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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

#321

Post by Kim_Bruning »

Dalewyn wrote: post #300
pessimizer wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yeah, especially since the Internet Archive (as an organization) has proven itself to be irresponsible. I think the archive made a bad decision. I do not think it is generally irresponsible.

The Internet Archive is one of the easiest-to-access source of warez right now, among other things. Either they have a grand plan for the targets they are painting on themselves, or they are bloody irresponsible idiots; I'm inclined to bet on the latter given no further contexts.

https://archive.org/about/dmca.php they have a legal exemption

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

#322

Post by anigbrowl »

Apreche wrote: post #17

We already have laws for historical landmarks. These laws ensure the protection of things of societal significance, even to the point of restricting the rights of their private owners. We need such laws for the digital realm. If we had them we wouldn't have to worry about Internet Archive, dpreview, etc. Imagine if we had such laws in place long ago. We could be living in a world where Geocities and MySpace still exi…

Laws are only as good as people's willingness to defend them. They are not real. Resource mobilization is a much better long-term strategy than agreements backed by the threat of force, because legislative capture is a real thing and your precious laws can done away with by fiat. It has happened over and over. Please, do not put your faith in process.

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

#323

Post by anigbrowl »

TylerE wrote: post #277
ArcticLandfall wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Individual Geocities pages are not valuable landmarks, but Geocities as a whole - the aesthetic, the community, the history - is definitely something to preserve. And the cost of saving all of Geocities is a tiny fraction of any physical monument.

What about the right to be forgotten? I certainly wouldn't want some random geocities page I made as a pre-teen, quite possibly with personal information on it, preserved and accessible for all eternity. Times were oh so much more innocent back then, putting mailing addresses and phone numbers on personal sites wasn't uncommon.

Jumping from one argument to another doesn't make for a good discussion. Either defend your initial argument, or start a different argument on the same level as the first.

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

#324

Post by ineedasername »

beej71 wrote: post #139
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.

I think this is the right approach to take. Unless the IA went into their decision with their eyes open and knowing the huge risk they were taking with the existence of their organization. That would at least make it no more foolish than anyone else knowingly taking a huge risk.

But yes, the IA is both culturally important and significantly beneficial in everyday practical matters. I'm not sure what we can do to help IA come out of this intact though. "Write your congressman" is these days a somewhat laughable suggestion in the face of any problem, the desperate act of last resort that no one expects to actually succeed.

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

#325

Post by EamonnMR »

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…

I do wonder if we're rapidly entering a world where finding sources, doing research, etc is going to only be interesting to weird subcultures and everyone else will be satisfied with whatever the first Google result says, or a confident bot's fabrication.

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

#326

Post by [deleted] »

moffkalast wrote: post #318

> If you’ve ever researched anything online, you’ve probably used the Internet Archive (IA). Wow, pretentious much. The Wayback machine is an interesting passing curiosity that with great luck sometimes saves a webpage that isn't completely broken. The average person has never heard of its existence. Sure it's fun looking at how web pages used to look like and laugh at terrible designs but it's not exactly part of an…

[deleted]

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

#327

Post by int_19h »

GenericDev wrote: post #308

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 f…

I really wish we ditched the name "copyright" altogether because of its unfortunate implications. It's not actually a right - it's a privilege. The system is entirely artificial and wouldn't exist without active social and legal enforcement. And if the privilege is abused in ways that don't benefit society, then it can and should be curtailed or even revoked.

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

#328

Post by Kim_Bruning »

Dalewyn wrote: post #317
Kim_Bruning wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I agree with tablespoon that the demise of IA would not even be a footnote for the commons. So what if an archive of the internet goes away? Most people aren't going to care, and that's the brutal and apathetic reality.

I agree that many people might not directly care if IA goes away. But obviously the destruction of such a large amount of knowledge would not be without consequences (including to courts themselves)

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

#329

Post by rhtgrg »

GenericDev wrote: post #308

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 f…

> very little respect for domains outside of technology.

The HN community can also be out of touch with technology. If you are an AI researcher this becomes plainly obvious the moment you visit any of the AI threads (if it isn't obvious already from the 6 to 12 month delay on the posting of cutting edge developments here). Sometimes it's hard to argue with zwj.org's assessment [0].

[0] https://cdn.jwz.org/images/2016/hn.png

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

#330

Post by ineedasername »

moffkalast wrote: post #318

> If you’ve ever researched anything online, you’ve probably used the Internet Archive (IA). Wow, pretentious much. The Wayback machine is an interesting passing curiosity that with great luck sometimes saves a webpage that isn't completely broken. The average person has never heard of its existence. Sure it's fun looking at how web pages used to look like and laugh at terrible designs but it's not exactly part of an…

You've almost definitely used the IA if you have spent any amount of time browsing articles on Wikipedia. Appropriately sourcing information is a fundamental (and imperfect) part of Wikipedia, and doing so relies extensively on the creation of static IA snapshots to preserve the cited information.
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