Tag: fair use

OCLC Says ‘What Is Known Must Be Shared,’ But Is Suing Anna’s Archive For Sharing Knowledge

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)
How do you think I get most of my Ebooks?! 😉

Back in March, Walled Culture wrote about the terrible job that academic publishers are doing in terms of creating backups of the articles they publish.  We also mentioned there two large-scale archives that are trying to help, Sci-Hub and Anna’s Archive.  Legal action by publishers against the former seems to have led to a halt to new items being added to its collection.  This has resulted in the rise of Anna’s Archive as the main large-scale archive of academic papers and other material.  It has also led to a lawsuit against the site, as TorrentFreak reports.  The legal move is by the non-profit OCLC, which was originally the Ohio College Library Center, then became the Online Computer Library Center, and is now simply OCLC.  It describes itself as follows:

OCLC Says ‘What Is Known Must Be Shared,’ But Is Suing Anna’s Archive For Sharing Knowledge

Related:

Anna’s Archive

Alternative site 1

Alternative site 2

Note: I’m not a fan of copyright. Any information inside my documents is free to use. If it’s an article or a blog post that I’ve written, please ask for my permission before using it.

Congress’ Best Idea to Save Local Journalism Would Actually Hurt It + Some Temporary Good News

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Congress’ Best Idea to Save Local Journalism Would Actually Hurt It

Meta reported $114.93 million in ad revenue in 2021, whereas Google reported $209 billion. But determining how much of that publishers should get is difficult—and the JCPA doesn’t even try. One version of the JCPA proposed platforms and publishers negotiate an agreed-to payment, and if they couldn’t come to a consensus, they’d enter forced-arbitration with no formula for what is fair. But whether the money would end up being vast or a modest bump to the bottom line, not every publication stands to benefit if the JCPA becomes law. While the JCPA’s alliances allow for partnerships, exclusionary elements of the JCPA would encourage big brands to unite selectively at the expense of smaller ones and shut out niche independent journalistic outlets altogether.

Related:

JCPA Update: The Dangerous Link Tax That Still Won’t Save Local Journalism

The original text of the JCPA already authorized print media companies to form one or several cartels and collectively bargain with the largest online platforms—defined in terms that single out Facebook and Google. Although the bill hinted at these news cartels being able to demand payment for merely linking to their content, or hosting snippets like the results you get from Google News, the mechanism by which they would be paid was left vague. However, the fact that the bill allowed news companies to withhold content strongly suggested a claim to some sort of property right, or ancillary copyright, that the targeted platforms would owe for hosting links and snippets.

Some Temporary Good News: None Of The Really Bad Internet Bills Seem To Have Made It Into The NDAA

This would also hurt independent media and bloggers (you would have to pay a ‘link tax’ to corporate media for linking to their articles—see below image)! So far, it hasn’t passed (it was attached to the NDAA) but there’s still the omnibus spending bill and the next session of Congress!

Source.