It looks like the internet archive is needed assistance, I just heard about this today and figured lemmy could help spread this message around
Everyone that wants context should read this: https://lunduke.substack.com/p/the-internet-archives-last-ditch
Listen, I love the IA and everything they stand for, but they’re not winning this. They fucked up and gave away copyrighted content, for free, in unlimited amounts during covid. They then proceed to melt down in court because they know it’s impossible to win. Now they’re seeking empathy from everyone and not talking about why they got sued - which is giving away potentially millions of copies of other people’s work…
And everyone that wants unbiased context should read the wikipedia page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hachette_v._Internet_Archive
The judgment basically completely ignored IA’s arguments towards fair use. EFF filed an amicus brief that explains how baseless the judgment was. Assuming the entire US court system isn’t in the corporate pocket yet they will win this on appeal.
It’s ridiculous to assume that an organization whose main purpose is data archival would knowingly and blatantly ignore copyright law. IA didn’t ignore it, they did they homework and saw that their use qualified as fair use. Then they met a judge who doesn’t give a shit about that. Nobody can prepare for that in advance.
In this case, they absolutely did. They had a CDL in place specifically to comply with copyright law, and they willfully and intentionally disabled it.
The publishers also had arrangements with local libraries to expand their ebook selections. Most libraries have ebook and audiobook deals worked out with the publishers, and those were expanded during the lockdowns. Many of the partner libraries preferred those systems to the CDL because they served their citizens directly. A small town in Nebraska didn’t have to worry about having a wait list of 3000 people ahead of the local citizen whose taxes had actually bought the license the Internet Archive wanted to borrow.
The Internet Archive held a press conference right before the ruling comparing the National Emergency Library to winter-library lands, but that’s simply not accurate. The CDL they had in place before and after was inter-library loaning. The CDL was like setting up printing presses in the library and copying books for free and handing them out to anyone.
Under the existing CDL, they could have verified that partner libraries had stopped lending their phycical copies of the books and made more copies of the ebooks available for checkout instead of just making it unlimited and they’d have legally been fine, but they did not, and the publishers had every right to sue.
The publishes also waited until June to file suit: well-after most places had been re-opened for weeks.
IA does important work, but they absolutely broke the law here, and since they did it by intentionally removing the systems designed to ensure legitimate archival status and fair-use of copywritten works, they have pretty much zero defense. It wasn’t a mistake or an oversight. And after reopening they kept doing it for weeks until they were sued and were able to magically restore the legal system the same day the lawsuit was filed.
You’re using the publisher’s arguments in your comment. If anybody’s interested, here’s the IA’s counter-argument. It boils down to the fact publishers are challenging practices that used to be considered fair use… just because they can.
This decision has wide-reaching implications that will affect all libraries, not just the IA.
Ultimately we’ll just have to see what the appeal decision will be.
Their counter-argument isn’t a legal argument. They’re saying they did it because they think the publishers aren’t being fair.
And they’re talking mostly about format-conversion, which isn’t the problem here.
You can absolutely make format conversions to digital for archival purposes. What you cannot do is them make a bunch of copies and give them away for free simultaneous use. That is not fair use. That’s 100% piracy.
The CDL was built specifically to ensure that only one digital copy was on loan for each owned copy of the material because the IA absolutely knew that was the law.
Assuming they don’t win, is there any contingency in place to preserve all their data? I don’t know how exactly because I assume there’s an absolute fuckton of it, but it would be such a shame if all of that was lost forever.
I’d love to see it become like the Pirate Bay, where they squish one and ten more pop up to replace it, but I don’t know if that’s even possible.
@[email protected] Thoughts?
@Cracks_InTheWalls @CrabAndBroom I think there are tons and tons of yummy little square boxes that will take all of the letters you type into a keyboard and then put them somewhere for everybody to see.
Would you care the elaborate more?
The nonprofit Internet Archive is appealing a judgment that threatens the future of all libraries. Big publishers are suing to cut off libraries’ ownership and control of digital books, opening new paths for digital book bans and dangerous surveillance.
Join 28,000+ signers on the petition below to show your support for the Internet Archive, libraries’ digital rights, and an open internet with safe, uncensored access to knowledge.
