How to keep people from reading

[ArMaP]

The problem with this is that:
a) Creators need to eat, and the time they spend creating cannot be used in having a job that pays the bills;
b) Publishers of all kinds related to the different type of creations are willing to pay the creators because they think they will have a positive return from it. To them it's an investment, as they have to spend money to either make the creator's work known or distributed;
c) Naturally, publishers defend their investment.

As a kind of PS, it's the resellers that make the big money. In a case I know (as I have seen the invoices), an author writes books that are published and she sells them directly to a big store. That big store sells the books for almost 5 times what they payed for it.

[Maxmars]

I fully agree that creators need to eat...

But how they divest themselves of the right to decide to allow this 'use through commerce' leads to the situation where authors and artists who might be fully happy to allow some their work to be freely accessed, simply can't.

I think some authors out there would.  Even if only as a marketing opportunity. But some older classic works need to be freed, in my opinion.

But they now share what was once their creation (a performance, wisdom, or simple expressions of humanity)… is now suddenly ONLY a "vehicle" of commerce...

I propose no solution. 

This wasn't an attack on 'corporate greed'... it was an observation about the effect of it... generally it disallows access to human creativity without payment... reducing the propagation of human ideas, expression, and potentially things that feed the human experience meaningfully.

I don't presume to "know" where a balance could be found.

[ArMaP]

I fully agree that creators need to eat...

But how they divest themselves of the right to decide to allow this 'use through commerce' leads to the situation where authors and artists who might be fully happy to allow some their work to be freely accessed, simply can't.

They can, in recent years there have been many creators making their creations available for free in the Internet, even some famous authors or artists. Stephen King has at least six short stories freely available. They are still copyrighted works, so nobody can use them for anything else.

I think some authors out there would.  Even if only as a marketing opportunity. But some older classic works need to be freed, in my opinion.

Older works that are copyright free (mostly because their authors died more than 75 years ago) are freely available too.
For a couple of years or so I was a voluntary on Project Gutenberg, proofreading scanned books that were converted to plain text and published on the Internet.
Books like, for example, "Dracula", are copyright free, so although you have to pay for a book to read it, you can get it for free on the Internet.

But they now share what was once their creation (a performance, wisdom, or simple expressions of humanity)… is now suddenly ONLY a "vehicle" of commerce...

It really depends.

My elder sister is a painter and professional photographer. Several years ago she was contracted to make a painting for the label of a wine bottle. The contract (prepared by the lawyers of the Portuguese authors society) stated specifically that it could only be used for that label and nothing more. It could appear, for example, in a photo of the bottle, but it could not appear isolated, with no context.
The company that contracted my sister used it on something else and the authors society warned my sister and activated their legal branch to point to the company that to use it in other things they would need to pay more.

On other occasions my sister has given her works to the models she photographed/painted, as those were not made to make money.

[l0st]

In the US is 70 years after the creator's death for works published after 1978.
That avoids situations like Charlie Chaplin had, in which he had to make a few changes to his older movies so he wouldn't lose the copyright while still alive.


That's why registration of any work is recommended, so the creator can prove easily they were the original creators.

Why should Charlie Chaplin need a copyright 70 years on? I agree with allowing people to benefit from their work but 70 years seems like a ridiculous amount of time.

And you missed my point that we can have 70+ year old works that are "flagged" for illegality solely on the basis that "the computer" thinks its a copy.

---

In the case that started this thread, the Internet Archive was freely distributing scanned copies of books, not the books' content as the Project Gutenberg does, and that's what the publishers were against, the free distribution of images of their physical books.
Although the authors own the copyrights for the text, the way the book was printed and the cover are, usually, a creation from the publisher, so that also has a copyright.

So, in this case, as they were copying physical books, there was no "data" they were losing.

Are you skeptic? You sure sound like him.

[ArMaP]

Why should Charlie Chaplin need a copyright 70 years on? I agree with allowing people to benefit from their work but 70 years seems like a ridiculous amount of time.

It wasn't 70 years after the creator's death at the time, I think it was something like 50 years after creation, so he was still alive when his first movies reached 50 years.

