Do you have a link to Doctorow's argument? On its face, this is incredibly stupid--for most economies, the cost of losing a FTA is well above any of the tariff levels being discussed.
He's serious in a techno-accelerationist manner, specifically around anticircumvention laws.
That said, knowing the strength of the MT in TMT within the EU, it's more of an idealistic dream than a reality.
So not serious as a policy proposal but serious for playing to his base. Got it. Disappointing coming from him. But I guess we all have to tend to our power.
> Well, they're saying that they won't take our coffee unless we give them anticircumvention. And I'm sorry, but we just can't lose the US coffee market. Our economy would collapse. So we're going to give them anticircumvention. I'm really sorry."
> That's it. That's why every government in the world allowed US Big Tech companies to declare open season on their people's private data and ready cash.
> The alternative was tariffs. Well, I don't know if you've heard, but we've got tariffs now!
Comparing having any tariff to having your house burned down is pretending that it's not possible just to have your barn burned down. Or to have a window painted over. Or to have to trim the branches on your trees. Which ask is going to push you to the point where you give up your coffee industry? Nah, let's pretend not to know that all of this can be quantified, and that Hungary has any real leverage over the US on its own.
If the US is asking too much from Hungary, Hungary can go to China or India - but China or India can ask for anything marginally less than what the US asked for, or can even agree with the US to ask for exactly what the US asked for. And Europe has cut itself off from Russian resources for ideological reasons, so it can't even take advantage of the fact that Russia's market for its resources is somewhat limited.
He's suffering from applause addiction. China can do what they want because they are not a dependency of the US. Europe is. If anything, with all of his invective about Orban (because Orban is ideologically unpleasant), Hungary is in a better position than Europe as a whole because the Orban government doesn't have the self-destructive Russophobia that the rest of Europe does. Hungary can choose at any time whether to be in Europe or to rely on Russia, and China. That's more leverage than Europe has.
Is there a physical world analogy for what you’re describing in terms of burning/not burning?
Under this regime, the US is eventually going to develop into something similar to Japan under Sakoku - a nonfactor in international trade, due to a self-imposed embargo.
Of course it'll hurt former US trade partners (and the US itself even more!). But it's coming either way, whether we suck up to Americans or not. With that in mind, we might as well just do what we want since the US is for some reason voluntarily giving up power over us.
And that would be a good reason for tearing up a FTA.
It would cost Europeans more, financially, than the tariffs. Probably tip the EU into a recession without significant deficit spending and ECB intervention. But I think it’s the sort of thing that’s geostrategically worth threatening if your population and political structure lets you credibly do so.
(Note: shredding trade deals to the point that IP stops mattering != ratifying the new thing.)
States within the EU may also have to make peace with the need to expanding ties with regional powers like Israel, KSA, UAE, Egypt, etc in a strategic instead of tactical framework.
IK the latter is in the pipeline, the former less so due to electoral risks.
Dead wrong. I’m a risk taker. I wanted to see Doctorow’s argument because I respect him and would love if the numbers allowed for constraining Washington.
Dismissing a stupid proposal for being wrong isn’t rejecting solutions in general. In this case, it’s pointing out that Europe escalating a trade war for copyright reform doesn’t make a lot of sense unless you’re rallying folks to that cause.
The US has been escalating non-stop for a year. This would be Europe responding for once. Constraining Washington is in their interest as Washington is a malign actor now.
Shredding a trade agreement outright is absolutely an escalation relative to tariffs. It’s both more comprehensive and includes raising tariffs.
> The US has been escalating non-stop for a year. This would be Europe responding for once
Sure. By escalating.
> Constraining Washington is in their interest
Agree. But there are smart and stupid ways to do it. It’s in America’s interest to constrain China. Nuking its own oil production to raise oil prices, as an extreme example, would be a stupid way to do it. Ends not justifying the means is more than just a moral argument.
"WE can dishonor any part of any agreement but YOU have to fulfill all of your obligations according to our interpretation and under our direction... OR ELSE"
I don't know if these are real people or bots but I pity them for their lack of basic reasoning abilities.
Once one side starts removing obligations from themselves they will never stop, especially if the other side keeps being in compliance, it's just an incredible opportunity to corner the compliant side and drain it completely... and then it'll experience the "OR ELSE" part anyway but at the most damaging time and in its worst form.
There's only one choice when an agreement is broken - act as if it never existed while positioning yourself for a fair renegotiation.
What “power” does this blogger/sci-fi writer have? Who is “his base”? What responsibility to affect meaningful trade regulation did he abdicate when he said a thing you didn’t agree with?
Folks whose pet issue is IP reform, presumably. If that’s your drum, beat it. But it’s good context for anyone tuning in that it’s going to be your beat.
> What responsibility to affect meaningful trade regulation did he abdicate
What are you talking about? Where was this responsibility suggested?
All I did was point out hyperbole for what it is. Doctorow is speaking metaphorically. He isn’t literally suggesting tearing up trade agreements over IP because he isn’t an idiot.
