If we lose the Internet Archive, we’re screwed • Hacker News Board

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

#301

Post by nradov » Thu, Apr 06, 2023, 6:22 PM UTC

tracker1 wrote: post #217

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…

Isn't this kind of the point of the Library of Congress, though their content isn't generally available to the public afaik.

The Library of Congress is open to the public. Visitors can freely read most of the books and other materials in the collection. You will generally have to travel to the actual library; only a limited subset of their collection is available online.

https://www.loc.gov/visit/

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

#302

Post by Kim_Bruning » Thu, Apr 06, 2023, 6:22 PM UTC

tablespoon wrote: post #169

billiam wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 writt…

> and no one will lose an election because they failed to act to save it.

At the very least in a just world, I think the ability to reference historical data from the web probably would influence some elections.

In the unjust world we actually live in, access to historical data can be used as a tool (or weapon!) by journalists, pacs, candidates, etc. to find strengths and weaknesses, and to influence elections.

"back in 2026, the candidate enacted XYZ, as proven by [1][2][3] (all ia links). Ten years later this ended in therefore you vote for them"

... Also, eg. Wikipedia often uses IA links for references to deal with link rot, which happens a lot more than you'd think. I won't say WP would shut down completely, but it's effectiveness would definitely be degraded.

Same probably for a lot of professions and jobs that require research. (including eg. secretaries, special librarians, political assistants, etc...)

Just because you personally can't imagine the impact on society, doesn't mean it doesn't have an impact on society.

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

#303

Post by hyperhopper » Thu, Apr 06, 2023, 6:23 PM UTC

tablespoon wrote: post #23

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 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…

> If they shut down, the story wouldn't even be able to muscle it's way onto the front page of the New York Times: it would loose to whatever the latest Trump drama is and the Nth repetition of the standard mass shooting media package.

That is not a good metric. If the louvre burned, that would make headlines everywhere, but it would be nowhere near as disasterous as if the internet archive was destroyed.

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

#304

Post by anigbrowl » Thu, Apr 06, 2023, 6:23 PM UTC

firatsarlar wrote: post #245

Fr3ck wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

[flagged]

Please do not. Either write out your comment, invest the effort to condense it, or link to your blog post. I like chatGPT, but if I want an AI version I'll generate it myself.

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

#305

Post by PuppyTailWags » Thu, Apr 06, 2023, 6:25 PM UTC

gcanyon wrote: post #278

PuppyTailWags wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think I agree with this. Novels can take years to write, and to have their copyright expire after only a few years may not be enough for the author to write another book. What would be the motivation to write a series if the series isn't worth printing after only a few books? It goes doubly if the novel might be up for a movie or a TV adaptation: the game of thrones tv adaptation didn't happen until much late…

Fair arguments, thanks for the thoughts. I think all of it needs to be taken in the context that "helping" creators is a secondary goal in service to the prime goal of maximizing creative output overall. That said, I'm sympathetic to creators; I've written several (unpublished) novels myself. Most novels don't support the authors that write them. There's no argument to be made that Jane Doe's 20,000th-ranked novel ma…

I'm not asking whether or not George R.R. Martin would or wouldn't be fine: I'm asking whether or not it's reasonable for HBO to make a killing off his work without him being paid at all as an example of how it doesn't seem reasonable on its face that smaller authors should just get shafted if someone makes a huge profit off their work.

Since we want to talk about mid-tier authors, I think you'd be surprised how long and how well royalty can still pay authors. Cassandra Khaw has repeatedly commented on how Hammers On Bone (published 2016) is still making them significant revenue. And this isn't at all covering the nuances of UK/US markets, where books can make it big in the UK and only years later publish in the US and vice versa (where I know for certain make significant income for authors)! I'm sure Susanna Clarke, who has Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, is still immensely grateful for how well Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell continued to sell (and then she came out with another banger, Piranesi!). Victor LaVelle is still making money off The Ballad of Black Tom (2016) to the point of producing a re-release hardcover of the book due to popular demand! And I know Nnedi Okorafor is still earning excellent royalties from Who Fears Death (2011) even though her more profitable works (Binti, Akata series) are getting more attention nowadays.

The argument that books primarily sell 95% of all they'll ever sell in the first 2-3 years is a total misunderstanding of the book market. It may look like that for current-events nonfiction or celebrity bibliographical works, but fiction markets don't work like that at all-- the backlist makes a huge chunk of the stable income of an author. This is true also for indie and self-pub markets (I can't name specific examples because I haven't done heavy research into this, but I know from panels and talks from other romance authors that self-publishing romance heavily relies on voracious readers who will buy your entire backlist.)

