It looks like the internet archive is needed assistance, I just heard about this today and figured lemmy could help spread this message around

  • EveryMuffinIsNowEncrypted@lemmy.blahaj.zone
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    182
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    7 months ago

    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.

    • Einar@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      126
      arrow-down
      3
      ·
      edit-2
      7 months ago

      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.

      • MonkderDritte@feddit.de
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        18
        ·
        7 months ago

        Yeah. The monsters gnawing away at nature, public infrastructure, your friends? They are called corporations.
        Btw, megacorps have multiple faces and are especially hungry.

      • Scolding0513
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        15
        ·
        7 months ago

        i guess it doesnt matter to the execs, they will always have their little islands to live on while they destroy the rest of the world

      • z00s@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        7
        ·
        7 months ago

        And yet by law in some places (the US being one, I believe) they are treated as people, with certain rights.

        • AbsentBird@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          16
          ·
          edit-2
          7 months ago

          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.

      • Citizen@lemmy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        7
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        7 months ago

        Agreed, now what do we do about it?

        I quit a very very well paid IT job in a very big corp because I did not want to participate to their anti-human, anti-planet shit…

        What are you doing about it?

        • Asafum@feddit.nl
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          10
          ·
          7 months ago

          I decided not to pursue my interest in geology because I didn’t want to be stuck with the only employment options being oil companies.

          It sucks that we need to give up so much even though they keep destroying and pillaging.

          • Citizen@lemmy.ml
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            5
            ·
            7 months ago

            Respect! Hope you will find your way following your passion and working for the Good!

        • EveryMuffinIsNowEncrypted@lemmy.blahaj.zone
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          5
          ·
          edit-2
          7 months ago

          What am I doing about it? For the most part, nothing at the moment besides actively refusing to purchase from a small number of companies—Nestlé, Walmart, Amazon, etc—mostly out of principal as I’m not illusioned enough to think one person will make a difference in this sense). Primarily because at the moment I live in a dead-end job making barely enough money to buy food and trying to keep my car from disintegrating long enough for me to get to work and back.

          Frankly, I’d love to do more, but there’s really not much I can do. Doesn’t mean I have to like it though. Just because you don’t have an alternative ready doesn’t mean you’re not allowed to dislike the current situation.

      • EveryMuffinIsNowEncrypted@lemmy.blahaj.zone
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        7 months ago

        I agree that that is the capitalist way, which is one of the reasons I hate capitalism. I’m no tankie, but I believe there are other ways, even ways that still use personal property as well as currency, beyond capitalism, which is just the use of personal property and currency to obtain more personal property and currency at all costs in an endless cycle.

  • Scolding0513
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    108
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    7 months ago

    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.

    • FaceDeer@fedia.io
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      22
      arrow-down
      17
      ·
      7 months ago

      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.

      • Scolding0513
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        29
        ·
        edit-2
        7 months ago

        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

        • wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          16
          arrow-down
          4
          ·
          7 months ago

          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.

          • A1kmm@lemmy.amxl.com
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            15
            arrow-down
            2
            ·
            7 months ago

            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.

          • Scolding0513
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            10
            ·
            7 months ago

            this is a fair assessment.

            regardless, if they want to do what they’re doing, they need to decentralize.

            • WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              6
              ·
              7 months ago

              They need to decentralize because it was always only a matter of time before they pissed off the wrong capitalist sociopath or piss baby politician.

      • stoy@lemmy.zip
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        8
        ·
        7 months ago

        Yeah, as soon as I read about that I realized that they fucked up.

        It was increadibly irresponsible by them at their current legal status.

  • e$tGyr#J2pqM8v@feddit.nl
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    67
    ·
    7 months ago

    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.

    • dko1905@discuss.tchncs.de
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      10
      ·
      7 months ago

      Sadly in countries without a pirate party, like Denmark, you can’t (as far as I know) vote for the EP pirate party.

      • TachyonTele@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        8
        ·
        7 months ago

        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.

        • viking@infosec.pub
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          9
          ·
          7 months ago

          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.

        • IdleSheep@lemmy.blahaj.zone
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          6
          ·
          edit-2
          7 months ago

          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.

