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The Internet Archive is so incredibly important. There’s a lot of different views about the purpose of life or lack thereof, but for all except a few beliefs,

The Internet Archive is so incredibly important. There’s a lot of different views about the purpose of life or lack thereof, but for all except a few beliefs, having access to past writings is very important. Humanity is only at the very beginning of its existence. The success or failure of projects like the Internet Archive will drastically change our future. If you think the loss of the Internet Archive won’t significantly current day activities, you’re wrong. Besides the fact that the IA holds the only easily accessible copies of many websites from the 90s and early 2000s, there is the “my legacy” factor. Do you think people would have commissioned statues of themselves if they knew they were going to be vandalized and torn down in a protest 100 years later? Even though we may try to stop our egos affecting our decisions, they still play a huge role. Mathematicians don’t just write papers to further the field, they also do it to gain notoriety and leave a legacy. I know that if I write a blog post, it will be unavailable from its original source within 20 years. But that’s OK! The Internet Archive will store a copy and someone many generations from now will be able to read my humble writings. Oh... but the IA was shut down because its leadership decided to be philanthropic during a period of human history that lacked freedom of information. I’m going for a walk instead. Perhaps the “my legacy” effect has only a marginal influence on how many authors decide to put pen to paper, but it’s still something. It’s hard to measure, so if it’s plausible that it could be significant, we should act appropriately.

jawns 6y ago
> the IA was shut down because its leadership decided to be philanthropic during a period of human history that lacked freedom of information Philanthropic by massively infringing on copyright. Giving away something you own and have a right to give away is one thing. But critics of the emergency library allege that because the IA doesn't own the copyright to these books, they don't get to make and lend unlimited copies. Under the first sale doctrine, they can only lend out as many copies as they own.
- ghaff 6y ago
  >Under the first sale doctrine, they can only lend out as many copies as they own. TBH, even that is not established as a point of law (if the lending is digital copies of physical books) but it seems a reasonable position and publishers/authors weren't pushing on it.
- obiye 6y ago
  Many people, myself among them, believe copyright is an unjust legal construct. In the vein of Gandhi, it is our moral imperative to violate unjust laws. So I stand with IA in their supposed violation of copyright.
- Aeolun 6y ago
  I don’t think they actually make more copies? They just allow multiple people to look at the same copy at the same time?
  - grayfaced 6y ago
    Copyright law is not caught up to how computers operate. There are still arguments that executing a program is creating a copy (into memory) in violation of copyright law. That it is only allowed since the EULA permits it. There is no way to display a picture on two different computer on internet without making many copies in process. Arguments can commence on whether they're transitory or tangible copies according to law.
  - geofft 6y ago
    The word "copy" gets kind of strange in a digital world, but I think the closest analogue to this in the pre-digital world would be public performance, which is one of the limited rights under copyright. I only need to buy one copy of sheet music (and maybe not even that, if I'm a quick learner) for a thousand people to enjoy my performance of it, but merely having the copy does not entitle me to perform it for those thousand people. The first-sale doctrine does allow me to resell the sheet music itself, for someone else to rehearse from or study, but that's it.
cirno 6y ago
This won't be a popular statement, but archivers don't have a legal right to reproduce websites, either. I imagine archive.today is on even shakier ground via bypassing newspaper paywalls. archive.org operates under an opt-out policy which is not how copyright works, and archive.today operates under a "f### you" policy. It's just that website operators haven't chosen to take legal action against this practice. I understand the innate desire of people to have a "better to ask forgiveness than permission" view of saving old web content (because we all enjoy finding out the thing we thought we lost forever by not backing up ourselves was in fact recoverable), but either copyright law exists or it doesn't. If you want a secure future, make archivers opt-in via a meta tag on pages to indicate the content is under a permissible share-alike license.
- ghaff 6y ago
  The problem is that it basically doesn't work on an opt-in basis. So archive.org has worked by making it easier to opt-out than actually taking legal action.
  - cirno 6y ago
    Unfortunately, a lot of things are more troublesome when you follow the law.
- judge2020 6y ago
  > archive.today operates under a "f### you" policy. They are initiating a save on behalf of the user(a "user agent"), and thus are not a robot, so they don't need to respect robots.txt.
  - cirno 6y ago
    > so they don't need to respect robots.txt You mean they don't need to respect copyright law? So it would seem. If a user wants a legal copy, they can choose File -> Save Page As. The copying isn't the problem, the reproduction without ads or paywalls or respect to the owner's copyright is.

jawns 6y ago

> the IA was shut down because its leadership decided to be philanthropic during a period of human history that lacked freedom of information Philanthropic by massively infringing on copyright. Giving away something you own and have a right to give away is one thing. But critics of the emergency library allege that because the IA doesn't own the copyright to these books, they don't get to make and lend unlimited copies. Under the first sale doctrine, they can only lend out as many copies as they own.

ghaff 6y ago
>Under the first sale doctrine, they can only lend out as many copies as they own. TBH, even that is not established as a point of law (if the lending is digital copies of physical books) but it seems a reasonable position and publishers/authors weren't pushing on it.
obiye 6y ago
Many people, myself among them, believe copyright is an unjust legal construct. In the vein of Gandhi, it is our moral imperative to violate unjust laws. So I stand with IA in their supposed violation of copyright.
Aeolun 6y ago
I don’t think they actually make more copies? They just allow multiple people to look at the same copy at the same time?
- grayfaced 6y ago
  Copyright law is not caught up to how computers operate. There are still arguments that executing a program is creating a copy (into memory) in violation of copyright law. That it is only allowed since the EULA permits it. There is no way to display a picture on two different computer on internet without making many copies in process. Arguments can commence on whether they're transitory or tangible copies according to law.
- geofft 6y ago
  The word "copy" gets kind of strange in a digital world, but I think the closest analogue to this in the pre-digital world would be public performance, which is one of the limited rights under copyright. I only need to buy one copy of sheet music (and maybe not even that, if I'm a quick learner) for a thousand people to enjoy my performance of it, but merely having the copy does not entitle me to perform it for those thousand people. The first-sale doctrine does allow me to resell the sheet music itself, for someone else to rehearse from or study, but that's it.

cirno 6y ago

This won't be a popular statement, but archivers don't have a legal right to reproduce websites, either. I imagine archive.today is on even shakier ground via bypassing newspaper paywalls. archive.org operates under an opt-out policy which is not how copyright works, and archive.today operates under a "f### you" policy. It's just that website operators haven't chosen to take legal action against this practice. I understand the innate desire of people to have a "better to ask forgiveness than permission" view of saving old web content (because we all enjoy finding out the thing we thought we lost forever by not backing up ourselves was in fact recoverable), but either copyright law exists or it doesn't. If you want a secure future, make archivers opt-in via a meta tag on pages to indicate the content is under a permissible share-alike license.

ghaff 6y ago
The problem is that it basically doesn't work on an opt-in basis. So archive.org has worked by making it easier to opt-out than actually taking legal action.
- cirno 6y ago
  Unfortunately, a lot of things are more troublesome when you follow the law.
judge2020 6y ago
> archive.today operates under a "f### you" policy. They are initiating a save on behalf of the user(a "user agent"), and thus are not a robot, so they don't need to respect robots.txt.
- cirno 6y ago
  > so they don't need to respect robots.txt You mean they don't need to respect copyright law? So it would seem. If a user wants a legal copy, they can choose File -> Save Page As. The copying isn't the problem, the reproduction without ads or paywalls or respect to the owner's copyright is.