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   Ami Angelwings (ami_angelwings@urusai.social)'s status on Saturday, 07-Sep-2024 09:47:21 JST Ami Angelwings

   • Mike Masnick ✅

   From @mmasnick: https://www.techdirt.com/2024/09/05/second-circuit-says-libraries-disincentivize-authors-to-write-books-by-lending-them-for-free/

   "Even though this outcome was always a strong possibility, the final ruling is just incredibly damaging, especially in that it suggests that all libraries are bad for authors and cause them to no longer want to write. I only wish I were joking. Towards the end of the ruling (as we’ll get to below) it says that while having freely lent out books may help the public in the “short-term” the “long-term” consequences would be that “there would be little motivation to produce new works.”"

   "there would be little motivation to produce new works" without profit motive?

   the ENTIRE FANWORK INTERNET WOULD DISAGREE, which is probably, by quantity, a sizeable if not majority of fiction writing in the past 2 decades, it contains some of humanity's longest works!

   • Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell: and feld like this.
   • Embed this notice
     Ami Angelwings (ami_angelwings@urusai.social)'s status on Saturday, 07-Sep-2024 11:04:14 JST Ami Angelwings

     in reply to

     also, libraries aren't a charity, they're a public service, the anti-IA people say the IA allows anybody to borrow while "real" libraries exist for the poor

     that's not the purpose of a library & RL libraries don't just exist as charity for the poor

     we as a society have lost the concept of what a public service is, we only see things in terms of profit and charity

     public libraries exist b/c we as a society decided that access to books, to information, to knowledge, and to a public space that preserves those things is a public good, it's something everybody should have

     public libraries are not and should not be a charity that we only minimally fund b/c some people are too poor to partake in capitalism and therefore need a little handout so they can get smarter to partake in capitalism

     Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell: and clacke like this.
   • Embed this notice
     Ami Angelwings (ami_angelwings@urusai.social)'s status on Saturday, 07-Sep-2024 11:04:15 JST Ami Angelwings

     in reply to

     the other thing is libraries are one of the few remaining public spaces that people can go to that serve people and not profit or landowners. the reason I read so much as a kid? I hid in libraries to escape bullying. Sure, there's some bookstores that allow people to sit & read, but they're still private stores, and they'll kick you out if they think you're "loitering" or the wrong kind of person. and they're not a place unattended children can just go into & stay.

     Libraries provide access to information and access to the wider digital & analog world for so many people, but also, they're run for a completely different purpose than almost any other kind of "public" space left. The death of libraries would hurt more than even the lack of ability of people to read free books. :\

   • Embed this notice
     Ami Angelwings (ami_angelwings@urusai.social)'s status on Saturday, 07-Sep-2024 11:04:15 JST Ami Angelwings

     in reply to

     "Tragically, the Court then undermines the important ruling in the Betamax/VCR case that found “time shifting” (recording stuff off your TV) to be fair use, even as it absolutely was repackaging the same content for the same purpose. The Court says that doesn’t matter because it “predated our use of the word ‘transformative’ as a term of art.” But that doesn’t wipe out the case as a binding precedent, even though the Court here acts as though it does."

     It's also really bad and is going to hurt a lot of other things about digital preservation and being able to copy/backup/record stuff if the courts now start to decide that recording TV never should have counted as fair use :\

     AnthonyJK-Admin, GreenSkyOverMe (Monika) and Joe Ortiz and 2 others repeated this.
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     Ami Angelwings (ami_angelwings@urusai.social)'s status on Saturday, 07-Sep-2024 11:04:16 JST Ami Angelwings

     in reply to

     it's the opposite if anything! how many people got into reading and writing BECAUSE of libraries? I know I did! I started writing because I was always holed up in the library reading fiction and it inspired me. If libraries didn't exist, I wouldn't have had so much access to books. I didn't have money to buy books, I didn't have bookstores near me. Without libraries, your incentive to write if you ONLY care about paying audiences and profit, would also only be narrowly targeted at people who bought books, and not the general audiences available to you through libraries.

