Temporary National Emergency Library to close 2 weeks early
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Temporary National Emergency Library to close 2 weeks early
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Re: Temporary National Emergency Library to close 2 weeks early
#2Also discussed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23485182
Re: Temporary National Emergency Library to close 2 weeks early
#3Figuring out how to move projects like IA to a configuration where they are beyond the reach of the state, but still universally accessible, is one of the most important open issues of the internet today.
Re: Temporary National Emergency Library to close 2 weeks early
#4Lawyers...
Re: Temporary National Emergency Library to close 2 weeks early
#5Figuring out how to move projects like IA to a configuration where they are beyond the reach of the state, but still universally accessible, is one of the most important open issues of the internet today.
Which also means they would be beyond the protection of a state and its laws. That doesn't strike me as an obviously preferable situation.
Nothing that needs to be accessed via a network and requires human interaction is really truly beyond the reach of nation states. Just because you're on an offshore platform in the North Sea [1] doesn't mean you're not exposed to having your network and supply lines cut off at a minimum.,
Re: Temporary National Emergency Library to close 2 weeks early
#6Lawyers...
You realise that 'lawyers' aren't a vigilante group wondering around duelling in court those they see fit?
Re: Temporary National Emergency Library to close 2 weeks early
#7Re: Temporary National Emergency Library to close 2 weeks early
#8> We moved up our schedule because, last Monday, four commercial publishers chose to sue Internet Archive during a global pandemic.
Did this come as a surprise? Did Internet Archive not expect publishers to sue?
The Archive launched the emergency library during a global pandemic. Lots of people, myself included, said that this was a risky move because they would obviously get sued and it would put not only the Archive but the existing idea of Controlled Digital Lending - which hasn't been clearly established as legal in caselaw - at risk.
They're trying to imply that the publishers are somehow bad people for suing in a pandemic, and sure, the publishers may very well be bad people in general, but IA launched this effort on the grounds that, more or less, the law doesn't matter any more in a pandemic.
> However, this lawsuit is not just about the temporary National Emergency Library. The complaint attacks the concept of any library owning and lending digital books, challenging the very idea of what a library is in the digital world.
That's precisely why we said they shouldn't have done this.
Controlled Digital Lending matches the existing operations of a physical library - there is one paid physical copy per loaned title. Publishers and authors alike like physical libraries because when more people check out books from libraries, more copies get purchased. It stands to reason that they shouldn't mind digital libraries that follow the same principle.
Internet Archive said, the same legal analysis that makes Controlled Digital Lending permissible also makes uncontrolled lending permissible when we decide the world needs it. We can give people unlimited electronic copies of books for one physical copy. The more people who read our books, the fewer purchases happen.
That challenges the very idea of what a library is in the digital world - it breaks the balance that has historically governed how physical libraries work. If I go to my local library and the librarian says "Actually don't bother checking this out, I'll just photocopy the whole book for you and you can keep it," I'm not sure I'd call that a library. It's a useful service for me, of course, at least provided I figure out some way to make sure that the people who write the books I want to read keep getting paid, but it's now something entirely different from a library.
Re: Temporary National Emergency Library to close 2 weeks early
#9Figuring out how to move projects like IA to a configuration where they are beyond the reach of the state, but still universally accessible, is one of the most important open issues of the internet today.
> The Archive has data centers in three Californian cities: San Francisco, Redwood City, and Richmond. To prevent losing the data in case of e.g. a natural disaster, the Archive attempts to create copies of (parts of) the collection at more distant locations, currently including the Bibliotheca Alexandrina[notes 5] in Egypt and a facility in Amsterdam.[8] The Archive is a member of the International Internet Preservation Consortium[9] and was officially designated as a library by the state of California in 2007.[notes 6]
Maybe start with more funding to have copies in more countries.
Re: Temporary National Emergency Library to close 2 weeks early
#10Figuring out how to move projects like IA to a configuration where they are beyond the reach of the state, but still universally accessible, is one of the most important open issues of the internet today.
Since we'd be moving from legal protection to technical protection, would we also figure out some technical means whereby this would be accessible by Internet Archive only? Or would all of us be given a way to publish anything we want in a way that makes it accessible to the whole world but no government can impede? Would that then include sealed court records, intimate photos, performance reviews, credit card numbers, and so forth?