Archive.org

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by AnotherCat

I would be interested in reading the legislation that contradicts that with respect to digital downloads - would you lead me to the Act and specific section?

OK, as promised, here we are. Section 17 of the Act is what prohibits unauthorised downloading of digital material:

17 Infringement of copyright by copying.

(1)The copying of the work is an act restricted by the copyright in every description of copyright work; and references in this Part to copying and copies shall be construed as follows.
(2)Copying in relation to a literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work means reproducing the work in any material form.This includes storing the work in any medium by electronic means.

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/48/section/17

(Emphasis mine)

When you download something from the Internet you are "reproducing the work" and "storing it by electronic means".

As I said last night, the portion of the Act that you quoted refers to the import of physical goods that are pirated or counterfeit.

Hope that helps,

[darryl]

Section 97 of the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 is very similar to the Australian provision I quoted earlier. Once again, I have not looked at any case law. This is my uninformed opinion only. It is not legal advice and you should not rely upon it. When you download a pirate work you make an infringing copy. If you did not know and had no reason to believe that "copyright still subsisted" then no damages can be awarded against you. The other remedies it refers to may be injunctive relief to force the handing over of infringing copies, or accounting for any profits you may have made from the work. The latter would of course not usually be applicable to a simple download for private use.

It does not impose an absolute duty on the part of the person downloading to research the Copyright status. What constitutes a reason to believe which would deny a downloader the benefit of this defence? It is not defined, so will presumably be restricted to reasonable reasons to believe. So, if you see the Harry Potter books or the latest movies or music which reasonable people would know are not available for free, this would in my opinion give you reason to believe copyright may still subsist. In these types of circumstances certainly you should check if you want to avoid any possibility of being sued.

I think the suggestion that you are required to check if a work within the public domain in other countries is still subject to copyright in your country is simply wrong unless there is something else which indicates it may not be, for instance a notice on the Download Page for each book giving the relevant details for that book and a warning, possibly including the duration of copyrights in at least major countries. Or, even better, asking you to enter your country and refusing to download if copyright subsists in your country. Much less than this I doubt would constitute a "reason to believe". The hypothetical reasonable man on the Clapham Omnibus is not an expert on Copyright Law.

There also seems to be some suggestion that you have a duty to check everything before downloading because there is allegedly some pirated material on the site and allegedly the amount of such material is not totally insignificant. Once again, the site is called archive.org, is a non-profit with laudable goals in the Public Interest. A reasonable person would not suspect significant pirate content. Even if this is not so, it does not in my opinion mean that you have an obligation to check copyright on every download. Contrast, for instance, the Pirate Bay. The very name of the site may well impose such an obligation.

This provision is simply aiming for the application of some common sense. If only the rest of the Intellectual Property Laws were the same.

The relevant sub-section of the UK law is set out below for your convenience:

97 Provisions as to damages in infringement action.

(1)Where in an action for infringement of copyright it is shown that at the time of the infringement the defendant did not know, and had no reason to believe, that copyright subsisted in the work to which the action relates, the plaintiff is not entitled to damages against him, but without prejudice to any other remedy.

[HarryT]

darryl, I don't disagree with anything you've said in your post above. Of course nobody is going to end up in court for downloading something from "archive.org". The reason for my warning about the contents of the site was simply to make people aware that it is not always a "safe" site to download from, and that if downloading pirated books is something that you wish to avoid doing (and many people on this forum disagree with piracy), you may wish to check the legitimacy of a book that you find on the site before you download it. If, as some people on this thread have indicated, they feel that this is "not their job", and they don't wish to do so, then that is of course their personal choice to make.

I make no apology, however, for giving the warning about the site: it's a site that I make extensive use of for both personal reading matter and academic research, and I have personally (and one more than one occasion) had quite obviously pirated books appear among the search results returned by the site. Some people may find that warning useful. Those who do not are free to ignore it.

[MikeB1972]

Originally Posted by HarryT

<Snip/>you may wish to check the legitimacy of a book that you find on the site before you download it. If, as some people on this thread have indicated, they feel that this is "not their job", and they don't wish to do so, then that is of course their personal choice to make.

<Snip/> quite obviously pirated books appear among the search results returned by the site. Some people may find that warning useful. Those who do not are free to ignore it.

I've cut a couple of bits.
Now you know I agree with you about copyright in general, and people should avoid obviously illegal (assuming it is illegal to download in your country) material.
The problem with sites like archive.org is that they are perfectly legal sites (used by yourself), condoned by the country it is hosted in (which is itself anti-copyright-infringement) so your average man on the street would assume it is legal.

You can no longer tell if a free book is legal or not by publication date because there is so much free (promotional) ebooks that are obviously not PD everywhere (Google Play, Kobo, Amazon etc all have free newly published ebooks), you can blame Cory Doctorow or the Baen Free Library if you like
I have Ice Age and Gravity as free movies given to me by Google Play, I assume they are legit and promo items but I didn't do any kind of check (let alone exhaustive), I have also downloaded free music and ebooks from them, Amazon, Google et all. All legal all legit all currently in copyright, fine, I can (probably) tell if a legitimate site is hosting a lot of infringing titles, but I can promise you my mother can't.

Went on a bit, so if that was TL;DR for anyone, a quick summary.
If the site is legit but has dodgy stuff on it as well, go after the site because your average person - used to so many legal free downloads wont have a clue.

Edit - forgot to ask what method you would use to quickly check if something was a promotional freebie or uploaded illegally?

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by MikeB1972

If the site is legit but has dodgy stuff on it as well, go after the site because your average person - used to so many legal free downloads wont have a clue.

And that, Mike, was precisely the reason for my caution: the fact that many readers of this thread would have been unaware that the site does have this issue. A "heads' up" for people.

