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Poster:
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stbalbach |
Date:
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January 26, 2010 11:12:22am |
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texts
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Re: a question: I really want to know whether it is legal to download the featured books (without exceptions) instead of buying them? Thank you! |
Unless otherwise noted (ie. Creative Commons in the Open Source archive), all books on Internet Archive (IA) are Public Domain (PD), in terms of Intellectual Property (IP) rights. That is how IA was able to scan them to begin with, because they are in the PD. But the scans are restricted by the IA site license, which says they can only be used for personal or research use ie. you can't download and re-sell books; your not supposed to profit or make a business from the archive.
So, there are two legalities to think about. The IP which is clearly PD. And IA's site license, which restricts how the books can be used (research and personal use only).
Some may argue the site license is unenforceable since the works are in the PD, ultimately that would be up to a judge, my guess is IA can't really restrict what one does with the material since they don't "own" it, it's PD. But I'm no expert on this. Ethically I agree with the site license, since the majority of the cost of scanning is paid for by donations (IA is a non-profit) - private enterprise should not make a business out of a non-profit charity.
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Poster:
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Correen |
Date:
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February 08, 2010 05:23:43pm |
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texts
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Re: a question: I really want to know whether it is legal to download the featured books (without exceptions) instead of buying them? Thank you! |
I am new to IA and have a specific question about using the PD books on my blog...the old cookbooks in particular. I'd like to copy portions of a book, including an occasional recipe, with a link back to the IA page. Can someone please give me a few guidelines? Thanks
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Poster:
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stbalbach |
Date:
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February 09, 2010 08:25:51am |
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texts
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Re: a question: I really want to know whether it is legal to download the featured books (without exceptions) instead of buying them? Thank you! |
Hi,
More info on the book reader here:
http://openlibrary.org/dev/docs/bookreaderScroll down to the section "Embed example". If your blog software supports iframe (most do), you can embed IA books right into your blog.
Stephen
This post was modified by stbalbach on 2010-02-09 15:25:51
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Poster:
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garthus |
Date:
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January 26, 2010 12:19:06pm |
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texts
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Re: a question: I really want to know whether it is legal to download the featured books (without exceptions) instead of buying them? Thank you! |
stbalbach,
The site license only applies if the poster did not declare under the creative Commons license. Since the stuff I put up is in the creative Commons, there are no restrictions on its usage, including selling the works. In any case once something is in the Public Domain such declarations remain unenforceable.
Specificaly, once an item enters into the Public Domain and someone declares it as created under the Creative Commons Licenses; They had given up any rights to exclusivety of the use of that created item. I do not understand what the hangup with people in nonprofit organizations suddenly becoming jealous of someone who wants to make a profit from selling their work. After all, the main point in the Creative Commons realm is to optimize the distribution of information; whether for free or at cost. The only point with Creative Commons is that while you may sell my work; you can never restrict access to it in any way; that is the trade-off.
See:
http://www.archive.org/details/Copyright_Law_And_Intellectual_Delusions_Garthus_Gerry garthus1@lilrc.org
This post was modified by garthus on 2010-01-26 19:14:37
This post was modified by garthus on 2010-01-26 19:19:06
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Poster:
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stbalbach |
Date:
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January 27, 2010 04:17:00pm |
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texts
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Re: a question: I really want to know whether it is legal to download the featured books (without exceptions) instead of buying them? Thank you! |
> The site license only applies if the poster did not declare under the creative Commons license.
This is true. Of the 1.8 million items in the text archive, only about 48,000 (at most) are Creative Commons, or about 97.5% of the texts are Public Domain (ie. not Creative Commons).
> I do not understand what the hangup with people in nonprofit organizations suddenly becoming jealous of someone who wants to make a profit from selling their work.
I've wondered about this myself. I can see a number of potential reasons, there may be others:
1. The scans are being paid for by donations from individuals and charities.. the donators don't want to be the main business model from which other enterprises profit, it could stop people from donating. Profit made from IA content should go back to IA so more books can be scanned. It's a non-profit project and organization with the higher goal of creating a public library.
