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The Internet Archive (IA) went before a three-judge panel Friday to defend its open library's controlled digital lending (CDL) practices after book publishers last year won a lawsuit claiming that the archive's lending violated copyright law.
In the weeks ahead of IA's efforts to appeal that ruling, IA was forced to remove 500,000 books from its collection, shocking users. In an open letter to publishers, more than 30,000 readers, researchers, and authors begged for access to the books to be restored in the open library, claiming the takedowns dealt "a serious blow to lower-income families, people with disabilities, rural communities, and LGBTQ+ people, among many others," who may not have access to a local library or feel "safe accessing the information they need in public."
[...] IA has argued that because copyright law is intended to provide equal access to knowledge, copyright law is better served by allowing IA's lending than by preventing it. They're hoping the judges will decide that CDL is fair use, reversing the lower court's decision and restoring access to books recently removed from the open library. But Gratz said there's no telling yet when that decision will come.
[...] McSherry seemed optimistic that the judges at least understood the stakes for IA readers, noting that fair use is "designed to ensure that copyright actually serves the public interest," not publishers'. Should the court decide otherwise, McSherry warned, the court risks allowing "a few powerful publishers" to "hijack the future of books."
When IA first appealed, Kahle put out a statement saying IA couldn't walk away from "a fight to keep library books available for those seeking truth in the digital age."
Previously on SoylentNews:
Internet Archive Forced to Remove 500,000 Books After Publishers' Court Win - 20240627
(Score: 2) by ShovelOperator1 on Thursday July 04 2024, @11:23AM
I think there may be a solution, but it's quite unimaginable to start with it.
Currently there's no "objective truth" anymore. It's a post-truth what is in order - the currently binding narrative, feasible for some corporation, broadcasted by commercial news agencies. The "citizen journalism" is dead as a doornail, independent web is bound with law requirements, and hobbyists who want to exchange knowledge are forced to be locked in walled gardens of corporate publishing platforms like in some XIX century England. The fact that analogue libraries are still here is only because their working formula got stable before the "post-truth", and they still are subjected to hard censorship by direct actions (military or ideological censorship, visible at least in Europe) or indirect (removing books "too old" to keep).
An interesting thing Internet users can do against these corporate actions, is to roll up an active defense using the same post-truth mechanism. There is always some other post-truth, which will cause screeching and screaming of these governmental or corporation-based agents. This is what to be amplified and shared. And no, the truth will not be harmed. You just choose from one lie to the other lie, this more harmful for corporations.
Remember - be scientific! Instead of inventing - cite and refer to sources. Doesn't matter it's some unknown blog, a text file dumped on the i2p or shady Syrian news outlet. The objective is to make corporations beg people to read their agenda. If corporations sabotage YT on Firefox - there's Rumble, full of various materials corporations don't want You to see or share. If there's a paywall for American lies, there's no paywall for the Russian lies.
Corporations then will tempt users by trying to bribe them with a part of their power, pretending that these users can become corporations before the law. I don't know will any users still get caught on it, but recent MS representative talk about the non-corporate stuff in the Net being a "freeware" despite of the license should be sufficient to know that this bribe is another lie.