10 ms·

Archive.org and California to start a data sharing and preservation project

228 points by bpierre 8y ago

sbhn 8y ago
Archive.org is a very long time investment. Once the original copyright runs out on all that content archive.org is copying today, the copyright holder of the copy you download from archive.org tomorrow, will be copyright archive.org, and that copyright will not expire.
- asdsa5325 8y ago
  > the copyright holder of the copy you download from archive.org tomorrow, will be copyright archive.org That is not true.
  - JackCh 8y ago
    I think he's taking poetic license there.
    - JackCh 8y ago
      Mea culpa, I gave way too much benefit of the doubt here.
  - sbhn 8y ago
    https://archive.org/details/TaylorSwiftReputation https://archive.org/details/TaylorSwiftReputation That is the latest Taylor swift full album streamable from archive.org
    - toomuchtodo 8y ago
      When a DMCA takedown notice is filed, the item will go dark. It will still be archived, but inaccessible. If your Internet Archive uploader account has frequent DMCA requests against it, it's disabled. Items don't lose their copyright status by being uploaded or stored in the Internet Archive.
      - sbhn 8y ago
        It will be inaccessible until it becomes public domain, but the copy that you download from archive.org will be copyright archive.org. You can get the music from somewhere else, if you can, you most likely won’t be able to.
        hobs 8y ago
        Copyrights are not transferable like that once they expire, they expire. Further, that's opposite the entire purpose of Archive.org Where are you getting this information?
        sbhn 8y ago
        If I take a photo of an original work of sheakespear, then I own the copyright on the photo. And i could license the usage of my photo. If I make a copy of anything, then I own the copyright on the copy. What if, in time, the only copy you could get hold of was my copy. My copy would be copyright me and you’d need to wait for it to become public domain before you could use it under your terms
        ufo 8y ago
        The difference is that picture is a derived work. When you just make a copy you don't get copyright over the copy.
        asdsa5325 8y ago
        > If I take a photo of an original work of sheakespear, then I own the copyright on the photo. And i could license the usage of my photo. That's 100% not true. Please stop spreading misinformation because you have no idea what you are talking about. "According to a landmark 1999 federal district court ruling, The Bridgeman Art Library, Ltd., Plaintiff v. Corel Corporation, 'exact reproductions of public domain artworks are not protected by copyright.'" https://www.huffingtonpost.com/bernard-starr/museum-paintings-copyright_b_1867076.html https://www.huffingtonpost.com/bernard-starr/museum-painting...
    - asdsa5325 8y ago
      Ok, but that is not related to what he said. Archive.org will not hold Taylor Swift's copyright in the future.
      - sbhn 8y ago
        Archive.org will hold the copyright on its copy of Taylor swifts recording. In 100 years time, perhaps the only accessible copy of Taylor swifts public domain music, will be a copy that you need to download from archive.org
        asdsa5325 8y ago
        Again, that's simply not true. That's not how copyrights work. Take Project Gutenberg for example- Project Gutenberg hosts public domain work. The copy of the work is still under public domain. What's not under public domain is the fact that PG hosts the public domain work. For example, you wouldn't be able to use Archive.org's trademarks to advertise public domain work. But Archive.org does not gain hold a copyright over a copy of public domain work
        sbhn 8y ago
        So Getty images has a whole lot of photos of the paintings in the Sistine chapel. I bet those photos are copyright the photographer, ‘yeah but that’s because it’s Getty, that’s allowed’
        JackCh 8y ago
        You seem to be very confused. Getty pays photographers for the rights to their photographs.
        fixermark 8y ago
        Taking a photograph is creation of a new copyrighted work under some now-very-old United States Law. The key idea is "transformation": it's understood that photography includes an editor's eye of what is worth taking a photograph of. Making a copy of a public domain book does not create an independent claim of copyright to the contents of the book. You can make a case that maybe it should, but it legally does not; that's just not how it works.
- pasbesoin 8y ago
