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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

#481

Post by klibertp »

Ensorceled wrote: post #375
birdyrooster wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the conversation ends with “be afraid of cops” and not, “let’s organize to change cops”, then you are supporting cops. Like in this instance we need to rally around copyleft politicians for the next election cycle so that something like this can’t happen again. We need to have willpower and not be so weak willed to let the rent seekers win.

> If the conversation ends with “be afraid of cops” and not, “let’s organize to change cops”, then you are supporting cops. That's an incredibly extreme take. Giving someone solid, possibly life saving advice, shouldn't need to include your favourite political sentiment in order not to count as explicit support for a unjust system.

Not informing a European or Japanese of how this is a seriously unjust system you have in place - and not just a fucked up joke as it sounds (police? shooting at people? for not stopping the car?!? Haha, nice joke, man) - could definitely threaten their lives though.

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

#482

Post by AwaAwa »

Pokepokalypse wrote: post #417
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…

Frankly, at least in the context of US Copyright Law, we need to go back to Article I of the Constitution that defines copyright. The very first sentence is "To promote the useful arts and sciences..." If congress passes a copyright law, and that law can't demonstrate that it actually MEASURABLY does promote the useful arts and sciences, (but rather hinders them, as is often the case), then that law should be overtur…

Pretty sure that 'useful' has been defined as 'make someone ridiculous amounts of money' and is part of the 'constitution' that lobbyists imprint on their marks.

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

#483

Post by UberFly »

Kim_Bruning wrote: post #478
modriano wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Creators still need to eat, even if publishing and distribution costs have dropped to nearly nothing.

I agree that it would be great if creators get to eat. Right now though many people don't get to eat (enough) no matter what, many other people don't get to make use of creative work, and a small number of big players walk away with all the money. IMO pretty much literally anything else would probably put us in a better situation. At this point after several decades of experience, I think even just outright abolishin…

How would abolishing copyright law not make everyone (but the content creator) basically the equivalent of a vampire AI corporation slurping up what they please? Why would anyone create when everyone instantly gets to use their hard work in any way they want? It's like abolishing all property rights.

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

#484

Post by birdyrooster »

int_19h wrote: post #348
birdyrooster wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the conversation ends with “be afraid of cops” and not, “let’s organize to change cops”, then you are supporting cops. Like in this instance we need to rally around copyleft politicians for the next election cycle so that something like this can’t happen again. We need to have willpower and not be so weak willed to let the rent seekers win.

"Organize" is hot air without specific plan that has a realistic chance of success. Voting for "copyleft politicians" doesn't, if only because there are so few of them, and further because a candidate has no chance of winning on this as their single issue - it's the rest of their platform that will decide the vote.

How about a pirate party? I think we could find huge amounts of people sympathetic because most consumers would stand to gain materially from it. It's realpolitik and could be effective in creating a culture support for dismantling copyright. That is what was starting to happen when the MPAA and RIAA started litigating against individuals. They didn't just stop because it was ineffective at recouping losses, it was also undermining the faith people had in copyright.

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

#485

Post by tap-snap-or-nap »

lenocinor wrote: post #140

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…

It is few people and their passionate thankless decades of unpaid labour that we all heavily rely on.

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

#486

Post by int_19h »

birdyrooster wrote: post #484
int_19h wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Organize" is hot air without specific plan that has a realistic chance of success. Voting for "copyleft politicians" doesn't, if only because there are so few of them, and further because a candidate has no chance of winning on this as their single issue - it's the rest of their platform that will decide the vote.

How about a pirate party? I think we could find huge amounts of people sympathetic because most consumers would stand to gain materially from it. It's realpolitik and could be effective in creating a culture support for dismantling copyright. That is what was starting to happen when the MPAA and RIAA started litigating against individuals. They didn't just stop because it was ineffective at recouping losses, it was a…

The feasibility of such a party depends greatly on the electoral system in any given country. In the USA in particular, our combination of single-member districts with FPTP means that third parties are not viable unless they run on some issue that is really resonant with most of society (to the point where it would override voting considerations on basically all other wedge issues). You have to go all the way back to mid-19th century to find a successful example.

In Europe this fared better, but as we can still see, PPs enjoy limited electoral popularity even in systems where representation is truly proportional. Same basic problem here - there are way more important issues than just this one, and a party that doesn't make any stand on those other issues will only attract those few that consider its single issue that important. But then the moment it starts taking positions on other stuff, that also turns off part of the potential electorate, and shifts it closer to a more traditional "for everything good against everything bad" kind of party.

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

#487

Post by 35208654 »

Beginning with the RIAA suing college kids and culminating the French police raiding what.cd, I have become anti-copyright. Not reformist, not 'but it's good for...'. Totally anti-copyright. Burn it all down. Share music. Scan books and upload them to libgen. The shared cultural history of humanity depends on it.

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

#488

Post by justinclift »

pessimizer wrote: post #68
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…

> 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.

Hmmm. When they decided to do something so boneheaded, and so obviously going-to-seriously-piss-off a bunch of famously deep pocketed litigious publishers, they crossed a whole bunch of lines.

Not just a "this was a bad decision" line, but past a few others as well. eg "reckless behaviour", "wilful disregard", and probably more. :(

Hopefully some kind of Hail Mary saves the day. But at the _very_ least the senior people at the IA who reviewed and green-lit this program should be moved to less senior roles.

They clearly needed an adult in charge to have said "No, don't do this".

The whole program fails even the most cursory risk assessment, and should have been obvious that if it went badly (and likely would) they'd risk killing their whole organisation. :(

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

#489

Post by hinkley »

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 think we need a PBS for the web, and the Internet Archive should be one of the cornerstones of such an organization.

Add to it other educational materials that would otherwise show up on youtube or elsewhere with advertisements, and you have a decent basis for the 21st century and beyond.

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

#490

Post by justinclift »

Maursault wrote: post #195
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…

> we should be looking at ways to preserve those artifacts redundantly, so that even if the IA fails, it's not a calamity. We don't need to look too far. IA could simply extend their middle-finger and move to Mexico, Spain, Thailand, or Sealand. Frankly, IA should be mirrored in every country that does not respect the West's initiative of blocking access and unresolvable takedown notices. Fuck US copyright anti-infor…

> IA could simply extend their middle-finger and move to ...

Unfortunately, the US government directly expands the reach of (US) copyright, patents, and trademarks with the "Free Trade" agreements they've managed to get countries around the world to sign up to.

If Sealand had an effective army ;), and could thereby say "Thanks, but no" then that might be an option. Until then though...

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