A small change in the copyright law would fix this problem. Something like:

If a company is scanning material protected by copyright, it has to send a digital copy of the scanned material to Library of Congress within 5 working days.

▲ infecto 10 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Puts the burden on government to store what is probably 90% worthless material.

Copyright should really be amended so that once out of print and a grace period it’s free use. I am probably more of an anarchist in this regard. Similar to my belief that anyone should be able to ingest any data you put online, once a book is no longer being print it should be able to be used for commercial or personal use for free. Similar to a generic drugs.

There is far too much garbage that gets published, let the collective hive mind figure out what is valuable.

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ceasesurthinko 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

You don't need a massive government program for this.

Just post on r/DataHoarder: "Free 16TB NVMe SSD to anyone who indexes and mirrors the entire out-of-print 20th-century physical archive." The problem would be solved by next Tuesday. With probably 10x redundancy and people willing to do it for free for fun.

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pessimizer 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> Puts the burden on government to store what is probably 90% worthless material.

That's what governments are for.

	▲	shagie 6 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		That's what governments already do. https://www.copyright.gov/mandatory/ > All works under copyright protection that are published in the United States are subject to the mandatory deposit provision of the Copyright Act (section 407 of Title 17). > This law requires two copies of each work published in the United States be deposited with the Copyright Office within three months of publication. Works deposited under this law are for the use of the Library of Congress. Usually, deposited copies must be the “best edition” of the work, which means they must conform to the Library of Congress’s preferred specifications. > Mandatory deposit applies to any work published in the United States. This requirement does not apply to works first published in a foreign country until they are published in the United States. Copyright registration is optional, but it provides additional legal benefits and fulfills the mandatory deposit requirement with the submission of the required copies.
	▲	infecto 9 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Since we are talking about a US perspective do you have evidence that backs this up? It just comes across as an empty statement. The government is the will of the people and I personally like the idea of fixing copyright instead of making the government store how to use windows 95 books. Sure some governments and opinions would say so but you’re making a statement of zero impact. Fix the underlying copyright laws don’t create more rules.

▲ brookst 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Wait, so the library of congress is suddenly responsible for probably petabytes a day of incoming scans? To what end? Do they have to index it and make it available? Do they have to check the accuracy and integrity of the scans?

How does this help anything, except create more work to throw in the trash?

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ro_sharp 10 hours ago | parent | next [-]

This is already required for new books published in the US, and has been for more than one hundred years.

It’s called “mandatory deposit”

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toast0 5 hours ago | parent [-]

Case law seems to be that mandatory deposit is unconstitutional, fwiw.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valancourt_Books_v._Garland

	▲	shagie 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		That revolves around print on demand for books that are out of copyright or where the copyright has been abandoned. > Background Valancourt Books is a print-on-demand independent publishing house specializing in rare and out-of-print books. Valancourt had not registered its books for copyright as the Library of Congress already had original-edition copies of the books Valancourt republishes and any new material in its publications was limited to notes and introductions. If you want a physical copy of The Sorrows of Satan, you can buy it from them. Their argument is that the Library of Congress already has a copy of the book ( https://search.catalog.loc.gov/instances/a0f8fcfe-a255-55d2-... ) and having them deposit it again would be unnecessary. > The Copyright Office has stated that it would modify the language of its deposit demand letters and withdraw its demand for copies if the Copyright Office was notified of the copyright's abandonment. > Several legislative changes have been proposed to address all elements of the case: changes to Section 407 to tie some legal benefit to the deposit, monetary compensation to copyright holders for depositing books, and regulation for a simple and costless method of copyright abandonment. That doesn't change that if you were to publish a book today (or for that matter, have published a book in the past 100 years in the US), you are required to deposit a copy of the book with the Library of Congress.

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jjkaczor 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Actually - most jurisdictions that issue a publisher a unique root ISBN number have a stipulation that anything new published using that number must have a copy sent to them.

Looked into this a decade ago for publishing eBooks via my personal corp when eReaders and ePub were starting to hit big in the mainstream.

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Semkas 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

https://www.google.com/search?q=how+many+books+are+published... https://www.google.com/search?q=how+many+megabytes+average+b... https://www.google.com/search?q=what+is+3+megabytes+times+2....

▲ ndriscoll 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Wrong end of the pipeline; we should instead demand digital copies of media be sent to the Library of Congress in order to obtain copyright, along with a registration fee to pay for indefinite storage and other costs. Registration should be mandatory if you want copyright. For things like books where a machine readable text format existed, it should be mandatory to include (so no requiring OCR). Access to the archive should be available for research use (including ML training) at cost.

▲ shagie 6 hours ago | parent [-]

That's already the case, though the "digital rather than physical" as a preference could be something that legislation would improve.

https://www.copyright.gov/mandatory/

> All works under copyright protection that are published in the United States are subject to the mandatory deposit provision of the Copyright Act (section 407 of Title 17).

> This law requires two copies of each work published in the United States be deposited with the Copyright Office within three months of publication. Works deposited under this law are for the use of the Library of Congress. Usually, deposited copies must be the “best edition” of the work, which means they must conform to the Library of Congress’s preferred specifications.

----

> Acceptable Formats for Deposit of Electronic Works

> The deposit of electronic works is arranged with the Acquisitions & Deposits division.

> For electronic-only works, submit the best edition in accordance with the formats listed in the “Electronic-Only Works Published in the United States and Available Only Online” section of the Best Edition Statement (PDF, 135 KB).