  I'm not sure how worried I am about archive.org, specifically, in this regard. But the concern does reflect a trend in copyright, promulgated by those with significant vested interests (IP value they're seeking to maintain or grow) and so-called "maximalists". There's a growing push to legitimize copyright claims for "instances" of a work, even after the base work has entered the public domain. If this "sounds ridiculous" to you, just recall how most of us are increasingly worried that, in the U.S., Congress and the Executive are going to... "re-Mickey" the copyright term. As in, they already pushed it to life plus 70 years when certain Disney copyrights were about to expire. (And keep using "trade agreements" as one mechanism to try to "back door" increases to "plus 70" into other countries' IP terms.) A separate concern I have, is that currently archive.org continues to "retroactively respect" robots.txt changes. 404 your once public content, and archive.org "disappears" it from their corresponding records/copies. As long as that's true, you can't really view it as a permanent, unbiased archive. As politicians, commercial interests, and their lawyers continue to have a field day constraining "online rights" (and IP rights, and etc.), currently the only "guarantee" the public has of continued access and a more complete historical record is, ironically, local copies. They say, "History is written by the winners." Well, unless they can't find the copy you have squirreled away.
AdmiralAsshat 8y ago
Does anyone here work at Archive.org? Can you speak to how well-funded the organization is and what sort of measures are in place to keep it afloat? I think it's a fantastic service and I donate, but I worry that it could vanish the next day if funding suddenly dries up. I feel like a large corner of the Internet collectively takes the site for granted and don't bother doing their own in-house archiving because "TheArchive will just suck it up for us."
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- ilaksh 8y ago
  I don't work for them but I think the move towards decentralization is the best way to address those concerns.
  - kinsomo 8y ago
    > I don't work for them but I think the move towards decentralization is the best way to address those concerns. How feasible would a reliable, distributed archive be; given how massive amount of data Archive.org has? After all, it was created precisely because the already-decentralized web was too ephemeral and unstable. I don't think decentralization is a panacea in this case. Some problems are best solved by institutions.
    - toomuchtodo 8y ago
      Yeah, spot on. Governance and durability through org structure is a thing. The way to solve this is to provide the Internet Archive with enough resources to build out a globally distributed storage system. Could you hack something together using their torrent tracker for every item served? Yes. But you don't hack together something made to preserve digital human culture in perpetuity.
      - kinsomo 8y ago
        > Yeah, spot on. Governance and durability through org structure is a thing. > The way to solve this is to provide the Internet Archive with enough resources to build out a globally distributed storage system. Yeah, I agree. I do see a space for other appropriate institutions (such as the Library of Congress, British Library, etc.) to pool resources and facilities with the Internet Archive to achieve that goal. Ultimately, it'd be awesome to see each national library run a semi-autonomous IA copy that synchronizes with all the others, but can continue to operate independently (scrapers and all), if need be.
app4soft 8y ago
TL;DR: The project aims to demonstrate how members of a cooperative, decentralized network can leverage shared services to ensure data preservation while reducing storage costs and increasing replication counts.
egh 8y ago
To be clear, this is not the state government of California, but a division of the University of California (the California Digital Library) working with the Internet Archive and Code for Science & Society.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > To be clear, this is not the state government of California, but a division of the University of California The University of California is a part of the government of the State of California established in the State Constitution, whose governing body is comprised of 18 members appointed by the Governor and confirmed by the Senate, plus seven ex-officio members, three of whom are State elected Constitutional officers (Governor, Lt. Governor, and Superintendent of Public Instruction) and one of whom is the Speaker of the Assembly. (That said, it is unusual and potentially misleading to refer to UC as “California”, but not because UC is actually separate from the government of the State.)
sbhn 8y ago
If my local librarian walked into the penguin publisher office, picked up the stack of books on the table over there, said ‘thanks i’ll Have these, I’m a library’, walked right out the door again, well that would be stealing, wouldn’t it.
WindowsFon4life 8y ago
The former to be influenced to the "common truth" by the latter, no doubt.
tannhaeuser 8y ago
I hope archive.org doesn't fall victim to GDPR and the upcoming EU "copyright" reform (eg. will stop serving to EU). I'm not a fan of the vague "right to be forgotten" concept as it applies to individuals, and think history rewriting is a much more serious issue going forward. Though I've heard credible complaints from "copyright" holders vs archive.org.
- adrianratnapala 8y ago
  Yes. The popular sentiment here is "GDPR good, EU copyright reform bad". And that's understandable. But both data-privacy and copyright they try to create ownership of information and must do so through intrusive legal measures because physical nature makes is against it.