And you missed my point that we can have 70+ year old works that are "flagged" for illegality solely on the basis that "the computer" thinks its a copy.

I didn't miss it, I just decided not to comment on that. Any computer decision should be confirmed by a person that really knows about the topic and the legal implications.

Are you skeptic? You sure sound like him.

Who are you talking about?

[l0st]

Who are you talking about?

Oh c'mon now. Dont be coy. You know who I'm talking about and who I think you sound like.

[ArMaP]

Oh c'mon now. Dont be coy. You know who I'm talking about and who I think you sound like.

I never react on assumptions of what other people are thinking, I like to know what I am suppose to be answering to.

[Chiefsmom]

Funny I found this thread.  I have actually been going to that site recently, as I had been searching for some obscure old books that were recommended in my studies of plant medicine.

I have actually downloaded a few of them, to read later.
Am I wrong in doing so?  I don't feel like I am.  These books are 60 to over 100 years old.  I feel they are very important and have lost knowledge that we need.

So, yeah, I will continue to support them.
It's not like actually libraries have these books!


I wonder if they will go after the "sacred text" website next?

[UltraBudgie]

Am I wrong in doing so?  I don't feel like I am.  These books are 60 to over 100 years old.  I feel they are very important and have lost knowledge that we need.

I don't think you are. As you say, they're more than 60 years old and likely out of print, at least in the mass market. But that only determines the copyright scope and the extent of 'legality' under the Berne convention, not whether sharing digital version is 'right', in a moral sense. I suppose that depends on how your morality presents itself individually to you. Certainly there's an argument to be made that preserving knowledge is important. But what is strange is that it doesn't 'feel' wrong. I am quite scrupulous, for example if I'm given incorrect change at a store, even too much, I always point it out and never take advantage, because I think it would be wrong and I would feel moral guilt at that. Even if the 'victim' would be a huge corporate chain or insurance company rather than an individual. But, I don't get that same sense of moral wrongness if I download a book. I wonder why that is. I feel some angst and turmoil at this, because I really do want to live in a society where legality matches morality, in a non-coercive way.

And certainly the largest corporate holders of copyright and syndication rights seem to lack moral convictions beyond the minimal legal predicate. For example, look at the 'books2' and 'books3' stacks that are used to train large machine-learning models. They're basically rips of countless books, without regard given to copyright infringement, as it is still a legal 'gray area'. And its hard to imagine a scenario where such mass collections will not be available for dataset training -- as long as its necessary for the creation of incredibly commercially valuable models, my cynicism tells me the legal system will be warped as necessary to enable it.

And perhaps there's a subtle reciprocity there. After all, today books are no longer 'owned' by readers, in the way that tangible media are, but 'licensed', with vague and shifting terms, always to the advantage of the commercial distributor.  And if buying isn't owning, then sharing isn't stealing.  The impending digital omnivore that will eat our brains demands access to every iota of human productive output, every byte of everything quantifiable, and nothing will stand it its way. Quaint concepts of legality will be made to acquiesce, by labyrinth bureaucratic conformity, political subversion, or blatant disregard. What's a few billion dollar fine to, say, Google? Or Meta? Nothing. After all, money is merely the blood of Moloch, a few drops here and there are as nothing to it.

And why shouldn't we enjoy the same disregard? Share away, the pirate ship's sinking into an ocean of blood, matey.  Perhaps we're only getting what we deserve.

[ArMaP]

I have actually downloaded a few of them, to read later.
Am I wrong in doing so?  I don't feel like I am.

I don't think it's wrong, and in Portugal it's legal, even if they are copyrighted works, as what is forbidden is the distribution. Taking what is made available by others is not illegal.

These books are 60 to over 100 years old.  I feel they are very important and have lost knowledge that we need.

So, yeah, I will continue to support them.
It's not like actually libraries have these books!

That's the problem with the books that were the reason for the lawsuit, they were complaining that the Internet Archive was lending books that are available to be purchased and gaining money from it, directly or indirectly. As the books were direct copies scanned from the original physical books, the publishers could, besides the authors, claim copyright infringement.

I wonder if they will go after the "sacred text" website next?

I don't think the situation is the same.

PS: have you tried Project Gutenberg? Those are really free.