          • TachyonTele@lemm.ee
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            2
            ·
            7 months ago

            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.

    • EmilieEvans@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      9
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      7 months ago

      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.

    • Moorshou@lemmy.zipOP
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      92
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      edit-2
      7 months ago

      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.

      Battleforlibraries

          • Steve@communick.news
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            22
            arrow-down
            6
            ·
            edit-2
            7 months ago

            It feels better than doing nothing.
            If you can convince yourself you’re not doing nothing.
            I’ve never been that good a liar.

              • BossDj@lemm.ee
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                4
                ·
                7 months ago

                Yep. Petition gets large enough for media attention, word is spread, MAYBE people get active.

                But Then police beat on them, Trump supporters defend the corporate interests of their supreme lord, it all goes down the shitter anyway.

            • cybersin@lemm.ee
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              15
              ·
              7 months ago

              I don’t know.

              I still think there’s at least some value, even if the only thing it accomplishes is getting people to talk about it. Many people have never even heard of The Internet Archive.

              Either way, there isn’t really a reason not to.

          • grue@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            5
            arrow-down
            2
            ·
            edit-2
            7 months ago

            Only things that are effective are better than doing nothing. Doing ineffective things only gives a false sense of accomplishment and thus reduces the incentive to try harder to be effective, which means they’re actually worse than doing nothing.

            Online petitions, “free speech zones,” and other easily-ignorable things are like honeypots for activism, designed to neuter it.

            • cybersin@lemm.ee
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              4
              ·
              7 months ago

              Sure, but “effectiveness” is usually not a binary and is often difficult to measure. Small, but persistent changes should still add up. Eventually.

              So long as people recognize that these things are in fact quite toothless, I’m not sure they are entirely detrimental. There’s no reason this couldn’t be used as a starting point for more effective action, now that signatories are in greater contact with the campaign.

        • FaceDeer@fedia.io
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          9
          ·
          7 months ago

          It’s not even a question of being “owned by corporations”. Judges don’t care about petitions. They’re not politicians, their job is to adjudicate the law.

          • EveryMuffinIsNowEncrypted@lemmy.blahaj.zone
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            9
            ·
            edit-2
            7 months ago

            In theory. In the US, at least (I don’t know about other countries), some judge positions are voted in, In that sense, they most certainly are politicians.

            On top of that, HAVE YOU SEEN OUR SUPREME COURT. THAT SHIT’S THE HALLMARK CHANNEL OF “OWNED BY OTHER ENTITIES”, be it actual politicians (Trump) or CEOs (also Trump), many of whom ARE both executives and politicans (again, not only Trump, but also a number of other reps & senators).

        • Animoscity@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          4
          ·
          7 months ago

          With the current judges we could probably buy one fairly cheap. Crowd source lobbying I guess

      • FaceDeer@fedia.io
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        34
        arrow-down
        15
        ·
        7 months ago

        Except it’s not a threat to the future of all libraries, it’s a threat to the future of “libraries” that decide to completely ignore copyright and give out an unlimited number of copies of ebooks. Basically turning themselves into book-focused piracy sites.

        I’m incredibly frustrated with Internet Archive for bringing this on themselves. It is not their mandate to fight copyright, that’s something better left in the hands of activist organizations like the EFF. The Internet Archive’s mandate is to archive the Internet, to store and preserve knowledge. Distributing it is secondary to that goal. And picking unnecessary fights with big publishing houses like this is directly contrary to that goal, since now the Internet Archive is in danger.

        It’s like they’re carrying around a precious baby and they decided it was a good idea to start whacking a bear with a stick. Now the bear is eating their leg and they’re screaming “oh my god help me, the bear is threatening this baby!” Well yeah, but you shouldn’t have brought a baby with you when you went on a bear-whacking expedition. You should have known exactly what that bear was going to do.

        • wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          13
          arrow-down
          2
          ·
          7 months ago

          Exactly. I hate fucking everything about this. I love the internet archive and nearly all they do.

          In principal I love their “covid-19 emergency library” or whatever they called it. In practice? They absolutely know better than to pull stunts and I’m terrified that this will spell the end for one of the greatest knowledge and media resources of the modern age. For shit that was effectively already available to the public through ebook piracy sites.

