Internet Archive is in trouble?

[Walter confetti]

https://mobile.twitter.com/internetarchive/status/1639424778862829569

 

So, looks like Internet Archive is having some strong legal issues with Hachette and some of their writers, probably leading to a closure of the site if I get right the story...

This means big trouble, i think.

Edited March 27, 2023 by Walter confetti
Fixed link

[Sonikkumania]

For some reason I'm unable to access the blog site linked on that tweet. Can anyone copy-paste it here on the board?

[innerethos]

52 minutes ago, Walter confetti said:

probably leading to a closure of the site if I get right the story...

I don't see any indications of that.

1 minute ago, Sonikkumania said:

For some reason I'm unable to access the blog site linked on that tweet. Can anyone copy-paste it here on the board?

https://web.archive.org/web/20230325005059/https://blog.archive.org/2023/03/25/the-fight-continues/

 

https://www.eff.org/cases/hachette-v-internet-archive

[Biodegradable]

I had only been reminded of this ongoing story regarding the Internet Archive and its tenuous future a few days ago thanks to this tweet.

It's a concerning development to be sure. I'm hoping some kind of settlement can be found as the archive is one the great essential pillars of the Internet housing the kind of history you'll never find anywhere else. 

 

It'd be a devastating loss for us all should the worst come to pass.

[Sonikkumania]

I don't get it. I haven't tried any digital libraries so I have no idea how that works in practice, but you'd think it would be super easy to just print screen the book content into your hard drive and voila, you now own a new book, if you feel like copy pasting 500 times. So I guess that's why the publishers are pissed off, but I say again, I'm very unaware of the situtations background, so if anyone can enlight me I'd appreciate it. The blogs don't really give anything.

[Kinsie]

1 hour ago, Sonikkumania said:

I don't get it. I haven't tried any digital libraries so I have no idea how that works in practice, but you'd think it would be super easy to just print screen the book content into your hard drive and voila, you now own a new book, if you feel like copy pasting 500 times. So I guess that's why the publishers are pissed off, but I say again, I'm very unaware of the situtations background, so if anyone can enlight me I'd appreciate it. The blogs don't really give anything.

That's not the issue. Here's how a friend of mine who knows Library Science (which is a thing!) explained it to me.

 

You know how libraries have X number of copies of a physical book and you check it out, take it home and bring it back? Archive was transplanting that concept into the digital world with an interesting new concept called "controlled digital lending". The idea is, the library has a physical copy of a book, scans it in, and as many users as there are physical copies of the book in the library's possession can "check it out" and "return" it like a normal book. Sounds kinda silly? Maybe! But it had enough strong legal backing that it looked like a good future for digital library access.

 

But.

 

During COVID, Archive removed that limitation by allowing books to be checked out as much as demand allowed in the name of improving educational access. Which was very nice of them on the surface, but in practice effectively created infinite free copies of books they're only supposed to have one copy of. Including books that are currently in-print. This effectively transformed the site from "an online library" to "a place where you can get free copies of new books".

 

You can probably see why the lawyers wouldn't be a fan of this.

 

So, this causes two issues. The first is that Archive stands to lose a butt-load of money. And frankly, they probably will! But the bigger issue, legally, is that controlled digital lending is about to be tested in court for the first time under unfavorable circumstances, potentially resulting in a good, reasonable idea for extending library accessibility getting its legs cut off from under it right out of the starting gate.

[Sonikkumania]

@Kinsie thanks for the detail, tbh it does sound like a silly idea, but it's just me. I acknowledge the popularity of digital books and audio books but what's the point in all honesty when you can just head to the library irl? I mean, the concept in digital borrowing is still based on the fact that the library must have that book in the shelf, otherwise you have to wait. Again I'm in the minority here but I just prefer to have physical literature. As for the Internet Archive, their archiving efforts are top tier.

[dasho]

Oh no, surely this time """piracy""" will be defeated. I still remember Metallica taking down the entire music sharing scene successfully.

[Endless]

The US seems to have some sort of strong vendetta against libraries and books in general since forever. The recent years there's been hundreds of banned books, literary activities closed, and of course, legal lawsuits against digital libraries because ""piracy"". They are ultimately digging their own graves. The closure of Internet Archive would be a massive hit to the internet user base, and it would prompt a massive exodus of new piracy and shadow libraries, just like what happened when ZLibrary was taken down. There's already a massive serial crisis, regarding academia publications and subscriptions, yet rather than pushing for being more accessible, open and reachable, publishers in general just want wads of money as much as anyone else in this fucking corpo world.

 

I still remember fondly when the Guerrilla Open Access Manifesto meant anything. How thousands of internet sites went against the SOPA. A fight for knowledge for all, that's a good fight.

 

But yeah I guess poor JK Rowling is going to suffer a lot because some teenage kid decided to go the high sea route rather than increase her billion-something networth. The humanity.

 

Knowledge only for the elite. Circus for the masses. Just like good old times.

[Doomkid]

Copyright laws need changing desperately. It's a brave new world run by old cowards.

