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doctorpangloss | on: The Internet Archive has lost its appeal in Hachette vs. Internet Archive
I don’t know, it doesn’t take a genius or a law degree to understand that maintaining a one to one ratio of physical copies to digitally lent books is the same shit as a regular library but more convenient. It stands to reason that the law shouldn’t preclude technological advances that make libraries more convenient. The reason traditional libraries aren’t threatened by the law is cultural. There are states that ban books my dude, it’s all cultural.

I wonder why judges are anti-library. Although I can understand why they are generally anti-technology: the law school people have a lot of beefs, and beefs with the compsci people rank highly. And before you start telling me all the reasons why “beefs” aren’t a central part of the character of judges and therefore law in this country, you should maybe read more about guys like Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito.

_factor | parent | next
It’s apparent to me that the law has jumbled a bunch of archaic concepts of what “copying” means in order to transfigure the argument into a technically obscured realm.

A library allows one person to read one book at a time. A digital library doing the same while using technology to make lending more efficient accomplishes the exact same goal.

We’re using precedent to override common sense and prevent digital libraries from effectively existing under the guise of protection.

tptacek | parent | next
Judges aren't anti-library. People care a lot less about "compsci" culture than "compsci" people think they do. We simply aren't that important.
doctorpangloss | root | parent | next
> Judges aren't anti-library.

Some are now!

account42 | root | parent
What does this have to do with compsci culture? Do you think only technical minded people can be interested in access to digital content?
account42 | parent | next
> I wonder why judges are anti-library.

Is that really suprising considering the general copyright climate? Do you link libraries would be allowed to exist if they were conceived of today?

I'd say probably not - but then "AI" seems to not be facing the same rules as regular people so perhaps if libraries could find a way to become "big" fast enough they could have a chance.

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