They made a really dumb move and now have to pay for it. I understand their importance but it doesn’t seem like they do - or they are naive enough to believe corpos have good will.
They broke law in such a dumb way, and it’s a pity they put their entire project in jeopardy. My only thought while deciding to donate is “what will prevent them from doing something this dumb again?”
Is this suppost to be a link
Modern corporations are a damned plague. Most of these fuckers would destroy our whole cultural heritage in a heartbeat if it meant making a profit.
Yes, corporations exist to make profit, but come on, there are limits.
there are limits
I am glad you have a moral centre.
But that is the capitalist way. A Redditor once wrote: “*Corporations have no morals, no ethics, no code of conduct, no feelings, no empathy, and zero accountability. They have one goal and one goal only: to increase profits at all costs.”
Case in point: the climate crisis. Corporations are literally destroying their own home for a symbol of success that, like their products, is man-made: money. It is the ultimate pursuit of vanity.
Crazy, if you think about it for a moment.
And yet by law in some places (the US being one, I believe) they are treated as people, with certain rights.
Like people, but with a feduciary responsibility to gain wealth at every opportunity. Corporations are almost like vampires: they don’t need food or water, they don’t age, they have inhuman power, yet they wear the guise of people; they pass as human to make it easier to drain us of our blood, an endless thirst they feel compelled to heed.
Yeah. The monsters gnawing away at nature, public infrastructure, your friends? They are called corporations.
Btw, megacorps have multiple faces and are especially hungry.The AI techbros wanna scare you with tales of AI becoming sentient and going rogue to destroy us all, when corporations, mindless machines made out of people to maximize profits at all cost, are already doing all that
There’s no link. Down voted.
Update: OP updated the post to include a link. Up voted.
Seriously no one cares if you downvote or upvote stuff. Get lost with your inept attempt at manipulation
Yeah and I was supposed to stay calm and cute this whole week see what you have done with your shitty comment?
I was asking others to downvote low effort content to improve the quality of the content on the platform for others.
Yeah where? You just said down voted like your personal opinion on the post mattered. Then edited to say upvoted like anyone cared or you were deluded into thinking it was thanks to your little tiny point down
Maybe I am angry but the frikin internet archive is going down, I hate this shit
Europe is voting this weekend. If you care about copyright reform, you should consider voting for the European Pirate Party. IA is probably in the wrong here, legally. But many would argue it’s morally right to have free access to information. Sure, shadow libraries are popping up everywhere and we have access to more information than ever before, but if we really want access for everyone, we need different copyright laws, and for that we need politicians.
For Germean voters there is the WahloMat to help with the voting choice (a dozen of questions and in the end shows how much overlap there is with all the parties): https://www.wahl-o-mat.de/europawahl2024/app/main_app.html
The major issue is that if you care about CopyRight: Party A. Easier to comply with regulation: Party B. Migration: Party C. Environment: Party D.
And all of the choices (A-D) have some very removed, prominent positions that you strongly oppose and in the end, have no clue what to elect and choose the least worst option and hope for the best.
Sadly in countries without a pirate party, like Denmark, you can’t (as far as I know) vote for the EP pirate party.
Does voting for a party like that even help anything? I’m asking because my voting experience is US, and everyone knows how many parties matter here. So I’m curious.
Yes. In most European countries even small parties can get seats. In my country there are 8 parties in parliament, for example, and 2 of them didn’t use to be there 2 election cycles ago (they were too small/new 8 years ago but eventually grew in popularity and got enough votes for representation).
Of course if they only have 1 or 2 members in parliament they typcily tend to form coalitions with other like-minded parties so they can get more voting power.
I wonder how many people that aren’t from the US running around telling people to vote third party their are, because of what you just described.
It does a bit, since every party will be represented in the European council based on the number of votes they have. It’s not an election where the winner takes all.
I think the pirates had one or two representatives in the council, which is enough to start debates and make proposals. They obviously can’t push anything through by themselves.
Nice. That sounds like more than we have available. Thank you
Why can’t anyone spot a grift anymore? The IA is hugely profitable, and is very clearly crafting PR statements designed to increase donations. Has noone had their trust abused before? If they were trying to make change around this subject they wouldnt be so dishonest in their messaging.
