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In many European countries, we have legal deposit laws that require the national library to run archival web crawls, at least of the country TLD and sometimes o

In many European countries, we have legal deposit laws that require the national library to run archival web crawls, at least of the country TLD and sometimes on a best-effort basis for material outside the TLD that's considered relevant (based on language, for example). These laws specify that the crawls are stored untampered and guarantee that the results can be considered valid evidence. Interestingly, that's how the Internet Archive's heritrix crawler came about - the nordic national libraries were saddled with this requirement but didn't really have the technical infrastructure to implement it. They formed a coalition among themselves and brought the Internet Archive into it (the IIPC[0]), and used it to fund development of heritrix. [0] http://netpreserve.org/ http://netpreserve.org/

corecoder 10y ago
That's interesting, I'd like to know more about the specific European situation on this. There have been a few cases (in Italy, but not only) where someone sued someone else for defamation (or is it libel?), bringing a screenshot of a tweet, Facebook post etc. as "proof"; all such cases have been dropped because a screenshot cannot possibly be used as evidence. It is not clear (at least not to me) how someone could proceed in order to obtain proof in these cases.
- throwaway7767 10y ago
  The IIPC has some more information (I'm not too knowledgeable about the legal side), looks like Italy doesn't have such laws, at least it's not listed: http://netpreserve.org/legal-deposit http://netpreserve.org/legal-deposit That said, the specific examples of twitter or facebook posts is still a problem - those huge centralised services are hard to properly archive without direct assistance from the companies in question. I know some of the national libraries are trying, but it's far from a solved problem.
- pdabbadabba 10y ago
  > defamation (or is it libel?) Both are right. Defamation is a general term that encompasses both libel and slander. Libel is written, slander is spoken. When in doubt, just say "defamation." > a screenshot cannot possibly be used as evidence Generally speaking, I see no reason why this should be the case. And screenshots are routinely used as evidence in U.S. courts. Of course, if the opposing side challenges the accuracy of the screenshot, then you'll need to give more evidence (testimony, probably) about how it was produced. But that doesn't mean that screenshots are per se unreliable.
  - sandworm101 10y ago
    You always need testimony in US courts. Evidence is not just admitted, someone has to vouch for it (not the legal term).
    - pdabbadabba 10y ago
      Yes, that's right. I was just trying to stay out of the procedural weeds a bit.
    - zerocrates 10y ago
      Well, there is such a thing as self-authenticating evidence.
  - corecoder 10y ago
    Of course in the cases I mentioned the opposing side challenged the screenshots; screenshots are not invalid by themselves, but if I bring a screenshot and claim that it's not been forged, that's still just my word, so it cannot add value to my word.

corecoder 10y ago

That's interesting, I'd like to know more about the specific European situation on this. There have been a few cases (in Italy, but not only) where someone sued someone else for defamation (or is it libel?), bringing a screenshot of a tweet, Facebook post etc. as "proof"; all such cases have been dropped because a screenshot cannot possibly be used as evidence. It is not clear (at least not to me) how someone could proceed in order to obtain proof in these cases.

throwaway7767 10y ago
The IIPC has some more information (I'm not too knowledgeable about the legal side), looks like Italy doesn't have such laws, at least it's not listed: http://netpreserve.org/legal-deposit http://netpreserve.org/legal-deposit That said, the specific examples of twitter or facebook posts is still a problem - those huge centralised services are hard to properly archive without direct assistance from the companies in question. I know some of the national libraries are trying, but it's far from a solved problem.
pdabbadabba 10y ago
> defamation (or is it libel?) Both are right. Defamation is a general term that encompasses both libel and slander. Libel is written, slander is spoken. When in doubt, just say "defamation." > a screenshot cannot possibly be used as evidence Generally speaking, I see no reason why this should be the case. And screenshots are routinely used as evidence in U.S. courts. Of course, if the opposing side challenges the accuracy of the screenshot, then you'll need to give more evidence (testimony, probably) about how it was produced. But that doesn't mean that screenshots are per se unreliable.
- sandworm101 10y ago
  You always need testimony in US courts. Evidence is not just admitted, someone has to vouch for it (not the legal term).
  - pdabbadabba 10y ago
    Yes, that's right. I was just trying to stay out of the procedural weeds a bit.
  - zerocrates 10y ago
    Well, there is such a thing as self-authenticating evidence.
- corecoder 10y ago
  Of course in the cases I mentioned the opposing side challenged the screenshots; screenshots are not invalid by themselves, but if I bring a screenshot and claim that it's not been forged, that's still just my word, so it cannot add value to my word.