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Piracy Books United States

Authors, Publishers Condemn the 'National Emergency Library' As 'Piracy' (npr.org) 147

An anonymous reader quotes a report from NPR: Last week, when the Internet Archive announced its "National Emergency Library," expanding access to more than a million digitized works, the group explained the move as a goodwill gesture in the time of coronavirus. With so many brick-and-mortar libraries forced to close their doors, in other words, the group was opening up its lending program: Now, instead of its usual policy of just one digital copy per reader for a 14-day period, many frustrated readers could borrow copies of the same book during the same time -- and could do so through the end of June or the end of the global pandemic, whichever came sooner.

But there's one major issue that several media outlets, including NPR, failed to mention in covering the decision: Many writers and publishers say the website, even before the creation of this National Emergency Library, has been sharing full digital copies of their books without their permission. And over the weekend, dozens of prominent authors, from Colson Whitehead and Neil Gaiman to Alexander Chee, made clear that they were upset with the Internet Archive's model -- and doubly so now, with the expansion of lending services and its timing.
"With mean writing incomes of only $20,300 a year prior to the crisis, authors, like others, are now struggling all the more â" from cancelled book tours and loss of freelance work, income supplementing jobs, and speaking engagements," the Authors Guild, a professional group that provides legal assistance to writers, said in a statement released Friday. "And now they are supposed to swallow this new pill, which robs them of their rights to introduce their books to digital formats as many hundreds of midlist authors do when their books go out of print, and which all but guarantees that author incomes and publisher revenues will decline even further."

"Acting as a piracy site -- of which there already are too many -- the Internet Archive tramples on authors' rights by giving away their books to the world," the guild added.

The Internet Archive pushed back against this characterization with a lengthy rebuttal. Brewster Kahle of the Internet Archive said the group "uses the same controls limiting access to these works as the publishers themselves, with encrypted files that are meant to disappear from the user's computer after a brief period," reports NPR. "The copies the group lends, Kahle said, are owned by the Internet Archive -- either through donations, straight-up purchases or collaborations with brick-and-mortar libraries."
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Authors, Publishers Condemn the 'National Emergency Library' As 'Piracy'

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  • by bobstreo ( 1320787 ) on Monday March 30, 2020 @11:43PM (#59891182)

    if the people "representing" them did it for free for a few months.

    the Internet Archive and Project Gutenberg, while not directly saving lives, may be keeping some people from going stir-crazy.

  • by frank_adrian314159 ( 469671 ) on Monday March 30, 2020 @11:51PM (#59891208) Homepage

    Time to publicly shame the bastards who are complaining about this. They're stupid, too, as this would bring in many new readers. I don't give a crap how good Gaiman's stuff is. I'm not buying another one of his books after this.

    • You don't even know what he said.
    • by fermion ( 181285 )
      We absolutely know the books we are not going to buy.
    • Time to publicly shame the bastards who are complaining about this.

      Why limit the giveaway without compensation to authors?

      Perhaps everyone should work without pay until the crisis is past.

      • by west ( 39918 )

        > Perhaps everyone should work without pay until the crisis is past.

        Don't be stupid. I'm a real person and I need my earnings in order to survive.

        Authors, on the other hand, aren't people, per se, and certainly don't need to buy groceries or pay their rent. Obviously they should have their work expropriated without compensation when it would be useful for the rest of us.

        --

        More seriously, I imagine a lot of authors are okay with the Archive's actions. But the idea of being upset with authors being upse

    • I know Chuck Wendig is loudly complaining about this. You'd have to pay me to read his books.
    • Time to publicly shame the bastards who are complaining about this. They're stupid, too, as this would bring in many new readers. I don't give a crap how good Gaiman's stuff is. I'm not buying another one of his books after this.

      Why shame them? They believe their position and thus would feel no shame if shamed in public. This isn't a Streisand effect here. You may be into Gaiman's stuff and boycott it, but the reality is no one is going to Boycott a writer for pointing out an already reduced income stream has reduced further.

      I'm happy you chosen "a side". Unfortunately as it usually is the truth is usually somewhere in the middle of both. No the Internet Archive is not piracy. But also the Internet Archive has just announced a chan

    • by XXongo ( 3986865 ) on Tuesday March 31, 2020 @11:37AM (#59892756) Homepage

      Time to publicly shame the bastards who are complaining about this. They're stupid, too, as this would bring in many new readers.

      So, you're saying writers should give their work away for free, because it's "exposure",

      You know what? People die of exposure.

      https://theoatmeal.com/comics/exposure

      I don't give a crap how good Gaiman's stuff is. I'm not buying another one of his books after this.