[MikeB1972]

Originally Posted by HarryT

And that, Mike, was precisely the reason for my caution: the fact that many readers of this thread would have been unaware that the site does have this issue. A "heads' up" for people.

Ah, in that case you probably came on a bit, err.. strong

[TimW]

Originally Posted by HarryT

darryl, I don't disagree with anything you've said in your post above. Of course nobody is going to end up in court for downloading something from "archive.org". The reason for my warning about the contents of the site was simply to make people aware that it is not always a "safe" site to download from, and that if downloading pirated books is something that you wish to avoid doing (and many people on this forum disagree with piracy), you may wish to check the legitimacy of a book that you find on the site before you download it. If, as some people on this thread have indicated, they feel that this is "not their job", and they don't wish to do so, then that is of course their personal choice to make.

I make no apology, however, for giving the warning about the site: it's a site that I make extensive use of for both personal reading matter and academic research, and I have personally (and one more than one occasion) had quite obviously pirated books appear among the search results returned by the site. Some people may find that warning useful. Those who do not are free to ignore it.

Sometimes the site has illegitimate content. Three or four years ago, I discovered To Kill a Mockingbird available for download. (It was a working copy, I checked.) This was before an authorized digital copy was being sold by HarperCollins. No doubt it was eventually removed. As you've correctly pointed out, that's not a slam against archive.org. It's a reminder that anyone downloading material from it should exercise due diligence to make reasonably sure it's legitimate content. A downloader may get it wrong, but at least (s)he made an effort to confirm the material's legitimacy.

Case in point, even large retailers can make a mistake. On more than one occasion, B&N had illegitimate copies of TKAM for sale. Six years ago, Amazon became embroiled in the 1984 debacle. It happens. The only recourse is to remove it and make amends.

In my case, I deleted the book (TKAM) and purchased the authorized version when it became available.

[HarryT]

I've had Ian Fleming's "James Bond" books offered to me, Tim, while searching for books by a 19th century author who also happened to have the surname of "Fleming".

[darryl]

Originally Posted by HarryT

darryl, I don't disagree with anything you've said in your post above. Of course nobody is going to end up in court for downloading something from "archive.org". The reason for my warning about the contents of the site was simply to make people aware that it is not always a "safe" site to download from, and that if downloading pirated books is something that you wish to avoid doing (and many people on this forum disagree with piracy), you may wish to check the legitimacy of a book that you find on the site before you download it. If, as some people on this thread have indicated, they feel that this is "not their job", and they don't wish to do so, then that is of course their personal choice to make.

I make no apology, however, for giving the warning about the site: it's a site that I make extensive use of for both personal reading matter and academic research, and I have personally (and one more than one occasion) had quite obviously pirated books appear among the search results returned by the site. Some people may find that warning useful. Those who do not are free to ignore it.

Thanks Harry. I don't have any issues with your position as you now state it. I think this thread has been useful in that we now know more about archive.org, and the applicable law in both Australia and the UK.

I also agree that not only many but likely most people on these forums disagree with piracy. Personally, in general I myself think that piracy is morally wrong as a general rule. But there are, at least in my view, arguably exceptions. Legally, of course, I do not recommend that anyone break the law. However, I also think Copyright and other Intellectual Property Laws have become bad laws which often do as much or more harm as they do good. But, as you pointed out earlier, this topic is best left for another thread. I may start one in due course.

[TimW]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I've had Ian Fleming's "James Bond" books offered to me, Tim, while searching for books by a 19th century author who also happened to have the surname of "Fleming".

In the US, if the book was published after 1923, there's no way a free (legitimate) copy could be found on Archive.org. Since Fleming published no books before 1923, all of his books are definitely out-of-bounds. UK is Life+70? Since Fleming died 51 years ago, does that mean his works would enter the public domain in 19 years?

[MikeB1972]

Originally Posted by TimW

In the US, if the book was published after 1923, there's no way a free (legitimate) copy could be found on Archive.org. Since Fleming published no books before 1923, all of his books are definitely out-of-bounds. UK is Life+70? Since Fleming died 51 years ago, does that mean his works would enter the public domain in 19 years?

So, if Cory Doctorow's books were in there you'd think they would be illegitimate?

[TimW]

Originally Posted by MikeB1972

So, if Cory Doctorow's books were in there you'd think they would be illegitimate?

Doctorow's books published under a creative commons license would allow for free distribution on Archive.org. The only restriction is that people aren't permitted to copy them for resale. The overwhelming majority of books are published with a far more restrictive copyright.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by TimW

In the US, if the book was published after 1923, there's no way a free (legitimate) copy could be found on Archive.org. Since Fleming published no books before 1923, all of his books are definitely out-of-bounds. UK is Life+70? Since Fleming died 51 years ago, does that mean his works would enter the public domain in 19 years?

Ian Fleming's books are (as of this year) in the "Life+50" public domain (eg they're now in the public domain in Canada). As you rightly say, they will enter the public domain in countries with a "life+70" copyright law in another 19 years.

[gweeks]

deleted. Should finish reading the thread before replying.

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by TimW

In the US, if the book was published after 1923, there's no way a free (legitimate) copy could be found on Archive.org. Since Fleming published no books before 1923, all of his books are definitely out-of-bounds. UK is Life+70? Since Fleming died 51 years ago, does that mean his works would enter the public domain in 19 years?

Your contention that "In the US, if the book was published after 1923, there's no way a free (legitimate) copy could be found on Archive.org" is absolutely not true. See the summary information on copyright terms here.

While it's true that everything published before 1923 is clearly in the public domain, it is not true that anything published after that date is protected.

Many of Ian Fleming's books were published at the time when copyright in the U.S. was subject to renewal requirements. If any copyrights were not renewed, the books are in the public domain.