But should any of those authors become sick, disabled, or otherwise no longer able to produce, should they end up never making another cent of any of their works? How would they support themselves 5, 10, 15, 20 years?

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

#306

Post by anigbrowl » Thu, Apr 06, 2023, 6:28 PM UTC

nemo44x wrote: post #200

paradoxyl wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not an export, that's propaganda. That's like saying fiat currency is just as valuable as lithium deposits. It's the hubris of the West.

The fiat currency is just as valuable as the lithium deposits because the fiat currency is backed by the most powerful force of military might the world has ever seen. When you trade for a dollar you're trading for that. Better than them just taking the lithium, as was the old way.

No, it's worse.

Empires that over-expand and seize too much sow the seeds of their own military destruction. Economic empires backed by ever-increasing military become overwhelming and then define any pushback as terrorism. What you end up with is a planetary-scale protection racket. Please do not construe this as an endorsement of other would-be hegemonies.

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

#307

Post by Dalewyn » Thu, Apr 06, 2023, 6:30 PM UTC

Mezzie wrote: post #264

coldpie wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

It's an argument for the separation of library and archival work. Access to knowledge and preservation of knowledge are separate things, even if they have a lot in common. It might be wise for someone to consider a truly archival only organization.

IANAL, but in fact copyright law has been abundantly clear that copying something strictly for archival purposes is legal, too.

It really is the (re)distribution of archived materials that is in the wrong here. IA could go and archive every single bit of digitized data, copyrighted or otherwise, and if that's all they do then nobody will or can complain.

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

#308

Post by GenericDev » Thu, Apr 06, 2023, 6:33 PM UTC

I'm so sick of modern businesses and their vampire approach on creativity and intelligent property.

I see a lot of comments in this thread with what about-isms or "I don't care, we wouldn't miss anything", but these people are short-sighted. And to be honest the hacker news community is frequently the community I loathe to engage in these topics with. Because they are always looking forward with very little respect for the past as well as very little respect for domains outside of technology.

The internet archive is a huge boon in intangible value for communities and the world. It represents a huge cultural fountain that is accessible for anyone so long as they have the ability to access a computer.

A great example of this is that the Internet Archive was the ONLY place where I could enjoy a completely random piece of lost media from a children's television show called Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. There was a lost episode where OJ Simpson was in it and it never aired because of obvious issues. BUT there was a book published from the production called "White Rabbits Can't Jump"

https://archive.org/details/whiterabbitscant00varl

I can't imagine being able to go to any publisher or paid streaming service or god forbid Amazon to find this book, and I sure as shit don't believe in this community to help create ecosystems to support finding things like this.

I am so sick and tired of the copyright laws that play counter to productive creation and stymying efforts to preserve anything. The fact that I have to wait until people die until copyright is up is god awful. And the fact that I have to read people in this community who sound like boot-lickers for corporate oligarchs and their shitty value adds to the world drives me so fucking insane.

I'm only commenting here because I feel it's important to articulate that there are people out there who care, and that the vocal a-holes on this site really miss the point and the intangible value of what the internet archive provides.

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

#309

Post by zargon » Thu, Apr 06, 2023, 6:34 PM UTC

MilnerRoute wrote: post #224

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…

My issue is with the headline: "If we lose the internet archive, we're screwed." But no one is saying we're in danger of losing the entire Internet Archive. They do many many things - most of which are not in any way affected by this lawsuit. The judge even specified that the Internet Archive can still scan and publish copies of books in the public domain.

If the publishers seek statutory damages then yes, the entire archive is in critical danger.

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

#310

Post by PuppyTailWags » Thu, Apr 06, 2023, 6:35 PM UTC

abdullahkhalids wrote: post #284

PuppyTailWags wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think I agree with this. Novels can take years to write, and to have their copyright expire after only a few years may not be enough for the author to write another book. What would be the motivation to write a series if the series isn't worth printing after only a few books? It goes doubly if the novel might be up for a movie or a TV adaptation: the game of thrones tv adaptation didn't happen until much late…

For what it is worth, Cory Doctorow used to license his books with Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-NoDerivs. You can even find direct and free downloads to his books on his website [1]. At the same time, his publishers were selling hardcopies. Unfortunately, at some point he stopped doing it. He explains > There is also the fact that, in the time since Creative Commons licenses were negotiated, publishers…

Cory Doctorow's license on his books is explicitly Noncommercial, No derivative. The person I was disagreeing with would disagree even with that permissive license! And it would also go along with my argument, that Cory Doctorow is still retaining rights to demand payment if people make a killing selling his work in other markets or adapting his work. I have no issues with creatives willingly picking which rights they choose and which rights they keep. But you can see even with more permissive licensing, Cory Doctorow is still retaining the most salient and potentially profitable ones for himself.