      You know what, asshole? Since you apparently want to get his work for free, you weren't buying his books before this.

    • Shut the fuck up. "Oh, people will watch more movies if piracy is allowed". "People will play more games!" "People will..". It's all bullshit. These authors don't need you to be smart for them, you haven't figured out some genius marketing hack for them.

      You just want free shit. Authors who write for a living don't give a fuck how many readers they have, they care how many people pay for their work. The library itself is fine, the problem is "Oh, well, we feel like we should just give out 50000 copies of a b

  • by Gravis Zero ( 934156 ) on Tuesday March 31, 2020 @12:28AM (#59891292)

    Honestly, if it's been around for 14 years then you've made all the money you're going to make off a book. This eternal copyright bullshit is too much. When publishers blatantly disrespected the public domain then the public is going to disrespect publishers.

    It's that's simple and they know it. At this point in the game, they need to shut the fuck up because this is the bed they have made.

    • by koavf ( 1099649 )
      This is the correct answer: 14 years with an option for 14 more if you deliberately choose it. That kind of copyrite regime would benefit the masses at large. How copyrite is structured now serves to benefit corporations who gobble up the infinitely long tail of works that will almost never make them a dime simply so others can't have them. It's sick. What could possibly be the purpose of copyrite after death?! By definition, the author of that work cannot see any benefit from commercializing it.
      • by dwywit ( 1109409 )

        Because IP exists as a legal property right, it can be traded.

        The answer to your question is the same for many other questions:

        Follow the money

        In this case, Disney and its lobbying to extend copyright protections again and again - because the mouse and its companions continue to be a colossal revenue stream.

      • Just make it renewable, at a fee. That way, Disney can keep its precious Mickey Mouse forever while other material will go to the public for reuse.

        • by pnutjam ( 523990 )
          I think there should be a renewal tax based on value. Mickey is worth quite bit, and probably owned by some shell company that licenses it out to shift money overseas.
      • Well, your proposal of a 14+14 year term could also last after the death of the author, it's just not pegged to the death of the author.

        There's nothing wrong with copyright lasting after the author's death; it lends stability. But for the same reason, it's best to have a fixed term of years, with the copyright holder having a right to renew the term up to a maximum. Then everyone can know exactly how long the copyright will last, and can plan around it.

    • That might be partial true for most books, but things such as film rights might happen even for older books.

      And ebook sales do have quite an interesting long tail, so some authors may sell even after 14 years.

      But even more important. With only 14 years of copyright, we would have almost infinite amount of Harry potter, and "Calvin and Hobbes" merchandise.

      Copyright for books is not just about "free books for me" but also about how the work can be used by others which is important.

      • by dryeo ( 100693 )

        There's still trademark law to cover merchandise and such. Trademarks last as long as they're being used.

    • by Junta ( 36770 )

      I suspect their interest is more about burying old content than trying to make money off of it. Sure, they love the idea of milking old properties when an opportunity arises (E.g. a new movie/series releases to drive demand in a 20 year old book), but overwhelmingly they know it's over.

      They know very well those old books aren't going to pull in money, but they don't want the market inundated with free/cheap material that feels sufficiently modern to compete with their new releases.

    • by Quirkz ( 1206400 )

      On the Internet Archive site you can filter by publication date, and it has exact counts of books per year. They have around 240,000 books on their site published in the last 14 years, which seems to indicate they're stepping on still-profitable toes. If you want to give them the 28 years offered by the founding fathers (14 + an extension of 14), there are 760,000 books on the site--about half of all books they're offering--published since 1992.

  • I'm sure George RR Martin (Game of Thrones / A Song of Fire and Ice) didn't make that much. No wait. He did. That's the MEAN income? I guess everyone who has Word/Libreoffice/Gedit is now an author so that brings the mean/mode down.

    Oh I'm sorry, it's $61K.
    https://work.chron.com/much-no... [chron.com]

    Still the value of the Internet to allow people to read isn't reflected in your losing 1/2 poverty line wages.
    It's reflected in lots of ways.

    But hey, it's a pandemic. Nobody should be able to read your books without gi

    • by RazorSharp ( 1418697 ) on Tuesday March 31, 2020 @12:57AM (#59891334)

      I know several professors who are published (usually by university presses) and they joke about the $5 royalty checks they get in the mail. They write for a niche audience and they don't write books because the royalties will earn them any money. They write books because it's an important item on their CVs and it earns them tenure.

