Tell HN: Internet Archive is facing a Big 4 Publishers lawsuit

I'm sorry you had some issues with the National Library of Australia's collections. I've never been an expert on Australian law, & it's been a while since (when I was at IA a decade+ ago) I worked with that library. But the impression I had at that time was that their governing law & budget, as dictated the Australian legislature, required them to collect broadly, & deeply, from the `.au` domain-names. So it seemed a compulsory part of their "statutory rights & mission" then, rather than "against" such things. Their governing laws & strategies may have modified over time since with experience – which is the point of trying, observing, correcting in new murkier frontiers of tradition, technology, and law.

On the larger issues, & specific to the Internet Archive:

You should assume there are several other larger "dark" web archives, by nations and large private organizations, collected without the awareness or available-remedies of the Internet Archive's or various national library public efforts. There are also uncountable other private and ad-hoc collections. Depending on what kinds of harms you expect from retained copies of older writings, these may be far larger threats than any holdings of an open, public, correctable non-profit library.

I would emphasize that anyone (like a web host or app) who gave any authors, especially the young & net-novices, the impression that something would stay private, or recallable, after being placed on a public webserver, at a published link, and open to browsing by all, did those authors a disservice by mis-informing them of risks, and the best-practices for preserving privacy.

That the Archive's well-identified, blockable crawlers sometimes surprise people with what they collect, and then make-available for lookup, helps correct that misunderstanding, both for individuals and the wider culture. Any "chilling effect" is unfortunate, but it's inherent to the web technology & practices of many independent actors. It's moreso documented, than created, by the Archive's own activities. And further – at least with respect to the Wayback Machine – the surprise availability is then fairly straightforward to undo, and prevent from recurring.

The broader risk that anything on the web – once offered to the public – will remain available from others persists no matter what the Archive does. Those concerned about such risks should take extra privacy-preserving steps, because blocking the Archive's crawls, or correcting the Wayback Machine, only limits this one polite, above-ground actor.

"Everyone else here" does not do that. Disclosures are spotty, & chiefly in relation to current-employment. And many agree links-in-bio are a sufficient & appropriate way to disclose affiliations: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27209830

My "self-interest" in the Archive is exactly the agreement-with-its-mission that is self-evident by my strong opinions. The post words themselves are a stronger disclosure-of-interest than any extra mention of previous employment would be.

And further, all sorts of extensive details of my projects & work history – and not just with respect to the current topic! – are described a couple clicks away.

Have you disclosed anything about your "reputational, monetary, etc" "self-interest", here or on any other topic? Show me how you do it, inquistor. Or, do you somehow manage to only ever comment on things in which you have no personal interest, nor related professional involvements?

Note that I fully support your right not to declare such things.

It's just rich to criticize someone like myself – with neither hidden opinions nor a hidden work history – from your perch of obfuscation.

>It's a sad world we live in when creators are upset that their creation is shared.

I don't think that is a fair description of what I have a problem with.

>Let's also not forget that the need to commercialize creative content using copyright can also negatively influence those works themselves as what is profitable under this scheme is not neccesarily what is best.

This is a huge problem, though it's not really related to copyright.

I think a more accurate statement, using your words, would be something like:

"Let's also not forget that the commercialization of creative content can also negatively influence those works themselves as what is profitable under this scheme is not necessarily what is best."

HUGE problem.

The content you see on YouTube today is determined, in large part, by what advertisers are and are not willing to have their brands associated with.

Huge, huge, problem. Particularly since viewers are typically unaware of it.

> Does it? I'm certainly not an expert of the matter but AFAII the constitution only ALLOWS the government to create laws like copyright but does not require it.

I believe that it does. Abolishing copyright would be a 'taking' of intellectual property, and would violate the takings clause of the Fifth Amendment.