IA are not Robin Hood.
How is IA profitable?
Same question here. How can they be profitable if they are a registered non-profit?
Is it somehow possible to pay employees exorbitant salaries, similar to Mozilla’s CEO?
Non profit doesn’t mean revenue can’t exceed expenses. It means that the org can’t be owned by investors, and the org can’t pay dividends.
Interesting. And there really is nothing stopping someone in control from getting themselves a huge portion of it, while laying off staff?
That seems like a huge flaw that someone with the required people skills (read, social engineering) can exploit.
corporations attack anything that might challenge their ability to make a quick buck: everyone and everything else be damned. sadly the only way to overcome this kind of monster is a decentralized network of information hoarders. appealing lawsuits is just a bandaid.
the internet archive needs to reorganize. as long as it makes itself into a target as a centralized org, it will also get shot at by soulless corporate husks. im envisioning moving everything onto ipfs, that way anyone can help host as much or little as they like.
They don’t need to do anything so drastic. They just need to stop doing things that blatantly provoke legal attacks like this. Their “Emergency Covid Library” was a foolish stunt that is endangering their primary objective of information preservation, they wouldn’t have been sued if they’d just kept on carrying on as they were before.
the corporations dont care. why should the archive be under the pressure of the soulless suits at all? any “stunts” are just excuses for doing what they will do anyway: pick on anyone who doesnt bow to their petty whims.
no, saying that this is the archive’s fault is so gross, and just says that you accept their bullying and blackmail as somehow moral
archive should decentralize, that’s the only real solution imo
Archive has been around for well over a decade with no issues outside of sporadic DMCA claims against user uploaded content. For many many years they have been left alone, despite hosting a shit ton of copyrighted material.
Occasional legal battles that they’ve handled with no problems with the help of the EFF. This is the first “existential threat” to them in quite a long time.
This is absolutely because they pulled the emergency library stunt, and they were loud as hell about it. They literally broke the law and shouted about it.
Libraries are allowed to scan/digitize books they own physically. They are only allowed to lend out as many as they physically own though. Archive knew this and allowed infinite “lend outs”. They even openly acknowledged that this was against the law in their announcement post when they did this.
I can absolutely say this is their own damn fault while disagreeing with the law they broke. There, I just did.
this is a fair assessment.
regardless, if they want to do what they’re doing, they need to decentralize.
This is absolutely because they pulled the emergency library stunt, and they were loud as hell about it. They literally broke the law and shouted about it.
I think that you are right as to why the publishers picked them specifically to go after in the first place. I don’t think they should have done the “emergency library”.
That said, the publishers arguments show they have an anti-library agenda that goes beyond just the emergency library.
Libraries are allowed to scan/digitize books they own physically. They are only allowed to lend out as many as they physically own though. Archive knew this and allowed infinite “lend outs”. They even openly acknowledged that this was against the law in their announcement post when they did this.
The trouble is that the publishers are not just going after them for infinite lend-outs. The publishers are arguing that they shouldn’t be allowed to lend out any digital copies of a book they’ve scanned from a physical copy, even if they lock away the corresponding numbers of physical copies.
Worse, they got a court to agree with them on that, which is where the appeal comes in.
The publishers want it to be that physical copies can only be lent out as physical copies, and for digital copies the libraries have to purchase a subscription for a set number of library patrons and concurrent borrows, specifically for digital lending, and with a finite life. This is all about growing publisher revenue. The publishers are not stopping at saying the number of digital copies lent must be less than or equal to the number of physical copies, and are going after archive.org for their entire digital library programme.
Fuck.
I really hope someone gets hold of the data and shares it on p2p or otherwise. If all this data is deleted it would be equivalent to nuking pyramids or burning Picasso paintings.
Honestly, I’d say it would be much much worse than your examples. It would be erasing parts of history itself.
ill mention this in every thread about them:
run the archive team warrior if you can. it helps them archive black boxes like telegram, discord, reddit…
Didn’t know about this, but sounds like a good cause.
Is there any legal risk involved with this? Is it recommended to run behind a VPN?