228 points by bpierre 8y ago

sbhn 8y ago

Archive.org is a very long time investment. Once the original copyright runs out on all that content archive.org is copying today, the copyright holder of the copy you download from archive.org tomorrow, will be copyright archive.org, and that copyright will not expire.

asdsa5325 8y ago
> the copyright holder of the copy you download from archive.org tomorrow, will be copyright archive.org That is not true.
- JackCh 8y ago
  I think he's taking poetic license there.
  - JackCh 8y ago
    Mea culpa, I gave way too much benefit of the doubt here.
- sbhn 8y ago
  https://archive.org/details/TaylorSwiftReputation https://archive.org/details/TaylorSwiftReputation That is the latest Taylor swift full album streamable from archive.org
  - toomuchtodo 8y ago
    When a DMCA takedown notice is filed, the item will go dark. It will still be archived, but inaccessible. If your Internet Archive uploader account has frequent DMCA requests against it, it's disabled. Items don't lose their copyright status by being uploaded or stored in the Internet Archive.
    - sbhn 8y ago
      It will be inaccessible until it becomes public domain, but the copy that you download from archive.org will be copyright archive.org. You can get the music from somewhere else, if you can, you most likely won’t be able to.
      - hobs 8y ago
        Copyrights are not transferable like that once they expire, they expire. Further, that's opposite the entire purpose of Archive.org Where are you getting this information?
        sbhn 8y ago
        If I take a photo of an original work of sheakespear, then I own the copyright on the photo. And i could license the usage of my photo. If I make a copy of anything, then I own the copyright on the copy. What if, in time, the only copy you could get hold of was my copy. My copy would be copyright me and you’d need to wait for it to become public domain before you could use it under your terms
        ufo 8y ago
        The difference is that picture is a derived work. When you just make a copy you don't get copyright over the copy.
        asdsa5325 8y ago
        > If I take a photo of an original work of sheakespear, then I own the copyright on the photo. And i could license the usage of my photo. That's 100% not true. Please stop spreading misinformation because you have no idea what you are talking about. "According to a landmark 1999 federal district court ruling, The Bridgeman Art Library, Ltd., Plaintiff v. Corel Corporation, 'exact reproductions of public domain artworks are not protected by copyright.'" https://www.huffingtonpost.com/bernard-starr/museum-paintings-copyright_b_1867076.html https://www.huffingtonpost.com/bernard-starr/museum-painting...
  - asdsa5325 8y ago
    Ok, but that is not related to what he said. Archive.org will not hold Taylor Swift's copyright in the future.
    - sbhn 8y ago
      Archive.org will hold the copyright on its copy of Taylor swifts recording. In 100 years time, perhaps the only accessible copy of Taylor swifts public domain music, will be a copy that you need to download from archive.org
      - asdsa5325 8y ago
        Again, that's simply not true. That's not how copyrights work. Take Project Gutenberg for example- Project Gutenberg hosts public domain work. The copy of the work is still under public domain. What's not under public domain is the fact that PG hosts the public domain work. For example, you wouldn't be able to use Archive.org's trademarks to advertise public domain work. But Archive.org does not gain hold a copyright over a copy of public domain work
        sbhn 8y ago
        So Getty images has a whole lot of photos of the paintings in the Sistine chapel. I bet those photos are copyright the photographer, ‘yeah but that’s because it’s Getty, that’s allowed’
        JackCh 8y ago
        You seem to be very confused. Getty pays photographers for the rights to their photographs.
        fixermark 8y ago
        Taking a photograph is creation of a new copyrighted work under some now-very-old United States Law. The key idea is "transformation": it's understood that photography includes an editor's eye of what is worth taking a photograph of. Making a copy of a public domain book does not create an independent claim of copyright to the contents of the book. You can make a case that maybe it should, but it legally does not; that's just not how it works.
pasbesoin 8y ago
I'm not sure how worried I am about archive.org, specifically, in this regard. But the concern does reflect a trend in copyright, promulgated by those with significant vested interests (IP value they're seeking to maintain or grow) and so-called "maximalists". There's a growing push to legitimize copyright claims for "instances" of a work, even after the base work has entered the public domain. If this "sounds ridiculous" to you, just recall how most of us are increasingly worried that, in the U.S., Congress and the Executive are going to... "re-Mickey" the copyright term. As in, they already pushed it to life plus 70 years when certain Disney copyrights were about to expire. (And keep using "trade agreements" as one mechanism to try to "back door" increases to "plus 70" into other countries' IP terms.) A separate concern I have, is that currently archive.org continues to "retroactively respect" robots.txt changes. 404 your once public content, and archive.org "disappears" it from their corresponding records/copies. As long as that's true, you can't really view it as a permanent, unbiased archive. As politicians, commercial interests, and their lawyers continue to have a field day constraining "online rights" (and IP rights, and etc.), currently the only "guarantee" the public has of continued access and a more complete historical record is, ironically, local copies. They say, "History is written by the winners." Well, unless they can't find the copy you have squirreled away.