          They already operated on shaky ground, hosting downloads for a metric ton of shit that is unquestionably still under copyright (despite their claims to only be archival of things that are not), skating by on technicalities and by not drawing too much attention to themselves.

          Plus, there were so fucking many better ways to do the “free digital library” thing without jeapordizing themselves.

          • Have some volunteers “misuse resources”: load an SSD up with the book files, “borrow” some compute power to decrypt/remove drm, pass batches off to existing ebook “dumping” groups to stagger releases and obsfucate the true source. This would ensure that any material they had which was not already available on the high seas would get there.
          • Make a big red banner on the site to a blog post with the generic “While we would never condone piracy or copyright infringement, we understand that times are extremely hard right now [blah blah] here are some links to community guides on how to access learning literature (pirate ebooks) during these trying times [blah blah] Please abide by your local laws.”
        • Possibly linux@lemmy.zip
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          10
          arrow-down
          3
          ·
          edit-2
          7 months ago

          You summed it up exactly. As one politician put it, the Internet Archive does not decide copyright. They have became to big for there own shoes.

          • FaceDeer@fedia.io
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            3
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            7 months ago

            The thing that drives me nuts is that I really do value that baby they’re carrying around. It is precious. But I don’t want to give the Internet Archive money just to funnel into the pockets of their lawyers and settlement payments to big publishers due to these unrelated quixotic battles.

            I was hoping that the IA would have learned a lesson from losing this court case, they should have settled as soon as they could. I’m sure the publishers don’t want the bad publicity of “destroying” the Internet Archive, they just want them to stop blatantly violating their copyrights. But this appeal suggests that they haven’t learned that lesson yet.

            In an ideal world there’d either be some kind of leadership shakeup at the IA to get rid of whoever was behind this stunt, or some kind of alternative IA-like organization appears to pick up the archive before the IA goes broke and its collection ends up being sold off to the highest bidder. Or simply destroyed.

            • grue@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              13
              arrow-down
              2
              ·
              7 months ago

              I’m sure the publishers don’t want the bad publicity of “destroying” the Internet Archive

              LOL. LMAO, even.

              I have little doubt that publishers detest the Internet Archive and the deepest desire of their shriveled, blackened heart is to (figuratively) mount its stuffed corpse as a trophy over their fireplace mantel.

                • youmaynotknow@lemmy.ml
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  4
                  arrow-down
                  1
                  ·
                  edit-2
                  7 months ago

                  True, but that doesn’t make him wrong. While generalizing is inherently wrong, the chances of ANY corporation giving a fuck about their image for destroying something that could spell them not earning a couple of bucks is low to null.

                  Look around. The amount of complains about privacy breaches from all the tech giants, and some midgets, is at its highest ever, and do you see any of them pedaling back?

                  I am part of an executive suite myself, and while I’m trying to make a difference, you should see the ridiculous amount of pushback I get on ANYTHING that could spell improving user and staff experience, sometimes even when it has absolutely no negative financial impact. It’s like they’re programmed to destroy.

                  You will find a few good men and women in the Corp world, but this few can’t do much against the majority, which happens to be full of bloodsucking pricks.

        • SzethFriendOfNimi@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          6
          arrow-down
          2
          ·
          edit-2
          7 months ago

          I love the internet archive but yeah, there was just no way this wasn’t going to backfire. And by handling things the way they did they damaged the reasonable defense of archivist (not only for themselves) because publishers and others often cite that archival and backups are just “pseudonyms” “synonymous” for piracy.

          They aren’t but the way this was handled made it impossible for them to argue otherwise and it also creates a legal precedent for lawsuits and judgments by publishers against others who are doing such work.

        • lemmyvore@feddit.nl
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          6
          arrow-down
          2
          ·
          7 months ago

          They did not ignore copyright. The judge brazenly and incorrectly dismissed all their arguments for fair use. They had no way to foresee they would meet a judge that would go that far.

        • rottingleaf@lemmy.zip
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          7 months ago

          it’s a threat to the future of “libraries” that decide to completely ignore copyright and give out an unlimited number of copies of ebooks

          So do I, so this is very bad.

