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Comment by thimabi | Hacker News Reader

At this point, the Internet Archive should consider simply moving to another jurisdiction. Decisions like this are a shame, because they hinder a proper way to deal with piracy.

Physical libraries compete with book sales too, but of course libraries are lawful. Why should digital libraries be treated differently? Because there are ways to circumvent DRM on Internet Archive books? Well, there are ways to bypass DRM on sold ebooks, too.

Perhaps IA’s greatest mistake was to allow unrestricted lending during the pandemic. If it had kept its original mission, maybe things would not have ended up like this.

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> consider simply moving to another jurisdiction

1) It's not "simply"

2) Moving to another jurisdiction makes things harder, not easier. You'd have to move all the servers and you'd lose almost all easy ways of receiving funds and donations. Ask websites on the brink of legality how much fun payment processing is (adult, piracy, IPTV providers,...).

Considering that the opportunity cost for not switching jurisdictions seems to be no longer being in that particular business, any obstacles along the way seem minor in comparison.

>At this point, the Internet Archive should consider simply moving to another jurisdiction.

Except international copyright treaties exist, which makes copyright enforcement effectively extraterritorial.

That truly depends on the jurisdiction. International treaties are not generally above a country’s constitution, and there are several countries where the right to education and to access literary works might take precedence over copyright.

I’m not saying copyright is not enforced internationally; rather, IA’s perspective on copyright might be viewed more favorably in other countries.

Digital libraries are treated differently because they transmit the book by copying it from one machine to another, physical libraries transmit the book by handing it to you without making any copies, and copyright law restricts copying. DRM doesn't have anything to do with this, the fact that you use the word 'library' to describe the former doesn't have anything to do with this, and the fact that IA didn't make a new copy unless the recipient of the old one had deleted it doesn't have anything to do with this: unlicensed copying outside of fair use is copyright infringement. The remedy for feeling that this is unfair is calling your congressman to change copyright law, not violating it on purpose and then complaining when you get sued.

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