<story><title>Internet Archive responds to recording industry lawsuit targeting obsolete media</title><url>https://blog.archive.org/2023/08/14/internet-archive-responds-to-recording-industry-lawsuit-targeting-obsolete-media/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>hn_throwaway_99</author><text>While I strongly disagree with the length of copyright protection, after reading this and reading more about the case, from a purely &lt;i&gt;legal&lt;/i&gt; perspective, I just don&amp;#x27;t see how IA has any defense. They basically just seem to be saying &amp;quot;these are old records, so we should be able to copy them. Also, our work is mainly for academic researchers.&amp;quot; My guess is that they are arguing fair use, but I just don&amp;#x27;t see how that applies here when they make copyrighted works available, for free, over the Internet.&lt;p&gt;Would appreciate it if folks would abstain from responding with how the record companies are greedy bastards, or how the IA is doing great work, or how copyright protection has strayed from its original goals of encouraging innovative new works to become a victim of rent-seeking behavior, or that the law itself is unjust here. All of that I wholeheartedly agree with. I&amp;#x27;m not a lawyer, and I&amp;#x27;m just interested in trying to understand if they have any legal defense that isn&amp;#x27;t going to get laughed out of court.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>mlyle</author><text>&amp;gt; My guess is that they are arguing fair use, but I just don&amp;#x27;t see how that applies here when they make copyrighted works available, for free, over the Internet.&lt;p&gt;The fourth part of the fair use test rests on whether the use of the work impacts the commercial market for the work.&lt;p&gt;Given these works are often:&lt;p&gt;- Not offered in their original form&lt;p&gt;- Would likely have little residual commercial value if so offered&lt;p&gt;- And, the article states, are only accessed by one researcher per month&lt;p&gt;Indicates that the research, educational, and cultural value from this use likely far outweighs the impact to the commercial use of these works.</text></comment>
<story><title>Internet Archive responds to recording industry lawsuit targeting obsolete media</title><url>https://blog.archive.org/2023/08/14/internet-archive-responds-to-recording-industry-lawsuit-targeting-obsolete-media/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>hn_throwaway_99</author><text>While I strongly disagree with the length of copyright protection, after reading this and reading more about the case, from a purely &lt;i&gt;legal&lt;/i&gt; perspective, I just don&amp;#x27;t see how IA has any defense. They basically just seem to be saying &amp;quot;these are old records, so we should be able to copy them. Also, our work is mainly for academic researchers.&amp;quot; My guess is that they are arguing fair use, but I just don&amp;#x27;t see how that applies here when they make copyrighted works available, for free, over the Internet.&lt;p&gt;Would appreciate it if folks would abstain from responding with how the record companies are greedy bastards, or how the IA is doing great work, or how copyright protection has strayed from its original goals of encouraging innovative new works to become a victim of rent-seeking behavior, or that the law itself is unjust here. All of that I wholeheartedly agree with. I&amp;#x27;m not a lawyer, and I&amp;#x27;m just interested in trying to understand if they have any legal defense that isn&amp;#x27;t going to get laughed out of court.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>dmbche</author><text>&amp;quot;Statement from Brewster Kahle, digital librarian of the Internet Archive:
“When people want to listen to music they go to Spotify. When people want to study sound recordings as they were originally created, they go to libraries like the Internet Archive. Both are needed. There shouldn’t be conflict here.”&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;From the article&lt;p&gt;I believe they are arguing that the intent behind the digitization is fair use, as you say, but what I find interesting is they seem to argue that there is no loss of profit from their work, which is a valid point to raise - if this is all hypothetical exceptions can and should be made to the law.&lt;p&gt;Even if they don&amp;#x27;t have a case, say the copyright law is very tight and clear and there&amp;#x27;s no way this can skirt around it - they still can bring it to court, fight it, and lose until they get it overturned by the Supreme Court and they get a special status or the copyright law is amended. This is standard - it&amp;#x27;s how the 19th amendement was passed I believe, I&amp;#x27;ll look for a link.&lt;p&gt;Edit: to clarify, there is no damage to the copyright holders because the medium holding their work is impossible to be used to listen to their work by anyone but experts, like the IA&lt;p&gt;Edit 1: Here&amp;#x27;s what I was remembering - it&amp;#x27;s not an amendment, but it&amp;#x27;s neat!&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;lithub.com&amp;#x2F;how-ruth-bader-ginsburg-and-gloria-steinem-fought-for-your-right-to-get-a-beer&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;lithub.com&amp;#x2F;how-ruth-bader-ginsburg-and-gloria-steine...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>