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If we lose the Internet Archive, we’re screwed

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Re: If we lose the Internet Archive, we’re screwed

#111

Post by Ygg2 »

Fr3ck wrote: post #30
bruce511 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> I wonder if there needs to be a cultural equivalent, where a repository of digital or physical artifacts is "too big to fail" because of the negative cultural impact their failure would have. You can wonder all you like, and call me a cynic, but the US runs on money not culture. The American identity is built on money and wealth and excess, not on anything you might describe as "culture". The IA would not "fail" i…

The USA's biggest export is our culture...like it or not. Think of movies, music, etc. Some of it is intangible.

I fundamentally disagree. Not US citizen, but what US seems to be exporting most are dollars. Most world trade is done with dollars.

They give dollars and get resources and services.

Re: If we lose the Internet Archive, we’re screwed

#112

Post by nmstoker »

Are there any efforts to boycott the publishers pushing this?

I happen to think they're technically correct with the IA in the wrong here, but even so I think they should back down - they can take a big picture view that it's hardly dealt them a serious blow, it was the pandemic and the IA serves a useful purpose for society (though I suspect many publishers besides more enlightened ones would disagree with that due to self-interest!)

Re: If we lose the Internet Archive, we’re screwed

#113

Post by legitimayzer »

causi wrote: post #19

which made copyrighted books available for free during the COVID-19 pandemic. The publishers behind the lawsuit alleged that this entailed copyright infringement. Along with everybody with two brain cells to rub together. We all screamed "Hey, you idiots are going to ruin everything if you act like the pandemic has magically nullified the concept of copyright" and they fucking did it anyway, and now exactly what we s…

> Controlled digital lending had a chance of getting off the ground.

sure, it may have worked, but fuck me if that's what we get. controlled digital lending means we throw away[1] the great advantage brought by digital technology.

controlled digital lending is a very stupid thing to do. I saw megaupload. it showed us all that we can all share it all; we just don't seem to want to, or rather, the American government pursued them into extinction.

[1] looking at this even more closely, it's not that this 'digital advantage' is wasted, it is merely captured by authoritative powers who only understand markets, trade, and exclusive properties (exclusive due to being physical/material in nature unlike digital assets). e.g. Microsoft's billionaire business is made from capturing this digital boon as I called it.

Re: If we lose the Internet Archive, we’re screwed

#114

Post by 999900000999 »

coldpie wrote: post #24
jsnell wrote: post #7

The title implies that losing this lawsuit is threatening the existence of the Internet Archive. Is that really the case? If it is true, then maybe IA should be run by somebody with better judgement. This was a project with a massive chance of failure (how could anyone think that this wasn't just blatantly infringing?) and a low payoff. If it's also an existential risk, then wtf are they doing running it?

> If it is true, then maybe IA should be run by somebody with better judgement. I'm skeptical that you even get the IA without someone like these folks running it. Imagine you're the type of crazy person who starts and runs the IA, the pandemic starts and libraries and schools shut down, and there's a big button in front of you saying "give people access to knowledge that was just removed from them". I dunno man, I c…

Ehh.

I'm not really buying the Robinhood theory. This feels like some techies thinking their above the law and getting a reality check.

It's not like actual libraries don't offer digital lending. You might need to wait a week for Gane of Thrones, but it'll be OK.

IA decided the world was unfair and with a bit of arrogance decided to 'correct' it. Let's hope IA is able to just stop lending books and still exist.

Re: If we lose the Internet Archive, we’re screwed

#115

Post by carapace »

tristor wrote: post #56

Frankly, what the IA did here is absolutely the right thing. Copyright in the US is horribly fundamentally broken, and the idea that factual information about our history and world should not be referenceable and accessible for free is a pretty heinous one. Information wants to be free, and the work that IA did for "digital lending" during the pandemic was an essential move in the direction of ensuring that people ca…

> Copyright in the US is horribly fundamentally broken, and the idea that factual information about our history and world should not be referenceable and accessible for free is a pretty heinous one.

I (mostly) agree with you, but remember the rest of the quote, "Information wants to be free, information wants to be expensive."

