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If we lose the Internet Archive, we’re screwed

sbstatesman.com

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

#131

Post by Aachen »

dumbotron wrote: post #122
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?

I don't donate to them because they're mismanaged like this.

I have in the past, but I'm also holding off until this lawsuit nonsense is done with. Don't need to fatten the lawyer industry with my money for their own mistakes. Running the wayback machine and things like flash emulation is what I want them to do: y'know, archiving stuff and making it available to current systems.

I should really look into whether this books lending branch has a chance of taking the web archive stuff down with it and, if so, buy a hard drive and start seeding this torrent that is iirc out there as a decentralized backup of the IA. This data being lost would be similar in proportion to losing GitHub or Wikipedia.

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

#132

Post by beojan »

jawns wrote: post #4

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. In the absence of that, anyone who sees high cultural value to the pres…

> 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.

In the US that would be the Library of Congress with its Mandatory Deposit requirement.

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

#134

Post by ncallaway »

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?

Wouldn’t someone with better judgement have shut down the wayback machine as too much of a risk of a copyright infringement lawsuit?

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

#135

Post by misnome »

tristor wrote: post #91
misnome wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IA losing and getting shut down because "information wants to be free, man" is completely detrimental to trying to move that agenda forwards. "First principles" means jack shit if your company to build that world gets wiped off the map because you did something incredibly obviously stupidly illegal and handed the "MAFIAA lawyers" your own ass on a silver platter.

Maybe my viewpoint on this is informed by long-standing desire to basically start something like IA but in a way which is protected from the acts of nation-states. The fundamental problem with human society is that the power structures are always co-opted by elites for their own purposes rather than the purposes of society as a whole, it doesn't matter what the system of those power structures is, in all cases they g…

> it's not evidence that the IA did anything wrong in any moral or social sense. The fact our society is held hostage, and that information is imprisoned, by entities like the MAFIAA is not a justification for this outcome

I don't think that IA's position was morally or ethically wrong; I would wager a lot of people here would feel the same way.

Unfortunately, for this case, morality and ethicality aren't the law. And the law was extremely known, and predictable in which side it would fall on here. This outcome was very, very predictable. IA gambled; possibly their existence; on astronomical odds that they could force a confrontation against the backdrop of the pandemic, and win. Maybe this was the best chance that they would ever get, in which case it was worth trying.

But I don't think the anti-copyright revolution was ever going to be triggered by IA giving out free books.

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

#137

Post by rdiddly »

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…

Siblings of this comment piling on to point out the timing: yes, yes. I don't suppose proximate or triggering causes can coexist alongside ultimate or long-term causes by any chance? Like hey did the last straw break your camel's back or was it all the previous straws? Couldn't possibly be both, so let's argue about it.

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

#138

Post by emmp »

ernopp wrote: post #41
_hfu3 wrote: post #26

Maybe they shouldn't have done something that moronic? If people wanted free books they could always pirate them, openly infringing by hosting copyrighted books for a few people to slightly more easily read them for free... How could they possibly think that was a good idea?

The case for doing what they did is that it helped a lot of people access books (eg school curriculum ones) in the middle of Covid (not everyone knows how to pirate things). Not saying it was the right move but you can see where they're coming from, they wanted to help people.

Yes I love the idea and I want it to be legal. Perhaps it is even worth someone testing the law here intentionally to get the courts to rule.

The Internet Archive's mission, imo, should be to protect and steward their archives and ability to continue to maintain them above all though. Putting that at risk for a morally righteous additional cause is not worth it. This was a leadership failure

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

#139

Post by beej71 »

jmull wrote: post #97

AI was foolish and irresponsible. Republishing books without limitations would almost surely provoke a law suit that they would almost surely lose. Not only is it a waste of resources, but now that they are in court they could very easily receive a judgement that curtails access they used to provide before the rollout of the "emergency library". It's fine (and right, IMO) if you don't agree with the current copyright…

I say it's fine if you think it's foolish, but we really need to save the fool.

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

#140

Post by lenocinor »

I appreciate the metaphor with the Library of Alexandria, but TIL that it may not have burned catastrophically and may have been rebuilt after: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_of_Alexandria

“Despite the widespread modern belief that the Library of Alexandria was burned once and cataclysmically destroyed, the Library actually declined gradually over the course of several centuries. This decline began with the purging of intellectuals from Alexandria in 145 BC during the reign of Ptolemy VIII Physcon, which resulted in Aristarchus of Samothrace, the head librarian, resigning from his position and exiling himself to Cyprus...The Library, or part of its collection, was accidentally burned by Julius Caesar during his civil war in 48 BC, but it is unclear how much was actually destroyed and it seems to have either survived or been rebuilt shortly thereafter; the geographer Strabo mentions having visited the Mouseion in around 20 BC and the prodigious scholarly output of Didymus Chalcenterus in Alexandria from this period indicates that he had access to at least some of the Library's resources.”

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