   • Embed this notice
     Ami Angelwings (ami_angelwings@urusai.social)'s status on Saturday, 07-Sep-2024 11:04:16 JST Ami Angelwings

     in reply to

     also libraries allow you to try out tons of books, i can't imagine without libraries how people would even decide what to purchase, simply going in blind based on reviews like movies except way more expensive and with a much larger time commitment which means people would be even more selective

     but then publishers don't actually care about that, they want to turn digital books into a streaming model, where all works are just "content", a featureless sludge to be pumped into the machine to drive subscriptions :\

     Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell: likes this.
     Hilton Fernandes repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     Mike Masnick ✅ (mmasnick@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 09-Sep-2024 05:55:05 JST Mike Masnick ✅

     in reply to

     • Lars Marowsky-Brée 😷

     @larsmb @ami_angelwings that's not true in the US. Elsewhere it is.

     clacke likes this.
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     Lars Marowsky-Brée 😷 (larsmb@mastodon.online)'s status on Monday, 09-Sep-2024 05:55:06 JST Lars Marowsky-Brée 😷

     in reply to

     • Mike Masnick ✅

     @ami_angelwings @mmasnick IDNK, isn't that the reason why library copies are more expensive to buy for them than the individual copy I buy at a book store?

   • Embed this notice
     clacke (clacke@libranet.de)'s status on Sunday, 15-Sep-2024 22:44:01 JST clacke

     in reply to

     • Mike Masnick ✅
     @ami_angelwings @mmasnick How long term are we talking? We've had libraries for millennia now, and somehow people still seem to be writing literature. 🤣
   • Embed this notice
     Ian (ian485@mastodon.world)'s status on Monday, 16-Sep-2024 00:25:55 JST Ian

     in reply to

     @ami_angelwings I’ve never heard an author disparage a library. They are usually a library’s fiercest champions.

     clacke likes this.
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     MadMatheMatiker (maddemaddigger@mathstodon.xyz)'s status on Monday, 16-Sep-2024 00:26:08 JST MadMatheMatiker

     in reply to

     @ami_angelwings I mean libraries have been around at least for 3000 years or so, so if they'd hinder book business, they would've already destroyed the economy by now...

     Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell: and clacke like this.
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     Paul Kemner (pkemner@urusai.social)'s status on Monday, 16-Sep-2024 00:26:14 JST Paul Kemner

     in reply to

     @ami_angelwings
     And then there's Gaiman:

     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Qkyt1wXNlI

     clacke likes this.
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     Bernd Paysan R.I.P Natenom 🕯️ (forthy42@mastodon.net2o.de)'s status on Monday, 16-Sep-2024 00:26:17 JST Bernd Paysan R.I.P Natenom 🕯️

     in reply to

     @ami_angelwings You don't get it. You shouldn't be writing on your own. You should write as employee of Disney or such, getting a bit of the huge money these companies make.

     There's an interesting reason why Germany is called „Das Land der Dichter und Denker“ (The country of poets and thinkers): at that time unlike UK, there was no way to enforce copyright in the 100s small states of Germany, so pirated printing was the norm.

     This greatly benefited the authors, because it was free advertising.

     clacke likes this.
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     Claire, The Ultimate Worrier (waitworry@sakurajima.moe)'s status on Monday, 16-Sep-2024 00:26:20 JST Claire, The Ultimate Worrier

     in reply to

     • Mike Masnick ✅

     @ami_angelwings @mmasnick have a sneaking suspicion about who appointed the judge behind this

     clacke likes this.
   • Embed this notice
     Delta (delta@mk.absturztau.be)'s status on Monday, 16-Sep-2024 00:26:30 JST Delta

     in reply to

     • Mike Masnick ✅

     @ami_angelwings@urusai.social @mmasnick@mastodon.social when they say "authors" what they actually mean is "publishers"

     clacke likes this.
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     James 🌈💜 (shaknais@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 16-Sep-2024 00:26:37 JST James 🌈💜

     in reply to

     • Mike Masnick ✅

     @ami_angelwings @mmasnick
     Wait, what!? I have a recent post saying how *excited* I am that one my new releases has landed in the library system!

     clacke likes this.
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     LisPi (lispi314@udongein.xyz)'s status on Tuesday, 17-Sep-2024 09:17:15 JST LisPi

     in reply to

     • Mike Masnick ✅
     @ami_angelwings @yassie_j @mmasnick Some of the most prolific media, namly Touhou doujin & fan content, is so prolific because of lax or no copyright enforcement.
     
     One wonders why⸮
     Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell: likes this.
   • Embed this notice
     Ami Angelwings (ami_angelwings@urusai.social)'s status on Tuesday, 17-Sep-2024 09:17:59 JST Ami Angelwings

     in reply to

     i don't think people realize just how important libraries of all sorts are to "book culture", i think they're so normalized in our lives we just take it for granted that some kids grow up with a love of reading and become readers and book lovers and writers... if libraries die off or are killed off enough that they're a shell of themselves, the book industry is not gonna be swimming in cash like they think, in a generation or two, they'll find that the culture of book reading will have massively died, people will still read but they won't have this "love of books", they'll be like "I can get free fic on AO3, why do i care to buy an expensive book from an author i don't know?"

     Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell: and clacke like this.
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     Mark Whybird (whybird@aus.social)'s status on Tuesday, 17-Sep-2024 09:43:05 JST Mark Whybird

     in reply to

     • Scott Francis

     @darkuncle @ami_angelwings Fully agree. A question for those who don’t like non-profit things: roughly how much profit do they think the military makes?

     clacke likes this.
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     Scott Francis (darkuncle@infosec.exchange)'s status on Tuesday, 17-Sep-2024 09:43:06 JST Scott Francis

     in reply to

     @ami_angelwings way way way too many people seem to be unable to view anything except through the lens of turning a profit, whether it's a library or the postal service or a community swimming pool.

     Capitalism as a concept has really eroded public goods as a concept.

   • Embed this notice
     Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell: (lanodan@queer.hacktivis.me)'s status on Tuesday, 17-Sep-2024 10:01:15 JST Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell:

     in reply to

     • Mike Masnick ✅
     • LisPi
     @lispi314 @yassie_j @mmasnick @ami_angelwings I think a slightly better example about copyright would be more like Vocaloid and more recently Vtubers, which entirely higes on fan works, and latter effectively created a new industry. (Could likely also say the same thing for Minecraft, the most sold video game, which to me would be a forgotten game without let's plays, tutorials, …)
     
     Meanwhile fiction works are kind of strange to have information on because most fiction websites don't have things like number of readers and a lot of it is entirely non-commercial or at best self-published and so hard to aggregate.
     Like I don't think anybody can know how many copies of touhou fanworks have been sold.
     clacke likes this.
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     JackieM (jackiemauro@fosstodon.org)'s status on Tuesday, 17-Sep-2024 12:01:40 JST JackieM

     in reply to

     • Mike Masnick ✅

     @ami_angelwings @mmasnick

     The long term??? Libraries have been around for thousands of years!! Last I checked people have been writing books that whole time?????

     clacke likes this.
   • Embed this notice
     clacke (clacke@libranet.de)'s status on Tuesday, 17-Sep-2024 15:28:23 JST clacke

     in reply to

     • Mike Masnick ✅

     Quotes from the ruling, the scope and conclusion:

     This appeal presents the following question: Is it “fair use” for a nonprofit organization to scan copyright-protected print books in their entirety, and distribute those digital copies online, in full, for free, subject to a one-to-one owned-to-loaned ratio between its print copies and the digital copies it makes available at any given time, all without authorization from the copyright-holding publishers or authors? Applying the relevant provisions of the Copyright Act as well as binding Supreme Court and Second Circuit precedent, we conclude the answer is no. We therefore AFFIRM.

     The public interest:

     Within the framework of the Copyright Act, IA’s argument regarding the public interest is shortsighted. True, libraries and consumers may reap some short-term benefits from access to free digital books, but what are the long-term consequences? If authors and creators knew that their original works could be copied and disseminated for free, there would be little motivation to produce new works. And a dearth of creative activity would undoubtedly negatively impact the public. It is this reality that the Copyright Act seeks to avoid.

     The difference between 1-to-1 controlled digital lending (CDL) of only the Internet Archive's own physical books, or CDL from a pool of physical books by participating libraries:

     IA makes a final argument that, even if its Open Libraries project did not qualify as a fair use, we should restrict the injunction to the Open Libraries project and allow IA to continue CDL for books that IA itself owns, Appellant's Br. at 62. In support of that argument, IA argues that the fourth factor analysis would be more favorable if CDL were limited to IA's own books. Id. In our view, the fair use analysis would not be substantially different if limited to IA’s CDL of the books it owns, and the fourth factor still would count against fair use. So we decline IA’s invitation to narrow the scope of our holding or of the district court’s injunction.

     @mmasnick @ami_angelwings

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     Aknorals⚑Ⓐ 🏴 (aknorals@mastodon.social)'s status on Tuesday, 08-Oct-2024 15:56:33 JST Aknorals⚑Ⓐ 🏴

     in reply to

     @ami_angelwings Physical libraries are hurt by restrictions on digital content and would have benefited from a court Internet Archive win.

     clacke likes this.