> What is considered the earliest recorded occurrence of the expression was at the first Hackers Conference in 1984, although the video recording of the conversation shows that what Brand actually said is slightly different. Brand told Steve Wozniak:

>> On the one hand you have—the point you’re making Woz—is that information sort of wants to be expensive because it is so valuable—the right information in the right place just changes your life. On the other hand, information almost wants to be free because the costs of getting it out is getting lower and lower all of the time. So you have these two things fighting against each other.[3]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_wants_to_be_free

Re: If we lose the Internet Archive, we’re screwed

#116

Post by Spooky23 »

Xelynega wrote: post #49
causi wrote: post #19

which made copyrighted books available for free during the COVID-19 pandemic. The publishers behind the lawsuit alleged that this entailed copyright infringement. Along with everybody with two brain cells to rub together. We all screamed "Hey, you idiots are going to ruin everything if you act like the pandemic has magically nullified the concept of copyright" and they fucking did it anyway, and now exactly what we s…

They're not in court for the emergency library. They're in court for the 1-1 CDL lending they did. I'm tired of seeing this "well IA shouldn't have done the emergency library" line. Do you honestly believe the only reason publishers went after IA is the emergency library? I think this would have happened eventually, so pointing to the emergency library does nothing but tell everyone that you were right all along. The…

The “emergency library” was a gift on a silver platter for the publishers. It was a reckless and stupid action that made the worst case scenario that the publishers wouldn’t have been taken seriously about a reality.

Obviously the 1-1 lending was an issue to the publishers, but higher risk from a litigation perspective.

Re: If we lose the Internet Archive, we’re screwed

#117

Post by tablespoon »

crazygringo wrote: post #90
tablespoon wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I know the government has viewed certain companies as "too big to fail," because of the negative financial impact we would experience if they were to do so. > I wonder if there needs to be a cultural equivalent, where a repository of digital or physical artifacts is "too big to fail" because of the negative cultural impact their failure would have. If there is, the Internet Archive isn't it. Yeah, it's super import…

> certain weird technology and library subcultures, but few people outside of them would even notice it if disappeared It's pretty much indispensible to anybody who's a researcher. It's very frequent that you're tracking down citations to webpages that don't exist anymore, and the IA is the only way to find sources. Not to mention that it's also often the only way to quickly get access to non-bestseller books that ar…

> It's not weird or a subculture unless you think those labels apply to researchers. And there are a lot of researchers out there, across academics, non-fiction authors, and journalists.

I do think the label applies to researchers. And except for the case of "tracking down citations to webpages that don't exist anymore," researchers can continue to do all those things using traditional methods (which may be a harder, but still easy enough, especially if it's your job).

Re: If we lose the Internet Archive, we’re screwed

#118

Post by samstave »

We need a few many copies of the IA in the Seed Vault and have it constantly uploaded... We should also have a perma-satellite in LEO that can be streamed to... AND, while we are thinking out space, get a digital/physical seed vault on the moon - and can anything survive in the current Mars atmosphere? Send seed bombs to Mars and see what sticks? I mean, we appear to be hell-bent on terra farming Mars, so we may as well just throw seeds at it.

https://scienceagri.com/16-most-important-plant-species-in-t...

I would add bamboo to that list, though.

Re: If we lose the Internet Archive, we’re screwed

#119

Post by jrmg »

causi wrote: post #102
jrmg wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Koeltl's current ruling applies in particular to lending without the waitlist restriction is legal. CDL in general isn't yet ruled on. That’s not the case. The decision is clearly written, and clearly about CDL. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.53...

Ok, that appears correct. Still, the NEL prompted the suits in the first place and, among other things, proved that when the IA says it cares about the legal rights of publishers and authors it is lying. That's tremendously influential. If CDL had more years to become a regular thing that a significant fraction of people use, it would've had a much better chance in court.

Yeah, I agree with that. I’m not sure it would really have changed the opinion of the court though.

Personally I’d much rather the money being spent on this was spent on a campaign to change copyright law to allow things like CDL rather than implausibly shoehorning what they want to do into the crevices of the current law. It’s an uphill battle, but one that I think might be more likely to succeed in the very long term.

Re: If we lose the Internet Archive, we’re screwed

#120

Post by nitwit005 »

netr0ute wrote: post #57
tablespoon wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> You can wonder all you like, and call me a cynic, but the US runs on money not culture. The American identity is built on money and wealth and excess, not on anything you might describe as "culture". > The USA's biggest export is our culture...like it or not. Think of movies, music, etc. Some of it is intangible. Yeah, but that's not high culture. It's mass-market culture that makes a lot of money. I think what th…

What's the definition of high culture?

It means the culture of the upper class.

It's also one of those phrases where people insist that's not what it means. You can see this bizzare battle playing out on its wikipedia page:

> In popular usage, the term high culture identifies the culture either of the upper class (an aristocracy) or of a status class (the intelligentsia); high culture also identifies a society’s common repository of broad-range knowledge and tradition (folk culture) that transcends the social-class system of the society.

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