      According to their website:

      Regular Membership: Traditionally published authors with at least 1 published book in the U.S.; self-published authors who have made at least $5,000 in the past 18 months from their writing; and freelance writers who have published 3+ pieces or made $5,000 in the past 18 months.

      Associate Membership: Writers who have received a contract offer from a traditional U.S. publisher or an offer of representation from a U.S. literary agent; self-published authors or freelance writers who have made at least $500 in the past 18 months from their writing.

      So you can become an "associate member" as long as you have something published and have made a minor amount of money writing. You can also join as an "emerging writer" or a "student writer" if you have published nothing and have made zero dollars from writing (of course, you still have to pay dues for the membership).

      Basically, who knows how they landed on that figure. If they're just going by their own members, it's likely that they're counting a ton of writers who do not actually write as their profession.

    • by Luthair ( 847766 )
      They mean from all authors, but only a complete moron would know people aren't borrowing books from authors near the mean, they're borrowing the books from whining millionaires like Neil Gaiman (who incidentally owes some backers a sword fighting game).
    • by XXongo ( 3986865 )
      I assume you're being sarcastic here?

      Yes, every now and then a writer hits the jackpot and gets a TV series made from their work and makes millions, but most writers are not George R.R. Martin, and don't make millions.

      ...AUTHORS: MONETIZE your creativity. Lots of people do it everyday.

      I don't even know what that means. What writers are good at doing is writing. You're saying, what? OK, you're good at writing, but since people should have the right to have your work for free you should "monetize" your creativity some other way? How, by charging for tickets to your concer

  • Workaround (Score:4, Funny)

    by fahrbot-bot ( 874524 ) on Tuesday March 31, 2020 @12:53AM (#59891332)
    Just read the dictionary -- all the other books are in there.
  • Books preserve human knowledge, not something that you create for profit.

    • So you're saying we should move to purely writings by authors who nobody pays for it? Wait, we already have that, check out the social media.

  • Read their rebuttal (Score:5, Informative)

    by mattr ( 78516 ) <mattr@telebodGIR ... minus herbivore> on Tuesday March 31, 2020 @02:25AM (#59891452) Homepage Journal

    I read the response from the Archive and it seems to make sense.
    https://blog.archive.org/2020/... [archive.org]
    The Authors Guild claims that they are pirates not having acquired copies nor having a right. But according to their letter, they have actually acquired copies, they encrypt and disable them after 2 weeks (not that I like DRM on my books), and they are a nonprofit with some thoughtful answers based on the right of libraries to dispense of their holdings to the public without regard to what authors want. That said they also have an opt-out page. The key point being made now is that even if they have perhaps only one acquired copy of a book, they are dispensing an unlimited number, the reason being that all of the public libraries have been closed. That makes sense to me considering that all the copies in the libraries that are closed are surely sufficient. Though imagine if libraries could actually collaborate together to make sure there are enough purchased books to dispense digitally and cover all simultaneous readers. Maybe they would only buy 1000 books instead of 10,000. I guess this is the crux of the Guild's anger. Also it appears according to the Archive that the standard "you cannot photocopy or reproduce" notice at the beginning of most books these days is trumped by the rights of libraries. Since Google also scans books I imagine that is likely the case, but perhaps many people would not agree.. if it were not a national crisis with all the libraries closed. So good timing.
    Now I have to say that the authors of books I get on my Kindle are increasingly putting notices at the front of their books which tell people you must buy a copy for every person who reads a book. I don't think that is what books used to be. DRM just makes it really hard to hand somebody a book. My guess is the profits being delivered to publishers and distributors like Amazon and Apple drive them to write this. Certainly I am not sure how authors survive on what I pay Kindle Unlimited, but it is true that I read quite a lot these days.
    I'm sympathetic to the Archive and don't think it is "kicking authors when they are down" or even disrespectful to them. It might be a good way to get new readers. I'd like to hear what some authors think, after reading the Archive's rebuttal. My impression over the long time they have been around is that the Internet Archive is a serious enterprise and they feel they have a social compact. I don't think they can be marginalized as amoral pirates, though my understanding is based on older experience and not recent so much.

