy publishers who try to keep the royalties for their authors as low as possible. /s
How about looking where this problem starts instead of where it ends?
Piracy dies (mostly) with easy and reasonably priced ways to pay for content. Most people don't want to do something illegal and want to support those who make content.
But when publishers like Warner Brothers are removing content from services making pirating sites the only place to find artists' work, then little are going to pirate.
Without sites like the Internet Archive, so much stuff would risk being lost forever because of greedy copyright practices.
IA helps keep democracy alive. Documentaries that are banned by dictators, like the BBC documentary on Modi that was banned in India by Modi, would be unavailable to people without IA.
If we want authors to survive, we’ve got to stop assuming that authors’ intellectual labour is a public commodity.
The irony being that this is exactly what copyright was originally intended to facilitate - authors creating works to become public domain within a relatively short period of time.
Especially fucking Wiley. If you're a student paying hundreds for a textbook with a "supplemental code" that makes it so you can't buy it used, then it's probably by fucking Wiley. Fucking greedy cunts.
There are authors starting to publish without a publisher. I think that is the right direction, not making all books free. Maybe once the publishers have less control there will be some copyright reforms to shorten the time it takes to bring works into the public domain. Right now it is 95 years from publishing, but I think the author's life plus 30 years or something might make a bit more sense. For example, George Orwell has been dead for over 70 years, but his works are still under copyright.
Copyright only exists so rich people can own yet another thing they didnt make.
The original intent was good. You make something, you can legally ensure people can't just copy your work and slap their name on it for profit. People could make creative works without fear of someone else ripping it away from them.
Then Disney just kept bribing politicians to extend it to a ridiculous degree so they wouldn't lose Mickey to public domain until they moved his likeness into their trademark, which lives as long as it's being used actively.
And then you have DMCA, where everyone is guilty until innocent and that whole can of worms, and DRM which is technically illegal to circumvent no matter how much time or what reason. Corporatization and the Internet turned that relatively simple and good ideas into an utter mess.
that original intent never mattered. no one's gonna make mickey mouse shorts and people be like "oh that must be their character, not Disney's". Mickey became famous and profitable from Disney's amazing animation and enjoyable writing. Without copyright, that's still the case. Queen and David Bowie didnt fall from financial or celebrity grace because Vanilla Ice copied them, because being copied doesnt detract from you. Again, all it did was enable the rich to profit from more things they didnt make. Get rid of all of it.
four major publishers – Hachette, HarperCollins, John Wiley & Sons, and Penguin Random House – to file a lawsuit against Internet Archive in June 2020.
Well now you know which publishers to steal from 100% of the time
Internet Archive’s distribution of copyrighted works is problematic.
Since when? That's literally what a library is supposed to do..
It was the fact that during the pandemic they forwent the rule that 1 copy they owned could only be rented out to 1 person at a time. Any library operates by that principal for exactly this reason. Even digital copies, they can only lend out so many at a time. During the pandemic archive.org ignored this rule which was noble of them considering the circumstances, but now those consequences are coming back to bite them.
Personally I think I was dumb to risk the whole Internet Archive to offer that and hopefully they use this as a lesson to consult more with their lawyers going forward.
You can literally photocopy every single page out of a book at a physical library.
It's not the paradigm, it's the convenience and ease of access.
Great a source I consistently use for bettering myself isn’t commodified enough. Can’t wait to pay Johnny no amount is enough for the privilege of learning.
Aaaw. Publishers caring about authors? That's a big fat lie. Make no mistake, no matter what type of publisher, be it literary, musical, dramatic (TV & film), the only goal is to consolidate ingellectual property, employ predatory and lobsided contracts and then pretend that they represent the creators.
Fact is that lending, and also digital lending, has a negligible result on the author's bottom line. The publishers however want libraries gone because then they make their investors happy. That's it.
Know the motivation and intention behind this, because it isn't to protect the income of authors.
Well, shit.
The outcome was completely obvious, and I blame Internet Archive for poking this bear. They had no reason to do this, and they are putting their actual core mission at risk in the process.
Yeah internet archive is fucking stupid for this.
And they sold access to the books they stole via a subscription? I mean… yeah. That’s gonna get you sued
Where was it mentioned that they sold a subscription to access to copyrighted materials? They sold a subscription to their web archiving service.
Does the author work for a publishing company? It’s hard to understand their perspective otherwise.
https://lemmy.ca/comment/2777069
After finishing her PhD, also in archaeology, she decided to follow her passion for books, and pursue a career in publishing. She worked for over 15 years in scholarly and educational book publishing, commissioning and project-managing a wide range of non-fiction titles, producing ebooks and implementing accessible publishing practices.
This is why I sail the high seas. Copyright is an affront to liberty.
Wow, the author really seems to take the publisher's side here. I'm surprised they're listed as just an academic, I was expecting it to be an industry spokesperson.
After finishing her PhD, also in archaeology, she decided to follow her passion for books, and pursue a career in publishing. She worked for over 15 years in scholarly and educational book publishing, commissioning and project-managing a wide range of non-fiction titles, producing ebooks and implementing accessible publishing practices.
Person working in publishing for 15 years sides with publishers, shocker
Ahh, there it is!