Failed Writer's Journey: The Internet Archive was Wrong

There has been a lot of hand wringing over the Internet Archive’s failed appeal of the early ruling that its National Emergency Library violated copywrite. they should have lost the appeal, and I think the noise over the decision highlights issues with the anti-copywrite commentators.

Only a blind man could not have seen this decision coming. Essentially, the internet archive, for a brief time during the pandemic, scanned physical copies of books, created e-book version from the scans, and then let everyone in the world checkout copies at the same time. Until publishers complained, there was no limit on the number of copies based on that one scanned book that could be in circulation. Other libraries follow a one-to-one rule — one paid for e-book copy, one person can have it checked out. Just like physical books. The Internet Archive’s argument that unlimited copying and lending of a copywritten book was fair use was completely laughable.

It is also a disturbing look into how far too many tech-adjacent people think that any restrictions on copying are inherently evil and wrong. To the Internet Archive, authors don’t matter as much as readers. They feel completely justified in taking an author’s work for their own use with no renumeration, almost as if such actions were a moral good. One advocate the taking the side of the Internet Archive stated that “IA’s digital library helps those authors create new works and supports their interests in seeing their works be read. This ruling may benefit the bottom line of the largest publishers and most prominent authors, but for most it will end up harming more than it will help”

“…. supports their interests in seeing their works be read.” Ah yes, the mighty benefit of having your work be distributed for free for exposure. As if we have not had a two-decade experiment in what writing for exposure does for authors. This spokesperson couldn’t be more dated of they were wearing bell bottoms and listening to Flock of Seagulls (yes, I am mixing eras. That’s how dated they are — I need two separate epochs just to cover their dated-ness). At a time when it’s damn near impossible for someone who is not pre-rich to make a living as an author, I am not terribly inclined to listen to folks who think payment in exposure is the wave of the future.

Information may want to be free, as the old chestnut goes, but information also wants to be paid — at least if we want anyone to create any more information. Copywrite is an expression of that tension. Without copywrite, author’s lives become much more precarious. You die from exposure, generally, you don’t benefit from it. Can copywrite laws be overly broad and restrictive? Can they be tilted to the powerful? Can they slow cultural progress? Yes, they can. Welcome to the wonderful world of balancing competing interests. Pull up a chair — the rest of us have been here for a while. And we have noticed that the solutions to such problems are almost never to screw over the side with the least power and influence.

As much as I would like to live in Space Communism Utopia, we clearly do not. (Yet. Come to the planning meetings. We have cookies.) Unless you want art to be the province of the rich and those willing to suck up to the rich, you have to have a mechanism that produces and economically viable livelihood for authors. Allowing anyone in the world to access their work for the payment of one (1) book is not, I submit, a route to an economically viable future for authors. Looks good to tech companies, I admit, but they aren’t the only interest that needs protecting. No solution that requires authors be independently wealthy to dedicate themselves to their craft and careers is anything anyone who gives a tinker’s damn about culture or authors would support.

It is disheartening how few tech and tech adjacent people and institutions understand that simple point.

Weekly Word Count Update

Does editing count? Cause made an editing pass through the script and probably changed about ten pages worth of material.

Beyond that, I did produce about a thousand words, but they are all outlining and character work ups. Required, at least for me, to produce a story but not a story in and of themselves.

I am considering doing the 100 days of Writing. I know I said that I don’t need to write every day, but it might be nice to use it to kickstart this new book.

Enjoy the weekend everyone!