Internet Archive is in danger - eviltoast
Battle for Libraries
www.battleforlibraries.com
Don’t let libraries die. As the future goes digital, major publishers are suing to cut off libraries’ defense of digital books from censorship. It’s time to fight back.

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

  • simple@lemm.ee
    0·
    5 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…

    • Random Dent@lemmy.mlEnglish
      0·
      5 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.

  • Scolding0513@sh.itjust.works
    0·
    5 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
      0·
      5 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@sh.itjust.works
        0·
        5 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.comEnglish
          0·
          5 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.comEnglish
            1·
            5 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.