    • by mattr ( 78516 )

      p.s. I would like to see something like Kindle Premium or similar that covers not just Kindle versions but PDF too, where you can pay a fixed amount per month and read any book - or consume any media - in all the libraries. Put a price tag on it that helps authors make money and promotes professional editing and book covers, but lower margins for the distributor. (Yes that would not be as popular to an investment bank.) Perhaps one tier just for printed materials, since if you include audio and video the pr

    • If the argument of "libraries are closed, so there exist enough copies out there to allow us to make temporary copies to lend out" stands up to legal challenges, this will be disastrous to copyrights. I could apply this argument to "I can rent out many copies of movies which were lost, destroyed, or simply locked up in some storage when Blockbuster went bankrupt", or go a step further and say "I will allow people to stream movies for free from my site, as long as I don't exceed the number of copies ever sol

      • You mean like, when you buy a movie on VHS, and then buy the same movie on DVD, and then the same movie on Blu-Ray, and then buy the same movie on iOS/Andoird/Netflix whatever? Yeah, libraries are such a threat and are totally unfair.
        • by dwywit ( 1109409 )

          That's an interesting point - you've bought at least three licences to watch that movie. "Home use" on the packaging doesn't specify how many at one time, or whose home, or what you might do with the physical media after you've watched the content. Selling it or giving it away is covered by the first sale doctrine, I believe.

          Don't charge for entry, and don't exceed safety levels, you can invite as many people as you like to watch that movie - I'm sure the big studios/distributors wouldn't like that.

          As I sai

          • No, no, no.

            When you buy copies -- actual physical copies -- there is no license. Licensing isn't even common to end users except when computers are involved, and shouldn't be even then for the most part.

            Remember, a license can only exist where there is an enforceable right of the licensor that the licensee is being given permission to intrude on. So when you download a song, you need a license because you are making a new copy, and one of the rights of copyright (see 17 USC 106(1)) is making new copies.

            Bu

        • So if you've purchased all those copies, can I just start streaming those videos for free, since I'm sure you're not using all of them at the same time, right?

          • The way it works is if you are the studio or label or major artist, you have absolute control at all times of all instances. If you are the artist/writer/whatever, your rights can take a running jump. Yes, copyright law is awesome. Don't forget patent law, big corporations hold all rights, inventors too can take a running jump with the writer/artist.
    • Libraries have not closed or even reduced their online ebook checkout services. Only their physical print books are out of the reach of the public at the moment, and those are not the same product.

      • by Hartree ( 191324 )

        In the past couple of days, I needed to take a look at Bekefe's Electromagnetic vibrations, waves, and radiation. Normally, I would have stopped at the engineering library at the college I work at and gotten one of the two physical copies there. Sadly, they're closed due to COVID 19, and they don't have an electronic copy.

        Instead, I borrowed the Internet Archive's copy for a short time, determined that it was what I needed and bought a physical copy that should be here in a couple of days (I usually prefer

    • by Zak3056 ( 69287 )

      Disclaimer: I am one of those people that believes we should go back to a 14+14 copyright system, and I have cheerfully read books that came in digital form from sources of dubious legality, so I am not claiming an moral high ground when I say this:

      The archive is full of shit, here. Their CDL (controlled digital lending) concept does make sense (though it really has no basis in law), but the important distinction here is that the normal state of affairs can be summed up as: "We have one physical copy. We

      • Yeah, and they won't address this. Their reply is laughable tapdancing around the issue. I asked them why they answer the question "Why is this legal normally" but not "why is this legal now". They are going to get sued, and sued hard, and it's going to cost them a lot of money in legal defense and even more when they lose.

        You know, I'm not normally a conspiracy theorist but one might almost be tempted to think they know they will lose, and get a lot of publicity from this whole thing so they will be able

  • by ikhider ( 2837593 ) on Tuesday March 31, 2020 @03:31AM (#59891556)
    Archive.org is, in fact, a library of Creative Commons and Public Domain material as well as a traditional lending library. Archive.org is among the most important resources on the internet and harkens as to why we have an internet in the first place. While advertising companies, like Google, serve Profit, Archive.org serves Humanity. For those who use a library, realize that s/he gets access to materials for a limited tme. Archive.org is no different and I have checked out digital books and went on waiting lists for them. After the time period is over, I no longer had access to those books unless I went on a waiting list/checked them out again. The key difference between now and then is that there are no waiting list. I cannot redistribute materials. I can only read them on my device. Right now, our society, our planet is literally locked in a life/death struggle where we are forced to shut down. We are not allowed to go to or find jobs because of this crisis. In other words, an (inter)national emergency. If humanity is literally in crisis, then worrying about digital **lending** time constraints should not rank high, particularly from an entity not profitting from said access. I am sure Archive.org will reinstate wait lists when Death is not (more openly) breathing down our collective necks anymore.
    • by dwywit ( 1109409 )

      "If humanity is literally in crisis, then worrying about digital **lending** time constraints should not rank high"

      That hit the nail on the head. We've all got more important things to worry about.