[PsychEyeball]

If there are two things Americans love, it's to make money and use lawyers to ensure that a select few make more money at the expense of everyone else.

[Individualised]

From what I know this ruling does not mean anything very significant, though it's still not a good thing. But you shouldn't have to worry about Internet Archive going away any time soon, at worst the library division of it will face troubles (again not a good thing at all). Software/warez (let's face it; it is, they host game ROMs for even the current generation consoles - not that I believe piracy is necessarily a bad thing) you probably don't have to worry about as software and games companies do not seem to want to challenge the Internet Archive in order to not set a legal precedent that doesn't benefit them. If the Internet Archive faces more legal trouble in the vain of this one, things might change on that front however.

 

We must protect our right to archival.

Edited March 27, 2023 by Individualised

[Master O]

2 hours ago, Endless said:

The US seems to have some sort of strong vendetta against libraries and books in general since forever. The recent years there's been hundreds of banned books, literary activities closed, and of course, legal lawsuits against digital libraries because ""piracy"". They are ultimately digging their own graves. The closure of Internet Archive would be a massive hit to the internet user base, and it would prompt a massive exodus of new piracy and shadow libraries, just like what happened when ZLibrary was taken down. There's already a massive serial crisis, regarding academia publications and subscriptions, yet rather than pushing for being more accessible, open and reachable, publishers in general just want wads of money as much as anyone else in this fucking corpo world.

 

I still remember fondly when the Guerrilla Open Access Manifesto meant anything. How thousands of internet sites went against the SOPA. A fight for knowledge for all, that's a good fight.

 

But yeah I guess poor JK Rowling is going to suffer a lot because some teenage kid decided to go the high sea route rather than increase her billion-something networth. The humanity.

 

Knowledge only for the elite. Circus for the masses. Just like good old times.

 

 

“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.” - Isaac Asimov

[TheShep]

yea i know, not a particularly great place to be in, re: murica.

[Biz!]

1 hour ago, Doomkid said:

Copyright laws need changing desperately. It's a brave new world run by old cowards.

America needs a reform, the same age group, being 60 year olds, don't understand how the modern world works, think of that old video game violence thing in court, or that thing for music, both cases where they wanted to remove adult content or language in general.

 

Anyway, the old people congress just focus on the economy, and not the people, which is why the lower class are in a constant state of going deeper and deeper into poverty, and the middle class live on the edge.

 

Fuck America, wish it wasn't the best place to live in right now, literally 1984.

[OpenRift]

Sounds like someone should pay judge John Koeltl a visit, give him a piece of the people's mind.

[Individualised]

3 hours ago, Biz! said:

America needs a reform, the same age group, being 60 year olds, don't understand how the modern world works, think of that old video game violence thing in court, or that thing for music, both cases where they wanted to remove adult content or language in general.

 

Anyway, the old people congress just focus on the economy, and not the people, which is why the lower class are in a constant state of going deeper and deeper into poverty, and the middle class live on the edge.

 

Fuck America, wish it wasn't the best place to live in right now, literally 1984.

I think the recent TikTok situation shows how well the governments of the world, America or otherwise, understand technology and modern life (Actually, I think some understand it very well and they let the technologically illiterate in control on purpose). I don't even use TikTok yet I understand how bad it is to normalise governments censoring and controlling the internet - which is ironically something China, the reason why the US government is so concerned about TikTok, is known for.

 

Censorship is not the answer, whether it's blocking websites or trying to stop the archival of information and data.

Edited March 27, 2023 by Individualised

[Sonikkumania]

1 minute ago, Individualised said:

I think the recent TikTok situation shows how well the governments of the world, America or otherwise, understand technology and modern life.

You're referring to their prohibition of TikTok? 

[Sonikkumania]

1 hour ago, Doomkid said:

Copyright laws need changing desperately. It's a brave new world run by old cowards.

Changing how exactly? 

[Individualised]

1 hour ago, Doomkid said:

Copyright laws need changing desperately. It's a brave new world run by old cowards.

One of the most ridiculous copyright laws I know of is the exception for bitmap fonts. Bitmap fonts cannot be copyrighted. Now I'm totally fine with this, it would be stupid if someone got sued because they decided to use the Minecraft or Quake system fonts in an advertisement for their game server or something like that - what I'm not fine with is the nonsensical and incorrect reasoning for this law. According to it, bitmap fonts cannot be copyrighted but vector fonts can because vector fonts contain "computer code". Now not only is this wrong (vector fonts obviously don't contain any executable code (EDIT: okay TrueType fonts apparently do - but this doesn't excuse the law because it should mean that all data files that don't contain code cannot be copyrightable), and the data they contain is as arbitrary as the data contained in a bitmap image), this SOLELY applies to "bitmap fonts", and not any other form of computer data, including data that does not contain "computer code". So technically, bitmap images, text files, you name it, should not be protected by copyright law. Then you get into what even is classed as a bitmap font and what isn't? Does Doom's font, as stylised as it is, class as a bitmap font? I don't think Bethesda would be happy if someone started using it in their games without permission. It's totally nonsensical and it shows that no one knows what they're doing when it comes to regulating things like technology and copyright.