        • Moorshou@lemmy.zipOP
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          14
          ·
          7 months ago

          Another excerpt under why from the FAQ section

          **The Internet Archive has been scanning millions of print books that they own, and loaning them out to anyone around the world, for free. Other libraries like the Boston Public Library are using the same process to make digital books too.

          This is happening because major publishers offer no option for libraries to permanently purchase digital books and carry out their traditional role of preservation.

          Instead, libraries are forced to pay high licensing fees to “rent” books from big tech vendors that regard patron privacy as a premium feature and are vulnerable to censorship from book banners. Under this regime, publishers act as malicious gatekeepers, preventing the free flow of information and undermining libraries’ ability to serve their patrons.

          But it looks bad if publishers sue the Boston Public Library. So instead, they’ve launched an attack on a groundbreaking nonprofit, including a lawsuit with clear repercussions for every library in the US. On March 24, 2023, a lower court judge issued a ruling that stated the profits of big media companies are more important than the right of libraries to preserve our history and ensure it’s available to the world. Then, in a copyright troll move for the ages, the same attorney representing Big Publishing filed a second absurd lawsuit against the Internet Archive for it’s research library of old music recordings.

          Nevertheless, the Internet Archive are appealing to a higher court and will keep fighting for the digital rights of libraries.**

          • wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            6
            ·
            edit-2
            7 months ago

            This buries the lede so deep it’s popping out the other side of the globe.

            The entire core of this case is that (in abscence of more lenient agreements with publishers) traditional libraries are allowed to digitize physical books in their posession, as long as they do not lend out more copies than they physically own. The Internet Archive decided that they would lend out infinite copies, because “covid lol”.

            Boston Public Library isn’t being sued because they don’t lend out more than they own! It has precisely zero to do with fucking optics.

            Edit: Don’t get me wrong, I hope they win this case, but them continuing to play stupid helps nobody. Unfortunately, as discussed thoroughly online when they opened the covid19 emergency digital library, they fucked around. Now it seems they may have to find out.

  • 𝓔𝓶𝓶𝓲𝓮@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    36
    ·
    edit-2
    7 months ago

    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.

    • menemen@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      29
      ·
      edit-2
      7 months ago

      Honestly, I’d say it would be much much worse than your examples. It would be erasing parts of history itself.

      • 𝓔𝓶𝓶𝓲𝓮@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        12
        ·
        edit-2
        7 months ago

        Fuck yes, we need to get our hands on this stuff for fucks sake. I have shit there I don’t even know I need yet

        Can someone fucking near get their ass there and do a legendary copy paste operation on a massive scale

      • TachyonTele@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        8
        ·
        edit-2
        7 months ago

        Exactly. Losing Internet and digital history would create another dark ages for future historians. Everything we’ve done would just be gone.

        If I had more money than humanly usable I would create a project that transcribes wikipedia or whatever onto stone/metal plates so it’s not forgotten.

  • simple@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    61
    arrow-down
    32
    ·
    7 months ago

    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…

    • lemmyvore@feddit.nl
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      77
      arrow-down
      5
      ·
      7 months ago

      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.

      • PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        13
        arrow-down
        4
        ·
        edit-2
        7 months ago

        Their argument towards fair use wasn’t ignored. It was inapplicable.

        It’s ridiculous to assume that an organization whose main purpose is data archival would knowingly and blatantly ignore copyright law

        Except that’s exactly what they did. They knowingly and blatantly violated copyright law. They had a system in place to ensure fair use compliance. They intentionally disabled that system, in violation of fair use, to allow unlimited free downloads of the books they had archived.

        IA’s entire argument was basically “but we’re a library” and totally missed the part where even public libraries need to comply with copyright law. Even with ebooks, they can’t simply distribute an unlimited number of copies; They have licensing agreements in place, for a specific number of specific ebooks to be checked out at any one time. And they have to use time-locked DRM to ensure compliance, by automatically revoking users’ reading ability when their check-out time is up. IA did precisely none of that.

      • chiliedogg@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        12
        arrow-down
        7
        ·
        7 months ago

        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.