Disappointing in particular to see the court validate a ToS "browsewrap agreement", admitting that OCLC provided no evidence that Anna's Archive was aware of the agreement, but still finding the fact that "Defendant is a sophisticated party that scraped data from Plaintiffs website daily" as sufficient to bind them to it.
It's only a default judgement (Anna's Archive was a no-show in court), so I'd assume not. Since there were no lawyers arguing the defense side, the judge would have more or less rubber-stamped everything the plaintiff argued, without careful analysis.
Given the timing, I assumed it was Spotify trying to prevent the release of their dataset but apparently not.
But yeah I agree that the audio file itself probably isn't super important to keep secret. After all, it's not that hard to find cd rips or at worst, a youtube version to download.
The best you can hope for is something like the Great Firewall, which only works on normies.
Seriously?
Anna's Archive hosts ebooks and scholarly journal articles.
Not the kind of stuff your average Instagram Influencer (TM) is into.
I'd be utterly shocked if more than 1% of the population had ever used Anna's Archive. This isn't like Hollywood movie torrenting sites or IPTV sports streaming piracy. It's a long way from mainstream.
If you copy ebooks to a USB and put it at the summit of a tall mountain, for anyone to take, the authorities and "rights"holders will not give a damn. Convenience and scale matters, and that is why Anna's Archive is a target.
What? It's one page with a bunch of very clear options.
> At first glance it looks like it's trying to push a subscription on you...
On the one hand, fair. On the other hand, this is prominently displayed on the donation page:
Be aware that while the memberships on this page are “per month”, they are one-time donations (non-recurring). See the Donation FAQ.
Do memberships automatically renew?
Memberships do not automatically renew. You can join for as long or short as you want.
> I found no convenient single-link crypto donate button where I could just send some money whenever I want.
From their Donation FAQ:
Can I make a donation without becoming a member?
Sure thing. We accept donations of any amount on this Monero (XMR) address: 88gS7a8aHj5EYhCfYnkhEmYXX3MtR35r3YhWdWXwGLyS4fkXYjkupcif6RY5oj9xkNR8VVmoRXh1kQKQrZBRRc8PHLWMgUR.I donate in 3 or 6 months chunks typically, if I forget, I don't get hassled to resubscribe or anything (nor could they even contact me for any reason), I just lose those bonus download benefits until I do it again. I could also generate a new key each time but it's convenient keeping the same one in my password manager so I like the way they do it now, basically works just like LWN.net.
b) kek.
I don't see how that impacts anyone but Anna's Archive. Arguably ISPs distribute the data, but how are registrars implicated?
I'm thinking it should be distributed using physical media given it's size. A 20 volume encyclopedia on hard drives? We used to do this when the internet was too slow back in the day. I've had friends give me anything from pirated encyclopedias to MSDN docs on CDs. if enough people have enough of the volumes, they could seed and keep it going. But if only a handful of people have the actual data, it's a matter of time before it's taken offline for good.
That is the kind of piracy that goes under the radar.
qingcharles•2w ago
Just lawyers trying to justify their existence.
kingleopold•2w ago
mmooss•2w ago
rf15•2w ago
skywal_l•2w ago
RobotToaster•2w ago
rahimnathwani•2w ago
RobotToaster•2w ago
hopelite•2w ago
I can tell you from direct contact with many of these “library organizations” that they are all totally corrupted. All you have to do is accept that premise just for a second and you will realize that it causes all the contradictions to explain themselves.
And all the corruption originates in the local/state library level, the government funding of libraries.
When there is a trough of government spending guaranteed, of course the scoundrels come out to feast, amidst a barrage of emotionally manipulative arguments narratives, usually centered around helping children.
Reality is that the whole library sector is an industry and it’s extremely corrupt, but that’s how the directors and executives like it, as they get rich from those public funds people are forced to pay against their will… for the children, of course.
jgerrish•2w ago
Their kids section is always busy.
They provide more than just books to patrons, one of their projects provides rentable backpacks with food making kits:
(Sorry about the Facebook link)
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=789082493879103&vanity=IRS...
Cooking together provides an educational and bonding opportunity for kids and caretakers, and nutrition is important. Making it easier is a win to me.
We can be annoyed at the actions against Anna's and also celebrate OCLC members and physical libraries.
I appreciate I'm just replying to a off-hand comment, so I'm sorry for the next part.
I will be battling my family for decades about IP and how they are relying on it instead of first mover advantage and the IQ we had today and yesterday. And how it changes cultural values around sharing. It's not good. I know we probably agree on that, so that part isn't directed at you, just the future.
mmooss•2w ago
> We can be annoyed at the actions against Anna's and also celebrate OCLC members and physical libraries.
I didn't mean to say otherwise. And I think 'annoyed' is insufficient for anyone who can influence OCLC. Too much is at stake to be bystanders.
Free and unlimited distribution doesn't need to be the answer, but look what happened to the Internet Archive's lending library, for example. There are other solutions too, such as micropayments. Shutting down online access to books is immoral and damaging to society, the economy, and the people of the world.
ls612•2w ago