2. By stipulating it can only be used for private/non-profit uses, IA protects itself from harm in case there is copyright material on the site. For example, we all know there is a lot of copyright material that accidentally gets uploaded. If someone else were to then profit from that material, IA may be liable for damages - but the site license may provide some level of protection, since IA has always said it was never to be used for-profit.
Stephen
This post was modified by stbalbach on 2010-01-27 23:17:00
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Poster:
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garthus |
Date:
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January 27, 2010 05:56:40pm |
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Re: The non-profit delusion of ownership |
Stephen,
Yes, but my experience working for non-profits who work with government educational organizations is that they have a serious hangup concerning; 'its our intellectual property, how dare anyone use it'. These people conveniently forget whom is paying their salaries; usually taxpayers. And in any case their donation argument is ludicrous. I donate nearly 35% of my income; I do not advertise it nor do I seek getting credit for it; that is not the nature of charity. In any case the donations these people make; unlike mine; usually come with fat tax deductions, once again at the expense of the taxpayers. So they are not even really making a donation, but in effect are shifting a great part of the cost to everyone else. The nature of the information that we are working with is such that its usefulness is optimized when it is freely available. After the initial flurry of interest from the sheeple who predominately populate this country; most so-called works of art, in particular those in the entertainment field; are often quickly forgotten. In the near future, the current corporate-statist so-called intellectual property model will break under its increasing load of bull-s—t.
That is why the Creative Commons model was created; to help that self-destruction along. That is why the distribution of these works should be encouraged, even if some may try profiting from that distribution; as long as they never try to restrict the use of such information.
Gerry
garthus1@lilrc.org
This post was modified by garthus on 2010-01-28 00:56:40
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Poster:
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stbalbach |
Date:
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January 27, 2010 10:59:19pm |
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Re: The non-profit delusion of ownership |
In a general sense I understand and agree with what your saying, in particular when the money can be traced back to government source.
Carl Malumad is doing a lot in that area with public.resource.org
I was thinking in this case about Internet Archive as a non-profit and why they have this particular clause about non-commercial use, trying to figure out the logic behind it.
Stephen
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Poster:
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garthus |
Date:
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January 28, 2010 06:22:41am |
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Re: The non-profit delusion of ownership |
Stephen,
I understand that and also think this thread is a very useful discussion of this topic. I only wish that those at the Archive would be more forthcoming concerning the reasons behind such policies. While I think there may be some useful, (from a legalistic sense), reasons behind such a policy; I am still left with many questions concerning how such policies really apply to documents which are known to be in the Public Domain. I could see such words concerning questionable items; but what I am referring to is the almost wholesale property claims being made by many institutions, merely because they may have digitized a Public Domain Document which is in their possession; since ownership does not change the intellectual status of a Publlic Domain Document; what else could it be?
Gerry
This post was modified by garthus on 2010-01-28 13:21:48
This post was modified by garthus on 2010-01-28 13:22:41
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Poster:
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stbalbach |
Date:
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January 28, 2010 11:26:09am |
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Forum:
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texts
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Re: The non-profit delusion of ownership |
This is true, there is a seeming contradiction between the site license restrictions and the Public Domain status. As you say, it is done elsewhere commonly, like the NY Public Library picture archive, which charges money to use scans of its public domain pictures. There must be some legal foundation for it, perhaps the web site itself is considered copyright - similar to how Penguin Books can copyright a Public Domain book since they added a new cover and notes and introduction.
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Poster:
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garthus |
Date:
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January 28, 2010 12:29:27pm |
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texts
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Re: The non-profit delusion of ownership |
Stephen,
They only get away with it because no one has challenged them. I could care less as long as they do not bother us posting those same titles for free. This entrie culture is morphing into a money hungry Grabocracy; and what alarms me the most is that very few people are botherd by this.
Gerry
This post was modified by garthus on 2010-01-28 19:29:27
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