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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

#161

Post by Aachen »

lkbm wrote: post #37
jonesnc wrote: post #2

So, how do we create an Internet Archive Archive?

There are people working on this, but "IA preserved as it was when it was killed in 2023" is nowhere near as valuable as IA as it would be in 2033 if it survives. IA is constantly adding new content. ("New" meaning "not-yet-archived stuff from the past century", in addition to up-to-date web snapshots.)

I'd rather have "IA preserved as it was in 2023" than no IA at all. If we have a gap in the collection between tomorrow and when someone sets up a new IA in a few years, that's very different than losing most things collected about the inception of the Internet.

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

#162

Post by ghaff »

ncallaway wrote: post #134
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?

It's a reasonable question. I don't get to call myself an archive or museum and assemble a website of what I consider "culturally important" cartoons or comic strips or whatever. The Wayback Machine basically operates in the zone of most people don't care that they do this.

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

#163

Post by RC_ITR »

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…

Not only that, but the logic of the whole thing was weak anyway and I'd argue it didn't achieve any of its goals.

There are plenty of places to torrent books online. If people are desperate for a book and savvy enough to know about the Internet Archive, chances are they would have found an available copy online anyway. It's also not as though downloading an illegal copy from IA put the user at any less legal risk than downloading from elsewhere (other than giving publishers a bigger target to go after, which is exactly what happened).

It's a shame, because IA felt like a true public good on the Internet, and now it looks like it's going away. Sigh.

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

#165

Post by tablespoon »

TimTheTinker wrote: post #152
simiones wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think so at all: the IA has little to do with what is normally termed "high culture", and much more to do with "low culture" (lots and lots of internet trivia that would mostly be of interest to archeologists).

The IA is the only way to see a lot of what was written and widely read starting in the 1990s onwards. Libraries used to keep archives of old newspapers and publications on microfilm, and anyone who needed to research something could go and look through those archives. The IA holds a similar function today - but it's the only one with its breadth and age. If we lose the IA, we lose a lot of important historical infor…

> Libraries used to keep archives of old newspapers and publications on microfilm, and anyone who needed to research something could go and look through those archives. The IA holds a similar function today - but it's the only one with its breadth and age.

Newspapers very frequently maintain and provide public access to their own online archives now. That's also not a function the IA is even especially good at--its coverage is spotty, and unless you have an old URL, it's very hard to find stuff in the IA.

The one unique thing the IA does is have is a broad and deep collection of internet ephemera.

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

#166

Post by phendrenad2 »

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…

That's a pretty good analogy, but not quite.

This has been a hostage/terrorist situation from the beginning. The Internet Archive has been holding the Wayback Machine hostage, essentially saying "let us break copyright, or this critical piece of internet history goes down as well".

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

#167

Post by ncallaway »

ghaff wrote: post #162
ncallaway wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It's a reasonable question. I don't get to call myself an archive or museum and assemble a website of what I consider "culturally important" cartoons or comic strips or whatever. The Wayback Machine basically operates in the zone of most people don't care that they do this.

I mean, they were sued for copyright infringement and settled out of court at least once, so it’s not a negligible risk.

I guess my question is largely “Does someone with ‘better judgement’ even start the internet archive?” I don’t have the answer, but I think it’s at least plausible that the answer is “no”.

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

#169

Post by tablespoon »

billiam wrote: post #151
tablespoon wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not saying it's not valuable, I'm saying not that many people would even notice, let alone care, if it disappeared. You may personally be one of the people who cares about the IA, or know a lot of people who care, but if you go to a shopping mall six months after the IA shuts down and ask people about it at random, you'd find that level of knowledge and caring is unusual. It's not the kind of too-big-to-fail that…

Sorry, but this is a reductionist argument. There are any number of things that could disappear without mall visitors knowing about it (NOAA, Earth's magnetic field, etc) but that doesn't mean they are not important for researchers, students, and others all over the world.

You're missing the point. The question isn't "is it important for someone," it's "is it too big to fail" (i.e. does the government think it's sooo important that it must swoop in and save it).

If the Internet Archive shuts down and its archive lost, the economy will keep humming, masses of people won't lose their jobs let alone be inconvenienced, etc. Sure, some paper about Geocities culture cira 1997 won't get written, some researcher won't be able to access some old dead link, and I won't be able to access the download the PDF manual for some old product from a company that went out-of-business. Life will go on with almost no disruption, and no one will lose an election because they failed to act to save it.

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

#170

Post by kodah »

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…

Frankly, this isn't out of character for the IA. They want to be treated as a global system of record, but then started hostile initiatives like ignoring robots.txt. They've somewhat rectified this now, but their blog post about brazenly doing this is still up. It's good insight to how they think about themselves. They want protection but none of the regulation that will come with it. The proof of their character has been in the pudding the whole time.
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