> For works subject to a grant of special relief, unless otherwise specified, the Library will accept an appropriate “preferred” format listed on the Library of Congress Recommended Formats Statement. Such files must contain no measures (such as digital rights management [DRM] technologies or encryption) that control access to or prevent use of the digital work.

> For more information about electronic deposit, see the above FAQ “When can I make an electronic deposit of a work?”

---

> When can I make an electronic deposit of a work?

> Works may be deposited in a physical format in accordance with the Best Edition Statement, which can be found in Best Edition of Published Copyrighted Works for the Collections of the Library of Congress (Circular 7B) (PDF, 135 KB).

> Works may be deposited electronically in certain circumstances:

> The Copyright Office issues a written demand for an electronic-only book or serial. If your work is published only online and the Office sends you a written demand for mandatory deposit of the work, you must deposit the work electronically.

> The Copyright Office offers you electronic deposit as an alternative to depositing a physical copy of the work. If you receive a letter offering special relief to deposit a work in an electronic format instead of sending physical copies, follow the instructions in the letter or agreement.

---

https://www.loc.gov/preservation/resources/rfs/

https://www.loc.gov/preservation/resources/rfs/text.html

▲ ndriscoll 5 hours ago | parent [-]

It is not. We currently give ~infinite copyright automatically for nothing in return:

> Neither the deposit requirements of this subsection nor the acquisition provisions of subsection (e) are conditions of copyright protection.

https://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap4.html#407

▲ shagie 5 hours ago | parent [-]

Publishing of copyrighted material requires that it be deposited with the Library of Congress.

▲ ndriscoll 5 hours ago | parent [-]

Right, that's why I said we should make copyright require deposit and registration (like it used to). Publish your work without its copyright ID for people to use to reference the LoC database? It is now public domain.

▲ shagie 4 hours ago | parent [-]

That would require a renegotiation of the TRIPS Agreement and the Berne Convention with the rest of the countries of the WTO.

https://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/trips_e/ta_docs_e/modul...

    (iii) Automatic protection A key feature of the Berne Convention, and thus also of the TRIPS Agreement, is that copyright protection - unlike most other forms of IPRs - may not be subject to any formality of registration, deposit, or the like. This principle is contained in Article 5(2) of the Berne Convention, that has been incorporated into the TRIPS Agreement.

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ndriscoll 4 hours ago | parent [-]

So? Of all the aggressive things the US forces upon the world (or just unilaterally does, ignoring agreements), undoing its own bad policy would be a drop in the bucket, and would be doing some good for once. I'm sure if we just did it, others would respond tit-for-tat and require registration of our material, and then mission accomplished.

(And at the end of the day, sovereign people are never required to do anything. The concept of international law is an oxymoron)

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shagie 4 hours ago | parent [-]

I don't believe it is a bad policy that copyright on anything that is copyrightable is automatic (I don't need to register this comment with the Library of Congress).

... And it would require renegotiating the treaty with all of these countries so that AI training is easier. https://www.wipo.int/wipolex/en/treaties/parties/231

... Or it would require the US to withdraw from the WTO and pass new laws for how copyright works.

I don't believe that neither the renegotiation nor the withdrawal would be something that would be done.

... And I believe that automatic copyright (as has been part of the Berne Convention since 1886) is a good thing.

	▲	ndriscoll 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		It's not to make AI training easier; AI training is already happening. It's perfectly easy for them. It's to preserve our heritage and knowledge. Automatic copyright is what causes information to be lost. I don't suppose you're going to submit your comment to LoC or otherwise keep it available for 70 years after you die? Does everyone remember to submit their code they publish? We're not losing books because of AI companies. We already lose them because the law makes it so only groups like Anna's Archive can save them.

▲ brainwad 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The Library of Congress already has a copy of every book published in the US. How would this help?

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toast0 8 hours ago | parent [-]

If the Library of Congress has a digital copy, it would be easier for them to distribute the work after the copyright of the work expires. That would be a public benefit.

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bhelkey 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> it would be easier for them to distribute the work after the copyright of the work expires

Copyright does not expire for a very long time. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone was released ~30 years ago in 1997. It remains protected for the duration of the life of the author (J.K. Rowling) plus 70 years.

Given actuarial tables from the UK[1], this works out to be around ~95 years from now (~2120).

[1] https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsde...

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toast0 5 hours ago | parent [-]

Certainly. But the rare books under discussion are closer to the end of their life and less likely to have been already digitized.

The library of congress does distribute some digitized works that are out of copyright. And it does digitize some works for archival and distribution, but having additional works digitized for (eventual) public use could be nice.

	▲	bhelkey 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> But the rare books under discussion are closer to the end of their life and less likely to have been already digitized. It is not at all clear that this is true. The number of books published every year is growing rapidly. According to Bowker the number of books published in the US every year has increased ~15x in the past two decades [1]. Because of this, I suspect that the median age of the books we are discussing is below 30 years. [1] https://www.writercosmos.com/blog/how-many-books-published-p...

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merely-unlikely 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

In theory the Library of Congress could "lend out" digital copies like some library systems do. This would be especially helpful for rare books since it is less likely multiple people would want the same book concurrently.

▲ bell-cot 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

IANAL, but I recall copyright law being far too complex for any easy Protected/Not Protected test to exist.

▲ starkd 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

So now the Library of Congress has to manage all these submissions whenever someone scans something? How do you even go about enforcing such a thing?

▲ Upvoter33 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I love this idea. At least make them turn it into some form of a public good.