Edited March 27, 2023 by Individualised

[MS-06FZ Zaku II Kai]

Man just thinking that most of this happened* because of that hack Chuck Wendig, who had to bitch about the meanie IA "stealing" his dogshit work.

 

 

 

 

 

 

*Then again his twitter tirade might have simply accelerate things that were already in motion by the greedy copyright holders and might even had been planed by his publishers.

[sean-dude]

I was just thinking about this the other day. Good things never last

 

 

[indigotyrian]

7 hours ago, Doomkid said:

Copyright laws need changing desperately. It's a brave new world run by old cowards.

 

Copyright law historically has done extremely little to defend small independent creators against big corporations, but it's been an excellent cudgel for those corporations to wield against the little guy. The entire thing needs to be fucking scrapped frankly.

 

"As the Americans learned so painfully in Earth's final century, free flow of information is the only safeguard against tyranny. The once-chained people whose leaders at last lose their grip on information flow will soon burst with freedom and vitality, but the free nation gradually constricting its grip on public discourse has begun its rapid slide into despotism. Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master."

 

It's Always Morally Correct.

Edited March 28, 2023 by segfault

[Budoka]

4 hours ago, Doomkid said:

Copyright laws need changing desperately. It's a brave new world run by old cowards.

They don't need changing, they need to disappear. All those works that stood the test of time, like for example the most famous symphonies we remember today? Mostly created in times and places where there was no legal form of "authorship protection" whatsoever. Whenever there is, it quickly turns into and exclusive club of dipshits who don't really need to try that hard. And yeah, regarding this current issue, editors trying impede the aggregation of information can piss off.

 

EDIT: Yeah, what segfault said...

Edited March 27, 2023 by Budoka

[IncompA]

Copyright laws around the world need to be torn down with extreme prejudice.

We cannot keep letting the fat, rich bastards who control the world keep winning. THIS IS THE LAST TIME.

[Caffeine Freak]

7 hours ago, Kinsie said:

During COVID, Archive removed that limitation by allowing books to be checked out as much as demand allowed in the name of improving educational access. Which was very nice of them on the surface, but in practice effectively created infinite free copies of books they're only supposed to have one copy of. Including books that are currently in-print. This effectively transformed the site from "an online library" to "a place where you can get free copies of new books".

 

You can probably see why the lawyers wouldn't be a fan of this.

 

So, this causes two issues. The first is that Archive stands to lose a butt-load of money. And frankly, they probably will! But the bigger issue, legally, is that controlled digital lending is about to be tested in court for the first time under unfavorable circumstances, potentially resulting in a good, reasonable idea for extending library accessibility getting its legs cut off from under it right out of the starting gate.

 

If this is really true and the situation was more or less as described here, then the people running IA made a pretty lunkheaded move and frankly should have seen this coming from 100 miles away. Any imbecile who hasn't been living under a rock the last ~25 years could see why this practice would come back to bite you in the ass in a big way.

 

Also, in no way am I siding with the publishers here. Publishers care about money, pure and simple, and would just as soon edit re-printings of books, both classic and modern, as they would side with idiot politicians and corporations implementing censorious ideas to further protect their own pocketbooks. On that note, I entirely agree with @segfault in that copyright laws historically protect the big guys FAR more than the little guys.

 

I very much hope IA doesn't go under, as I consider archiving an incredibly important aspect of the internet that unfortunately, corporations and ideologues of many stripes don't value at all or would like to see destroyed. None of that changes the fact that what IA did was strategically stupid and that this outcome was entirely foreseeable.

Edited March 27, 2023 by Caffeine Freak

[EraserheadBaby]

7 hours ago, dasho said:

Oh no, surely this time """piracy""" will be defeated. I still remember Metallica taking down the entire music sharing scene successfully.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!  

 

We live in a world where pirates are moral half the time.  wtf?!?!

[Benjogami]

11 minutes ago, Caffeine Freak said:

Publishers care about money, pure and simple, and would just as soon edit re-printings of books, both classic and modern, as they would side with idiot politicians and corporations implementing censorious ideas to further protect their own pocketbooks.

I can't believe they altered R.L. Stine's beautiful prose like that. Also, removing "African American" and "roly-poly" characters from these important cultural documents is a serious blow to diverse representation in media. Just imagine all the piles of extra money this publisher is raking in now because of these changes. smfh

[Bauul]

5 hours ago, Biz! said:

Fuck America, wish it wasn't the best place to live in right now, literally 1984.

 

I suspect you haven't read 1984 if you believe America is literally the same as a nation where being simply too enthusiastic about something will have you executed by the state.

[Individualised]

21 minutes ago, Bauul said:

 

I suspect you haven't read 1984 if you believe America is literally the same as a nation where being simply too enthusiastic about something will have you executed by the state.

"Literally 1984" is an internet meme and is not to be taken seriously when it is read.