      • "If humanity is literally in crisis, then worrying about digital **lending** time constraints should not rank high"

        That hit the nail on the head. We've all got more important things to worry about.

        Humanity is NOT in crisis... There is zero chance that even a 5% death rate will undo our society and culture. It may have an impact, but it's not going to end humanity or civilization as we know it. We are not heading to anarchy.

        Yes, we have worrying things to take care of, but THIS WILL PASS as egregious as the death toll may turn out to be. Appealing to stop anarchy is NOT a reason to violate the law (and advance anarchy).

    • Well put, especially this bit:

      While advertising companies, like Google, serve Profit, Archive.org serves Humanity.

      So I'd just like to say, consider that stolen! Oh, wait...

    • You are an idiot. People work for Archive.org. Those people get paid, in many cases very high salaries. Those salaries come from donations and grants. Those donations and grants will spike when useful idiots like you see how badly they (archive.org) are going to get legally fucked in the ass. This means higher salaries and more pay for the people making these decisions.

      Follow the money, this is pretty simple stuff here. And I like how "Oh, enforcing copyright isn't important now!" but "OMG I must read for f

  • by codeButcher ( 223668 ) on Tuesday March 31, 2020 @03:34AM (#59891562)
    The obvious has to be pointed out: archive.org is not "giving away" copies, it is borrowing out copies that can't be kept, or reproduced and distributed further (for normal skills and levels of bother, I guess).

    In other words, just like any other library.

    • by Zak3056 ( 69287 )

      This is not like "any other library." They are making unlimited copies of books and lending those out. There are good arguments to be made on both sides of this issue, but "what do you mean? We're just doing what any other library does!" is disingenuous.

  • Why would anyone go to the Internet Archive for pirated books when there are many websites around which are expressly dedicated to pirated books without any pretense of legality? The real problem that ebook pirates have isn't getting hold of material - it's that there are enough books in even a modest archive site to keep someone reading for many lifetimes. Book piracy is rampant on the internet, just like with movies, and TV, and music, and software, and games - even if the IA is disregarding copyright, it

    • by Junta ( 36770 )

      To play devil's advocate, because archive.org is a legitimate source, and from an outside observer, it's not going to be possible to tell if the visitor borrowed and returned a book, or if they downloaded and kept it. Sure it is illegal twice over for the visitor to do that copy (illegal to copy it, and illegal to break the DRM to be able to copy it), but there's no way to know.

  • The mean income is about $20,000? Are we supporting these lofty individuals with government charity on a good day? Most of the books written are complete shit anyway.
  • by MitchDev ( 2526834 ) on Tuesday March 31, 2020 @07:12AM (#59891880)

    Reduce Copyright back to a straight 7 years, no extensions, and then we'll talk about your petty concerns...

  • The vast majority of authors, and several I know personally, all live precarious lives, hand-to-mouth existences—and all of them are aware that their work is chronically being stolen. If you all can't acknowledge the connection between those two facts, you're not being honest with yourselves. It's fun to dunk on Gaiman and Wendig, but any author you can think of has come out against what IA is doing right now. Every last one of them.

    The work of authoring books, engaging and entertaining books that peo

  • Everyone's posting in favor of the Internet Archive here, but I'm suspicious. If it was actually legal for the Internet Archive to do this, why wouldn't they be doing it all the time? Since they're trying to serve as a library, they would want as many people as possible to read the books even when there's no pandemic. It's not as if copyright law has changed during the pandemic--any justification that makes it legal to do this should also make it legal to do this in better times.

    • Thank you. This is a great argument and one I hadn't heard before!

      • Useless sarcasm. Nobody cares.

        Instead why don't you address it? Because you can't he's right. Internet Archive is going to get their asses sued, and lose badly. This will bring in bucks from dipshits like you who think they are being wronged, and the people running it will soak up those dollars.

        Wait, I can almost hear you shrilly claiming that nonprofits make money! Sure, tell that to the executive officers making enormous salaries off of suckers like you buying this bullshit.

        It's a good scam, I'll give the

  • Anyone know what kind of DRM that Internet Archive uses? Because the DRM vendor has just made a critical mistake. Read 1201(a)(3)(B) [cornell.edu] carefully.

    You should never, ever allow your DRM system to be applied by a third party. If a work has DRM which wasn't authorized by the copyright holder, then that DRM does not "effectively control access to the work" and all the prohibitions in DMCA become irrelevant since they don't apply to your situation.

    If Internet Archive gets away with this, it will be legal to defeat w

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