AdmiralAsshat 8y ago

Does anyone here work at Archive.org? Can you speak to how well-funded the organization is and what sort of measures are in place to keep it afloat? I think it's a fantastic service and I donate, but I worry that it could vanish the next day if funding suddenly dries up. I feel like a large corner of the Internet collectively takes the site for granted and don't bother doing their own in-house archiving because "TheArchive will just suck it up for us."

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
ilaksh 8y ago
I don't work for them but I think the move towards decentralization is the best way to address those concerns.
- kinsomo 8y ago
  > I don't work for them but I think the move towards decentralization is the best way to address those concerns. How feasible would a reliable, distributed archive be; given how massive amount of data Archive.org has? After all, it was created precisely because the already-decentralized web was too ephemeral and unstable. I don't think decentralization is a panacea in this case. Some problems are best solved by institutions.
  - toomuchtodo 8y ago
    Yeah, spot on. Governance and durability through org structure is a thing. The way to solve this is to provide the Internet Archive with enough resources to build out a globally distributed storage system. Could you hack something together using their torrent tracker for every item served? Yes. But you don't hack together something made to preserve digital human culture in perpetuity.
    - kinsomo 8y ago
      > Yeah, spot on. Governance and durability through org structure is a thing. > The way to solve this is to provide the Internet Archive with enough resources to build out a globally distributed storage system. Yeah, I agree. I do see a space for other appropriate institutions (such as the Library of Congress, British Library, etc.) to pool resources and facilities with the Internet Archive to achieve that goal. Ultimately, it'd be awesome to see each national library run a semi-autonomous IA copy that synchronizes with all the others, but can continue to operate independently (scrapers and all), if need be.

app4soft 8y ago

TL;DR: The project aims to demonstrate how members of a cooperative, decentralized network can leverage shared services to ensure data preservation while reducing storage costs and increasing replication counts.

egh 8y ago

To be clear, this is not the state government of California, but a division of the University of California (the California Digital Library) working with the Internet Archive and Code for Science & Society.

dragonwriter 8y ago
> To be clear, this is not the state government of California, but a division of the University of California The University of California is a part of the government of the State of California established in the State Constitution, whose governing body is comprised of 18 members appointed by the Governor and confirmed by the Senate, plus seven ex-officio members, three of whom are State elected Constitutional officers (Governor, Lt. Governor, and Superintendent of Public Instruction) and one of whom is the Speaker of the Assembly. (That said, it is unusual and potentially misleading to refer to UC as “California”, but not because UC is actually separate from the government of the State.)

sbhn 8y ago

If my local librarian walked into the penguin publisher office, picked up the stack of books on the table over there, said ‘thanks i’ll Have these, I’m a library’, walked right out the door again, well that would be stealing, wouldn’t it.

WindowsFon4life 8y ago

The former to be influenced to the "common truth" by the latter, no doubt.

tannhaeuser 8y ago

I hope archive.org doesn't fall victim to GDPR and the upcoming EU "copyright" reform (eg. will stop serving to EU). I'm not a fan of the vague "right to be forgotten" concept as it applies to individuals, and think history rewriting is a much more serious issue going forward. Though I've heard credible complaints from "copyright" holders vs archive.org.

adrianratnapala 8y ago
Yes. The popular sentiment here is "GDPR good, EU copyright reform bad". And that's understandable. But both data-privacy and copyright they try to create ownership of information and must do so through intrusive legal measures because physical nature makes is against it.