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'Science Fiction Writers of America' Accuse Internet Archive of Piracy (sfwa.org)
An anonymous reader writes:
The "Open Library" project of the nonprofit Internet Archive has been scanning books and offering "loans" of DRM-protected versions for e-readers (which expire after the loan period expires). This week the Legal Affairs Committe of the Science Fiction Writers of America issued a new "Infringement Alert" on the practice, complaining that "an unreadable copy of the book is saved on users' devices...and can be made readable by stripping DRM protection."
The objection, argues SFWA President Cat Rambo, is that "writers' work is being scanned in and put up for access without notifying them... it is up to the individual writer whether or not their work should be made available in this way." But the infringement alert takes the criticism even further. "We suspect that this is the world's largest ongoing project of unremunerated digital distribution of entire in-copyright books."
The Digital Reader blog points out one great irony. "The program initially launched in 2007. It has been running for ten years, and the SFWA only just now noticed." They add that SFWA's tardiness "leaves critical legal issues unresolved."
"Remember, Google won the Google Books case, and had its scanning activities legalized as fair use ex post facto... [I]n fact the Internet Archive has a stronger case than Google did; the latter had a commercial interest in its scans, while the Internet Archive is a non-profit out to serve the public good."
The objection, argues SFWA President Cat Rambo, is that "writers' work is being scanned in and put up for access without notifying them... it is up to the individual writer whether or not their work should be made available in this way." But the infringement alert takes the criticism even further. "We suspect that this is the world's largest ongoing project of unremunerated digital distribution of entire in-copyright books."
The Digital Reader blog points out one great irony. "The program initially launched in 2007. It has been running for ten years, and the SFWA only just now noticed." They add that SFWA's tardiness "leaves critical legal issues unresolved."
"Remember, Google won the Google Books case, and had its scanning activities legalized as fair use ex post facto... [I]n fact the Internet Archive has a stronger case than Google did; the latter had a commercial interest in its scans, while the Internet Archive is a non-profit out to serve the public good."
who are behind this SFWA thing? So we can avoid them in the future, cause they obviously suck at thinking about technology, the future and what it means for society.
I could understand if it was org for writers of world war 2 fiction, regency romances or other stuff for old farts doing this, but SF?
Or is it hypocrisy? Science fiction writers have long history of "borrowing" others' work. Robert Heinlein even made reference to it in Glory Road: "That's the way with writers; they'll steal anything, file off the serial numbers, and claim it for their own."
A court sided with Google on the "fair use" question mostly because Google's scanning process (a) was transformative and (b) did not substantially affect the market for the original work. Google provided a way to search within books -- which was not a capability offered before -- and when Google shows the context from the original work, it does not show all the pages of the book. Instead, it cuts chunks out so that readers have a reason to get the book through an authorized channel. The decision did not depend on whether Google is a for-profit or non-profit enterprise, because copyright law does not inquire about that.
In this case, the Internet Archive doesn't have either of those copyright-relevant factors on its side.
The AC who submitted the story also distorts what TFA said "leaves critical legal issues unresolved": It is not the fact that SFWA is raising a hue and cry 10 years after the Internet Archive launched this effort, but rather the fact that much of what the Internet Archive does goes below the radar of content creators in general.
To the contrary - my wife receives an annual payment from the government to compensate her for the possible loss of royalties that libraries might bring. Given that libraries also *buy* the book they lend, I've yet to meet an author who wasn't enthusiastically pro-library.
This is like saying that because I don't like the idea of being robbed by you, I should hate the idea of paying taxes. Ludicrous on every level.
My own local library does something similar. There is and should be nothing wrong with offering books for loan regardless of format at long as the copy is legitimately purchased. Publishers have hated Libraries since they started and they want to use "electronic" as an attempt to license the book instead of buying it.
The courts will shoot this down, there is a long legal history for Library's loaning books being perfectly legal all the way back into english common law, to rules in the writers favor this the supreme court would need to undo 200 years of precedent. They generally don't do that for anything but the most extreme of situations.
Libraries exist, they loan books, whether they are digital or paper and it's all perfectly legal.