        • lemmyvore@feddit.nl
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          14
          arrow-down
          2
          ·
          7 months ago

          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.

          • Ferk@lemmy.ml
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            4
            ·
            edit-2
            7 months ago

            In that counter argument they are essentially admitting that 99% of their content was distributed without the copyright holder’s consent.

            In the CDL lawsuit, they have admitted that of the millions of books we have digitized, they themselves have only made about 33,000 available to libraries; only about 1% of what we have done, and only under restrictive and expensive license agreements. This is, they claim, the essence of their copyright rights: the ability to restrict access to information as they see fit, to further their theoretical economic interests, without regard to libraries traditional functions and the greater public good.

            Was it fair use in the past to redistribute reprints/format-conversions of works without the copyright holders consent?

            I agree that copyright law sucks… but that’s why it needs to change so it actually serves “the greater public good”. The judiciary system is not the right place to advocate for that (they don’t make the law, just interpret it), so I don’t really think there’s much hope in them winning this. Sadly.

          • chiliedogg@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            5
            arrow-down
            3
            ·
            7 months ago

            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.

    • Random Dent@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      13
      ·
      7 months ago

      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.

      • bionicjoey@lemmy.ca
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        7 months ago

        That worked for pirate bay because they were storing a miniscule amount of actual data. Torrents are really small. The actual data is stored in the peer to peer network. The torrents are just tracking where in the p2p stuff is.

        IA isn’t like that. They probably store exabytes of data.

          • Cracks_InTheWalls
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            7 months ago

            Lol, fair. I’m still not well versed in inter-service ActivityPub stuff. I don’t know if you’ll see this or see any of the parent comments here on Lemmy.

            Contingency plans if IA loses the appeal about the library stuff, or in general has something happen that puts IA’s collections at risk of being lost. Any thoughts on the matter? Also cool if it’s not something you want to talk about, I know you don’t speak for the whole org.

            How do we archive the archive?

      • Gsus4@mander.xyz
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        edit-2
        7 months ago

        I think this explains his stance a bit https://piped.kavin.rocks/watch?v=rRDEkMAcwrQ I agree with some bits (because code quality does matter more than being nice when it is your profession), disagree with some (because being a grumpy idiot will harm your ability to build on collaborative projects).

        PS: but yea, then there is also the video about the tech industry where he cherrypicks outrage and contradicts himself and agrees that Linus is rude and divisive…which sort of discredits him, because he only seems to like angry but competent people when they agree with him.

    • PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      9
      arrow-down
      5
      ·
      7 months ago

      Yeah, pretty much everyone who understands copyright agreed that this was the dumbest idea imaginable. But IA stupidly proceeded anyways, and now they’re finding out that the long studded dildo of justice rarely arrives lubed.

      I love IA. I use it all the time. But this was just a blatantly stupid move. No amount of crying about it is going to change the fact that they seriously fucked up and angered the most well-established copyright holders in the world.

  • umbrella@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    21
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    edit-2
    7 months ago

    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…

  • LiveLM@lemmy.zip
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    11
    ·
    7 months ago

    Just sent them a couple of bucks. Wish I could give more but the conversion rate on my currency is atrocious lol 🫠

  • nifty@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    11
    ·
    edit-2
    7 months ago

    Can they sink the IA name and just set up as another entity? I mean, declare bankruptcy etc. What happens to the archived data in this scenario? I am not a lawyer so I have no idea

    Edit perhaps they can setup up an entity, sell the data to it, and bankrupt IA?

    • 𝓔𝓶𝓶𝓲𝓮@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      6
      arrow-down
      8
      ·
      edit-2
      7 months ago

      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?

      • delirious_owl@discuss.online
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        11
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        edit-2
        7 months ago

        I was asking others to downvote low effort content to improve the quality of the content on the platform for others.

        • 𝓔𝓶𝓶𝓲𝓮@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          3
          arrow-down
          7
          ·
          edit-2
          7 months ago

          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

  • ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    8
    arrow-down
    3
    ·
    7 months ago

    They should have:

    • Not sell out to AI.
    • Deleted doxxing info (they already removed stuff like Mike Matei’s racist webcomics on behalf of Mike Matei).