• Jeena
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    1116 days ago

    “Library of Alexandria had to be set on fire after publishers’ court win”

    • Flying Squid
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      215 days ago

      The good news is, as far as I know, they don’t have to actually delete the data.

      So at least these books have still been digitized if something changes and they are allowed to be accessed in the future. Some of them may not exist in physical form at this point, or only as one or two copies in an academic library.

    • @[email protected]
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      125 days ago

      That is not what has happened here.

      “The library of Alexandria has had to remove some books from public lending due to court order”

      The IA played a very risky game during covid, lost, and now needs to face concequences.

      It could be soo much worse.

  • Arsecroft
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    586 days ago

    It would be useful to have a list of the missing books for reasons.

    I’ll see if i can find it.

  • Flying Squid
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    395 days ago

    As much as this sucks, it could have been so much worse. The Internet Archive stays up. It’s important archives of things like industrial and educational films stay up. The Wayback Machine stays up.

    So as disappointing as this is, I do have some relief because I thought it could mean the end.

    • @jeffwOPM
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      145 days ago

      So much of that stuff is public domain material, at least the older stuff like those films and some of the books

      • Flying Squid
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        195 days ago

        Right, but my worry was that if the IA went down, no one would be archiving it that didn’t have a commercial interest.

        A large amount of the Prelinger Archives have been uploaded to YouTube. Which is great as a backup, but the IA is a noncommercial entity. I do not want for-profits controlling such archives. I’m glad that’s not a worry, at least not for now.

  • @[email protected]
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    315 days ago

    “To the contrary, the decision barely mentions copyright’s ultimate purpose of promoting broad public availability of literature, music, and the other arts,” it said.

    It feels like the thoughts of the past came straight out of fiction. Today, nothing seems worth anything if you can’t directly make money from it.

  • @alekwithak
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    206 days ago

    Crap I knew there was something I was supposed to do!

    • citrusface
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      35 days ago

      Thoughts and Prayers 🙏

  • @Nurse_Robot
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    186 days ago

    Understandable, but a huge bummer nevertheless

    • @Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In
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      5 days ago

      Take a step back. Is it really understandable? A digital resource, that costs nothing to reproduce, is being artificially restricted.

      • @Nurse_Robot
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        25 days ago

        The economy is based on goods and services being exchanged for money. A book is a good that took time and resources to create. A publisher invested into that good with the intent to make a profit, and having it available online for free without their consent circumvents that.

        I’m not saying it’s ethical or that I agree with it, I’m just saying it makes sense.

        • @Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In
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          45 days ago

          having it available online for free without their consent circumvents that.

          In this particular case the publishers are trying to double dip

          Controlled Digital Lending is the library practice whereby a library owns a book, digitizes it, and loans either the physical book or the digital copy to one user at a time.

  • @CheeseNoodle
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    145 days ago

    Publishers proceed not to buffalo buffalo buffalo sell half the books taken down anyway and eventually erase their own backups.

  • @[email protected]
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    106 days ago

    So is there some kind of backup? Something that can be put back online after the apocalypse or something?

  • Nimo
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    14 days ago

    Lamentable but copyright is a critical mechanism for protecting the rights of creators.